Podcast appearances and mentions of aviv shahar

As we find our way each day through the often intense and personal struggles facing us and humanity, imagine that we can build our strength and resilience by exercising the right muscles; not just physical, but our emotional, mental and spiritual “muscles.”In the newest chapter of the Homo Universalis series, Aviv Shahar, with Karen Heney and Kyriaki Nikandrou, explores how the “muscles” metaphor is not such a stretch as we face and learn to embrace the two big struggles in any developing life: the known and the unknown.The known struggles are those we see and feel all around us, from personal, to family or community, to the global cultural, economic and ecological upheavals that affect the planet and each of us individually. Our struggle with the unknown includes trying to imagine and create a new future when so much of the present is uncertain and changing. Can we picture in our mind the person we want to become?As Aviv, Karen and Kyriaki discuss, the activation of our Universalis nature, or universal human, brings online new capacities, perceptions and creativity to help us flex the right muscles that can balance and harmonize the many struggles we may face. Among their insights:• The Universalis inquiry can help humanity at large to pivot from a barbarous operating system of “kill before you get killed” to a way of collaborating based in valiance, chivalry and virtue.• As we enter new domains of possibility, what used to activate and energize us don't carry the same impact; we feel different sources of energy, new capacities and parts of ourselves.• If the human has a universal nature, and universal expansion is accelerating, are we also accelerating into the future, into the unknown, and who we are becoming today?• To be available in new patterns and new ways, we need to relax the groove, the old patterns held at tension habitually. We make space for new processes, new energy sources, and new configurations.This conversation is part of the continuing Portals discovery into what is emerging on the frontiers of human experience in this time of profound change. Information about upcoming special events can be found on the Events page. Also visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel. TWEETABLE QUOTES “As we gradually see the corruption and dysfunctionality of various systems, the parallel is within our inner lives: any psychologies and patternings that don't have the sustaining energies of the now and the currencies that are ongoing into the future, equally are being weakened. And sometimes they will melt, sometimes they will fight, but there is this inner knowing that what may have worked before, well, maybe it's not going to be the enabling system for tomorrow.” (Karen)“When we enter new domains of possibility there is a point whereby we look back and we say, hmm, I realize that what used to activate me very much, and energize me, no longer carries the same impact. I am now energized by different sources of energy, and I am activated in whole new different parts of myself. Sometimes you will even describe new sensitivity, new capacity, new expression, new art.” (Aviv) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteThe Two Struggles - The Universalis Project #11

How can a forward-looking, evolution-inclined spirituality, not tied to dogma or history, offer us a sense of meaning and purpose in a time of cultural upheaval powered by AI? Can a metamodern spiritual path also include a new perspective and appreciation of Christianity and the many faces, or dimensions, of Jesus Christ?In the newest conversation in the Portals series exploring metamodern spirituality, Aviv Shahar welcomes back metamodern leader Brendan Graham Dempsey. Brendan is a unique voice who combines a deep personal experience with Christianity and a pioneering study and exploration of metamodern thinking and philosophy.Together, he and Aviv trace the amazing evolution of the human notion and idea of God, from ancient cultures through the Enlightenment and into today. There are new insights into the appearance of Jesus and the rising importance of the individual, which explodes in the modern era with its elevation of self-actualization. (You can also see the discussion about Jesus excerpted below.)The conversation does not just look back, but also forward; in a learning, growing universe, what's next? What's on the horizon with our concept of God? Is there a metamodern integration of perceptions that can activate a more powerful inner conductivity and capacity for universal connection?Other ponders and insights include:The cutting edge of spiritual and Christian thought might be to include mystery school ideas without abandoning modern and postmodern reality, while pushing beyond scientific dogma.We are co-participating with the divine to unfold in new directions; to build on what we've already done and continue the dreams we've set up; to live the arc of this emergence; to move forward, not back.How do we know? Which faculty of knowing are we talking about when we talk about knowing? New sense organs? Can we integrate conceptual and head ways of knowing with other sources of knowledge?The Christ archetype is how we find the Christ in us; to show up in a Christ-like fashion; a profound universal engagement. These are the depths a metamodern Christianity should explore.We can't put the genie back in the bottle, or try to reengage an older operating system. The challenge is harvesting the best of the ancient system, and hospicing what needs to be left behind.We're talking about a metamodern move to address what can be described as a Tower of Babel of perspectives: confusion and chaos that give rise to polarization politics, and everything breaking down.This conversation is part of the continuing Portals discovery into what is emerging on the frontiers of human experience in this time of profound change. Information about upcoming special events can be found on the Events page. Also visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel. TWEETABLE QUOTES “This gave a new way of looking at all this, in terms of development, that as we go through learning our conceptions of God change. And that really kind of hit home, because as I studied very deeply a lot of the developmental literature, the psychological literature, people who had looked at what they call like stages of faith or religious judgment, and there was a clear way in which the learning process that we go through as people impacts the conceptions that we have of the divine, and the meaning of life, and value, and all these things.” (Brendan)“My entryway into this was through a breakdown of meaning, to go all the way back to my own existential crisis, was the occasion by which I felt the need to find a new way of being in the world. Talking about these things might sound like concepts following concepts, but this is ultimately a lived experience. This is the story of humanity, but it's the story of humans. And so human beings are moving through the world, and we're experiencing the social and collective consequences of all living together with each other through time, figuring out things together, and changing the world around us as a consequence.” (Aviv) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteGod: An Evolving Revelation with Brendan Graham Dempsey

Imagine being able to connect with a level of potency, passion and energy that could help reveal even deeper intelligence and meaning to our most compelling “burning questions” — the inquiries and mysteries that drive and inspire us to search for answers.In several ways the potency of an inquiry is generated in how we think about and ask the question. For example, asking “why” attunes our mind to the energetic dimension or core of a question; it can link us to the powerful fuel of our emotions: e-motion, or energy in motion and flow.Does the question form up when we reach the leading edge of our experience — just beyond the limits of our knowledge or comfort zone? The leading edge is the place where we prod and sense our way into the unknown and can find the revelation of the “new” answer trying to find us.Why does any of this matter? As we have discovered in Portals, a potent inquiry or contemplation can activate and energize the far-reaching faculties that enable connection with our universal nature and possibility.We delve deeper into the meaning and mystery of profound “burning questions” and the art of the inquiry in this special conversation with Aviv Shahar and Portals collaborator David Price Francis. Aviv and David invited several Portals friends to bring their own burning questions and together look for new insights, including:There's a different way of living a life — not protecting who or what we have discovered, the titles and identity. But unlocking the mystery of who we are becoming, and its powerful energy and inspiration.As we move on, we leave behind what brought us to this point, with respect, honor and gratitude, but we don't copy them. The universe moves on, too. It's the twin dynamics of mastery of the past and the mystery of the future.Maybe we should imagine not just our carbon footprint, but our cosmic footprint — the ripple from our life into our communities, the planet and universe, and embrace responsibility for that.Evolution is not over; it isn't based on a signal from the past. We can see evidence in established world religions: there isn't a reduce, reuse, recycle system.The progress of artificial intelligence and technology is the external evolution of form; the key to humanity's future is the ongoing evolution of the organic forms of the planet and the human.This conversation is part of the continuing Portals discovery into what is emerging on the frontiers of human experience in this time of profound change. Information about upcoming special events can be found on the Events page. Also visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel. TWEETABLE QUOTES “Building on this, where you talk about 'what do you want?', which to me is one of the entry points into the inquiry of purpose, I would say that leading oneself in a chaotic world one wants to be grounded and anchored in some guiding principle and guiding purpose that is central and centering for a person's life. You first need to actually ask, well, how do you find that sense of purpose, that sense of mission?” (Aviv)“There is a core impulse in human life, or in life at large. It's the impulse of life expressing itself in human life, which is the impulse of freedom and liberation. Life wants to express itself and come to its fuller possibility and expression, and be free. And you see that that is arising in each and every one of us, we want to discover what is our natural talent? What can we do? How do we live into the fullest freedom of our potential?” (Aviv) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteCurrent Openings #17 – Burning Questions

Even if we're familiar with the themes of evolutionary change and upgrade that run through Portals, what's happening in the world today seems startling: the operating system that enables modern life as we know it appears to be crashing.The key questions now: Is this an irreversible slide into self-elimination? Does evolution ever offer a chance for reboot and renewal? If so, how would we spot new universal intelligence nudging its way into humanity?Our understanding of the “operating system” comes out of the Portalsexploration of the progression of human and planetary history as part of the current epoch, or larger universal cycle of change and upgrade. What we call the “Blue” phase of the epoch (which corresponds to the seven colors of the spectrum) brought to humanity the energy and intelligence for collaboration and working together.It was the power of cooperation that allowed the building of cities, political and economic systems, and the civility that enables the orderly and peaceful flow of everyday life in all its many nuances. The multiple crises of ecology and culture that are transforming the planet today suggest the modern Blue system is no longer sufficient in the face of an Indigo and Violet intensification. We see the evidence in the eruption of wars, environmental destruction and political chaos.  How did we get here? What happens next? As we discover in the latest Homo Universalis conversation, even with a failing operating system, the evolutionary process offers the opportunity for renewal and regeneration. Aviv Shahar, Karen Heney and Kyriaki Nikandrou share their ideas and insights.This conversation is part of the continuing Portalsdiscovery into what is emerging on the frontiers of human experience in this time of profound change. Information about upcoming special events can be found on the Events page. Also visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel. TWEETABLE QUOTES “Could this be one of the ways we are already being naturalized and acclimatized to the actuality of universal life? Where you can be together with others and there is a chain reaction, running revelatory process; some will then put it to music, some will put it to art, some will put it to writing, some will put it to the causes they serve. Okay, is this a way to think about universal life: you are engaged in an ongoing revelation, a running revelation, rather than one singular revelation for a life?” (Aviv)“That is the inquiry we are now facing, what is the operating system that needs to emerge? I don't know that we have the solution or the answer here. But you're beginning to articulate some of the principles that are likely to be critical in the new operating system. The principle you just described is, it has to have the capacity to integrate and bridge all interests.” (Aviv) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteThe Universalis Project #10 - Why the World is Breaking Down

A laboratory is where we'd expect to find a safe space of discovery and purpose; an environment that supports experimenting with diverse ideas and mysteries in the search for truth. Add in an atmosphere of mutual trust and acceptance, and now we've created an ecology that invites something even deeper — a God lab.Imagine a God lab as an intensified spiritual retreat, a gathering of like-minded and like-souled individuals seeking new understanding and experience with the divine. In this conversation, we are invited to appreciate a metamodern God lab as a community, created through the shared exploration of the sacred by people who each represent a unique expression of universal possibility.In a metamodern God lab, every person is recognized and accepted as they experiment with creating and evolving their own vision, practices and art; an ecology where people find the inner balance that allows them to embody more fully at the spiritual leading edge of themselves.We get to explore in this conversation the nature and possibilities of emergent metamodern spirituality with two metamodern leaders, Layman Pascal and Brendan Graham Dempsey. (This is the latest in a series of conversations sensing deeper into metamodern spirituality.) Layman and Brendan discuss with Aviv Shahar the recently completed Metamodern God Lab at the Sky Meadow retreat in Vermont.This conversation is part of the continuing Portals discovery into what is emerging on the frontiers of human experience in this time of profound change. Information about upcoming special events can be found on the Events page. Also visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel. TWEETABLE QUOTES “I think what I'm seeing, what I'm taking away from this weekend, is the sheer importance of setting up these kinds of hive-like fields for the bees to go to and from. And if you get a few new ones each time it starts to spread. And ideally, we would have dozens or hundreds of things like this around the world to be a generator of the leading edge of the culture. As much as we need all these different subsets, what we fundamentally need is the right kind of a scene that's just a constant generator of all the different tentacles of the leading edge.” (Layman)“I think there's something deeply important about having a place where we come together and gather, and connect, and feel this vibe and these energies with each other, and sort of remember our connections with each other and to what we're doing, and the sorts of aims and goals that we have, and the shared vision and the friendship, the relational connections. And being able to continue to deepen; increasing deepening into the relational field of it all is something that I find deeply renewing, and it's kind of like returning to that well of relationship with this incredible community.” (Brendan) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteNormalizing the Extraordinary: In the Metamodern God Lab with Layman Pascal and Brendan Graham Dempsey

How many of us remember having what some people call a “chrysalis” moment? An octave leap, with mind-opening perceptions, in real time. A powerful flow of energy, a quickening, triggered by a connection or breakthrough that can happen anywhere, at any time, and transform us and the circumstance we're in.The chrysalis we probably know as the middle stage of the three-step transformation of the caterpillar into a butterfly. It's a beautiful example of growth and change that happens in stages, or gradations, and is often generally described as a change in octaves, or levels. An octave change can be a long journey of refinement, or it can feel like a quantum leap, in an instant.Why an octave in the first place? What is the benefit of an ordered transition or progression from one state to another? For example, from the physical and dense to the energetic and spiritual? The universe likes octaves; it's the engineering that facilitates change and innovation; a natural technology that enables the safe entry and movement through successively higher energetic states.How does it work? Can we really “leap” from a lower octave to a higher one? We turn for insights to Aviv Shahar and collaborator David Price Francis. Their conversation is the latest in the “Current Openings” series. This conversation is part of the continuing Portals discovery into what is emerging on the frontiers of human experience in this time of profound change. Information about upcoming special events can be found on the Events page. Also visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel. TWEETABLE QUOTES “There can't be an octave leap without new energy coming in from somewhere. So even when we see water boiling, there has to be the application of heat from somewhere to cause the molecules to get excited, and then it changes state. So when I think of now a quantum leap, or a change of octave, there's going to be a new energy incoming, a quickening as you say, a new energy incoming from somewhere to cause that to happen.” (David) “Teaching number one in there, which is we have to do whatever it is we're doing in the fullest possible way because, in actuality, the release of the portal from one octave to the next, that threshold, is reached for by the full realization of the octave we are in. And teaching number two you offered, there has to be resistance built in. If you actually try to bypass or skip the steps without growing by resistance, you may visit a higher octave, but you will not have the infrastructure to hold it in a sustainable way.” (Aviv) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteCurrent Openings #16: The Octave Leap Mystery

If we're already diving deep into the core mysteries of the human experience — such as how to partner with a new wave of evolution and engage with the universe — how do we push even further on the edge of discovery? Can we go even deeper into the mysteries? What's the real benefit?A curious feature of engaging with the natural human impulse to grow and refine is that as we develop, we begin to activate amazing innate capacities for connecting to intelligence and influence that are universal in origin and source. This, in turn, enables even deeper diving and connection to the mysteries of life and our evolving future. We explore the activation of the universal human in the Portalsseries the Homo Universalis Project.By deepening in our intention and pursuit of meaning in a chaotic time, we build stability and a stronger foundation, expand inner space, and birth new sensitivities and capacities. In doing so, we become an antidote for a superficial world consumed by multiple global crises. We discover more about the nature of the inner space in The Ghost and the Inner Conclave and The Guru Trap and the Golden Shadow conversations with Jeff Vander Clute.We also deepen to become available for an even bigger mission, bigger task, in our service to the new pulse of evolutionary possibility washing over humanity and the planet. Not a bad reason to dive in and deepen in the cosmic mysteries unfolding all around us. But how do we deepen?  We explore more deeply the why's and how's of deepening in the newest chapter of the Homo Universalis conversations (recorded in September 2023) with Aviv Shahar, Karen Heney, and Kyriaki Nikandrou.Among their perceptions:We deepen through the art of abiding, of staying and being with; deciding to not be captured by the impatience and velocity of this postmodern time; to be immersed with what we are exploring.Homo Universalis is the liberation of latent capacities and sensitivities in the human, a process of release rather than acquiring something from the outside; the universe is liberated in us.We're not merely trading words and concepts. There is a potent, energetic dimension we describe as a form of psycho-spiritual activation, almost like psycho-spiritual open heart surgery.To be self-authoring opens up a whole world of stories, narration and characters; humans have a wonderful ability to bring things together, join things, separate things; to create poems and art with a quality of refinement.A self-arising life is an intentional conscious application to further something you've chosen; to bring the self into it with creative generation — bringing something to life that might never have exist.This conversation is part of the continuing Portals discovery into what is emerging on the frontiers of human experience in this time of profound change. Information about upcoming special events can be found on the Events page. Also visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel. TWEETABLE QUOTES “That's a good reason to do deepening work, because unless you offer more of the depth of who you are and what you can bring to the table, unless you do that, unless you offer that facility, you will only be able to realize your purpose and what you love to the degree of the depth that you make available.” (Aviv) “A deepening process is moving away from the linear shortcut that we are so much wired to in this post-modern age. Somebody asks a question and you try to answer it in the shortest possible way. Well, that's a skill one needs to have as well, for example, in the business world, but our endeavor is more to access the latent capacities such that we indeed give rise to the multiplicity that we can be.” (Aviv) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteThe Universalis Project #9 - Deepening in Evolutionary Mysteries

It may be time to finally change channels, or — if we really want better reception and perception — to trade in that old analogue transmitter and receiver for the best, state-of-the-art technology in the universe.We are referring, by analogy, to the most advanced radio set ever created: the human mind and network of finer, higher faculties — capable of tuning into any frequency, from humanmade, to planetary, to the deepest reaches of the cosmos. Its potential is vast and vital to our ongoing evolution and future.Much of our precious daily life is likely spent inside a narrow band of energy, often worrying about relationships, career or cultural and ecological crises. With awareness and training, it's possible to tune sensitive inner technology to transmit and receive on universal frequencies natural to the human design. It's activating a higher human operating system.It's also a development journey enhanced and quickened by our companions and communities. Mutual respect and trust can help heal pain and trauma, as we become the signal that enables the emergence of new possibility in one another, evolving together.We explore the realms of mutual transformation and the amazing human radio set in the latest of our Portalsseries Evolving Together, with Aviv Shahar and longtime Portalsfriends Nigel Geeves and Well. TWEETABLE QUOTES “One of the things I do in my development work with myself is I talk to myself. Why would you talk to yourself? We live in a time where people often seek to find a new feeling and a new experience as the first move they make. In my journey, I've discovered that actually you want to introduce a new frame of mind, a new way of thinking, and that then enables you to heal, transmogrify, metabolize, sublimate, and actually access new feelings and new experience.” (Aviv) “I think what you're talking about here is beginning to open up the profound realization that yes, we are universal beings. And, therefore, it's possible for us to develop a higher operating system, which literally operates at universal level as we live upon the planet. And via that higher operating system we can do something about the conditioning that's happened to the soul.” (Well) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteEvolving Together #4 - The Human Radio Set

How can we access greater intelligence, wisdom, and power to face the often-scary challenges of these times?In the Inner Conclave Consciousness, Aviv Shahar and Jeff Vander Clute develop further the three process octaves they began to explore in part one of this conversation.Why is this exploration so relevant now?.Portals is chronicling what we describe as the unfolding crash of the operating system underlying much of the modern era. It doesn't make our journey any easier; whenever we step into a new space of development and learning we cross the frontiers of resistance — all levels: physical, mental, emotional.The Inner Conclave is a process to disarm resistance. It offers ways to help liberate the perception and awareness that add meaning and understanding in times of change. We can each work into this modality on our own and also in small pods, where we help each other activate the multiplicity of voices inside.In this conversation Aviv and Jeff explore the vast, inexhaustible and versatile resource of the Inner Conclave and its second and third octaves of process, and dive deeper into the exploration of the Epoch Journey.Among their insights:As disruptions from the crashing modern-era operating system continue, we will need a new galaxy of institutions, businesses and ways of going on in a large, global connected world.We're literally attuning ourselves to processes and realms that are universal, that existed before us and will exist after us. They express themselves through us and begin to impart new knowledge.It's a conductive ecology where thought, vision, intuition, and listening to the voices within, the Inner Conclave, will birth in energetic form what life itself wants to express inside us.Our exploration of the Inner Conclave and connection with the causing realms recognizes that we are not the first; this has been a passionate quest of people from the beginning of time.Making conscious the development, transformation, healing and self-actualization is working inwardly; we can bring a similar roadmap to community where we champion the highest good.The Inner Conclave is seeking our inquiry through different voices: patience, care and strength; psychologist, midwife or her-storian. A technology that gives birth to the multiplicity of who we are on the inside.This conversation is part of the continuing Portals discovery into what is emerging on the frontiers of human experience in this time of profound change. Information about upcoming special events can be found on the Events page. Also visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel. TWEETABLE QUOTES “There's a question around to what extent do the diseases that manifest in the body, mind, world come about because we weren't listening? So if we can identify the true focusing need, and stay focused, and listen to the signals of the body, the signals of the world, well, that's a capacity - and probably a pretty useful one.” (Jeff)“The invitation was, well, if you really want to explore these spaces go on a pilgrimage to your inner cave, because the universe is in you. The blessing and the causing realms are in you to the degree that you enable yourself and allow yourself to access these realms. Will you skate to your own deeply-held beliefs and gently put them down? So you don't look at the world, and you don't even look at yourself, through your deeply-held beliefs, but you look at the beliefs and discover what they allow and support and where have they held you back, perhaps?” (Aviv) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteInner Conclave Consciousness

A glance at the headlines today often brings a deep sense of sadness about the escalating violence in many parts of the world, along with an urgent inner inquiry: what can one person do to promote peace, both within themselves and the global community?Several Portals conversations and, most recently, the first chapters of Portals Into the Soul, offered the insight that every human is born with natural qualities and higher connections that form a powerful inner source of intelligence and capabilities. This Inner Conclave of our many inner lives is a ready resource to assist in any dimension of our planetary experience. Even, and maybe especially, in the quest for peace.The Inner Conclave is not just an exercise in visualization. It is the energetic content and consciousness that can illuminate and transform our lives. The Conclave's three levels, or octaves, of process include releasing and healing, learning and developing, and higher communion.Engaging with the Inner Conclave can update and rewire our internal operating system and expand its capacity to welcome new qualities and natures, including deep well-being and peace. Imagine that we are integrated with every other human through our higher universal nature. Imagine then that creating our own inner peace can heal and transform the energetic networks and communities that connect us all.Let's take a deeper look at the amazing capabilities of the Inner Conclave in this newest conversation between Aviv Shahar and Jeff Vander Clute. Jeff is a consultant and author of three recent books, including Beyond Every Teaching, a collection of transformative spiritual transmissions.Among their insights:There is an intelligence guiding the Inner Conclave — in each of us, and in humanity, which is in some sense an Inner Conclave for the super organism that is Homo Universalis, the universal human.Any point where we think we finally figured out who we are, and become fixated, we've just arrested the next discovery about who we are becoming, which also has space and opportunity in the Inner Conclave.We all have experienced embarrassment. Those spaces could contain the content that can unlock our creativity. Could years-old embarrassment be a misunderstanding we never had the circumstance to dissolve?The gift we offer each other is that we are the space makers and the midwives of each other's growth and possibility. Being with others will amplify and augment for us our own space.This conversation is part of the continuing Portals discovery into what is emerging on the frontiers of human experience in this time of profound change. Information about upcoming special events can be found on the Events page. Also visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel. TWEETABLE QUOTES “The first point was, hey, can we relax in the way we approach this? Can we relax into the discovery of the Inner Conclave? You don't need to change yourself, you don't need to think you ought to be somebody else. Actually, it's an invitation to integrate a part of you that you often leave out. So it is not about trying to get it right. It is really about discovering who you, who we, are becoming.” (Aviv)“And as we seek to inhabit and liberate and unlock the domain of healing, the domain of art, the domain of leadership, the different teacher-guides that we may choose to cultivate, can we do so in an embodied way? Can I feel how they live in different parts of my system? Physically, energetically, and in my space?” (Aviv) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteActivating the Inner Conclave

Our long and revealing journey of discovery with homo universalis, the universal human, has taken us to what feels like a new beginning, but now as partners; a partnership that will transform both of us in the ongoing adventure of an unfolding new epoch and new future.This partnership with the cosmos actually begins inside of us, with ourselves. We are becoming more intentional partners with the many inner lives of connections, capacities and expansive intelligence natural to every human. We know from previous Universalis conversations that new sense organs and deeper awareness of our universal nature also are firing and coming online.Imagining a connected exchange with the universe as a partnership makes it easier to also think about our inner partners as an integrated, enhanced platform of new possibility. Which brings us to the conundrum we always face in wanting to integrate, consolidate and make our own these emerging new capacities.How do we internally welcome newly arising intelligence and awareness in a way that promotes their ongoing liberation instead of fixing or arresting our emerging universal nature? It's really up to us. Are we ready to embrace the responsibility (and opportunity) to be self-authoring, self-electing, and self-configuring as we integrate with our universal partners?Many amazing ponders and mysteries to explore. Which we do in this latest Homo Universalis conversation with Aviv Shahar and Portals friends Karen Heney and Kyriaki Nikandrou. Among their ideas and insights:The universalis human is a way we are imagining and contemplating human life to be the place, the theater, through which the universe liberates itself to its greater potential.The telescope, microscope, and the computing power of the modern world enhance our lives. What about re-integrating a human interior technology? Universalis activation needs the inner wirings and latent formations.It's not theoretical: how do we integrate new intelligence to close the distance from perception to embodied living and expression manifestation; to become the vessel of the core essence of the new knowledge?The universalis human answers an imperative of the universe for a process of renewal and regeneration. If you take it away, the universe as a living being will quickly come to an end.We're liberating a new kind of multi-faceted partnering with the universe — a breakthrough collaboration enabled by shared trust, shared imperative, and shared purpose.Some people think the process of reasoning is going back into the head, the intellectual. But originating reasoning seeks to connect with why something is arising in the first place.This conversation is part of the continuing Portals discovery into what is emerging on the frontiers of human experience in this time of profound change. Information about upcoming special events can be found on the Events page. Also visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel. TWEETABLE QUOTES “All of us humans are now invited into an evolving ecology of a new epoch, in which we get to reconfigure ourselves. And the self-electing, self-configuring, self-authoring responsibility is actually to step up to that dialogue, that conversation, because no one else can do it for ourselves. We are all children seeking to grow and mature into that kind of relationship with the universe to become adults in that sense of self-responsibility.” (Aviv)“The Universalis human project is to do with coming into some kind of partnering with yourself and with the universe you are emerging in. It's a new way of being, it's a new way of partnering on the inside with the universe at large, inside of which we are looking to liberate a whole new set of latent technologies within the human system, and codify those, and translate them, and build the topographical landscape such that we can liberate even more so all that becomes available for us - and that the next 1000 years is about unlocking that greater potential.” (Aviv)  RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteUniversalis #8 - Partnering with the Universe

The journey of a spiritual teacher can help illuminate the joy, pain, revelations and profound awakenings that often accompany someone on the path to discover the larger meaning of life and the universe.This conversation brings us an intimate look into one such life of spiritual learning and leading, as Aviv Shahar is joined by author, educator, innovator and business owner Sarah McCrum. It also inaugurates a new Portals series that will explore the unique developmental journey of spiritual teachers and leaders from a variety of disciplines. Sarah's path of searching and teaching stretches from the high — experiencing the “source code” or creational origins of the well of being, or wellbeing — to the awareness of the energy of money as being an integral part of our wellbeing and spiritual purpose.Sarah reflects on the many lessons and insights from her years of studying directly with spiritual teachers from several disciplines and communities — the deep healing, revelations, and challenges inherent in the student-teacher relationship. Her experience reflects aspects of the Portals exploration into the Teacher's Journey. The story continues as Sarah describes the feeling of freedom, of being both an individual, and connected to the divine nature that emanates from the core of the universe. Other insights from their conversation include:The deepest terror had been to question things held to be true in the spiritual community. The curiosity and willingness to question and find answers for yourself is the journey of becoming a teacher.What's important in the archetype of this story is the contracting from total surrender and openness to the teacher. It's almost necessary in individuation — finding your own voice, your own path.A teacher can become dependent on being validated or needing the magnification of people around the work; it becomes the instrument of transmission. Without it, the teacher can't access their own connection.There is an enormous craving in people to bypass and get to the instant solution, the instant illumination. Yet there is something about the human divinity that is very high and should not be compromised.To teach safely means to develop the systems and inner formation that can handle the antithetical nature that accompanies this work. Otherwise, you're not useful to yourself or others in a sustainable way.This conversation is part of the continuing Portals discovery into what is emerging on the frontiers of human experience in this time of profound change. Information about upcoming special events can be found on the Events page. Also visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel. TWEETABLE QUOTES “And what actually happened was that I heard or felt or sensed the words the well of being, and that well of being appeared to me to be in creation. Those were the words that came to me, and that was something I was very interested in exploring already - what is creation? And the well of being then becomes an experience which is a very deep, very fundamental inner experience of well being, which actually started, for me, a way of changing perhaps my own origin story about life.” (Sarah)“And I then experienced what I now know to be the light. And it was an experience, first of all, of total protection, absolute protection, absolute stillness that was not contrasted with any movement, but sits inside all movement. So it was an experience of the absolute within all non-absolute. And I saw that it was in everything. It doesn't matter how dark a situation is, the light is in there. And that became very important.” (Sarah) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteThe Teacher's Journey with Sarah McCrum

It was a Portals cliffhanger: We were in midflight, in midair, final destination unseen, at the end of the last Current Openings as we journeyed into the deeper space of development and what it means for us and the universe. The conversation then paused, to pick up later.No need to worry. Our flight now resumes, as we aim even deeper into the core dimensions of what it means to be a true caregiver for ourselves, the planet, the cosmos, and future generations yet to come. The dimensions of care and love that determine our future with the choices and decisions we make every day.A good place to start might be to notice the word “care” can be found in caregiver and character. What sort of character builds the inner platform that offers a good home to the new evolutionary energy now finding its way into humanity and the planet? How do our values, principles and morals enable us to connect with the source of what powers us on the inside, in whatever we are aiming to do?As our “Current Openings: What the World Doesn't Quite Get Yet” flight continues, Aviv Shahar and David Price Francis explore further into the five core dimensions of what it means to develop. Among their perceptions:Peak experiences are wonderful both individually and communally. But the trueness of one's development and character are more clearly defined by the point below which we never go.When we develop character, we again move a little more into the interior. We don't disappear on the inside; the best way to develop character is in service of the larger ecology we are joined to.Hiding in an esoteric development might render yourself ineffective — you are essentially escaping engagement with your fellow humans. We live in the exoteric world and are able to create moments and spaces of esoteric depth.Where are today's equivalent of the knights and ladies of King Arthur's court? They are showing up all over the planet, endeavoring to make the higher choices of living in the face of confusion and chaos.Self-determination is key to becoming the person you want to be and to take a hand in your own development, to stand out with the virtues and values you decided.To live a virtuous life that is congruent with chosen values is to work softly, not just hard, to not go below the standards we set for ourselves, to embrace the idea of character development.This conversation is part of the continuing Portals discovery into what is emerging on the frontiers of human experience in this time of profound change. Information about upcoming special events can be found on the Events page. Also visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel. TWEETABLE QUOTES “I'm proposing, developing skills was developing what you can do. Developing inside a role in a domain was about developing what you serve. When you develop your character, you are again moving a little bit more inside, in the interior, and it's not that you disappear in the interior because often the best way to develop character is actually to be in service of the larger ecology you are serving. And so I'm proposing that character in this is developing what you are, or developing what you're becoming, or both.” (Aviv)“So often people think about the development journey, and they will go to describe their peak experience. Oh, I've experienced a non-dual illumination. I've experienced an ecstatic state. Okay, that's wonderful. The peak experiences are wonderful, both at an individual level and at a communal level. The trueness of one's development, and one's character, is more clearly defined by the point below which we never go.” (Aviv) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteCurrent Openings #14: What Does it Mean to Develop?

It remains one of the most powerful and personal callings for someone on a quest for transformation and inspiration: the pilgrimage — a journey to what are believed to be sources of connection to the sacred or divine, the holy places.Many of the best-known religious pilgrimages involve a million or more believers or devotees, such as the Hajj, or sacred Hindu celebrations in India. A pilgrimage can be required by religious law, or begin with a singular calling, an inner urge, felt by the pilgrim for closer communion with the divine, however the spiritual or universal source is named or described.Why do people all over the planet from nearly every tradition take up these sometimes arduous adventures of spiritual devotion? What do they hope for?In this conversation we hear from two longtime Portals friends who recently completed what some people might call the pilgrimage of a lifetime, to the source high in the Himalayas of the sacred Ganges River, in Hindu belief the home of the Goddess Ganga. Jeff Vander Clute, consultant and author, and Grace Boda, teacher, consultant and executive coach, share with Aviv Shahar the feelings and power of their pilgrimage to this divine source.Among their insights:Pilgrimage is an opportunity to be individually transformed, and to plug into a universal power and give back into the collective — a seemingly nonlinear impact on the field, this planet and the people who inhabit her.It was a total life reboot; a reorientation from rigorously mining truth in every circumstance, to expressing love grounded in truth.It's reaching an edge physically, out of one's comfort zone, and needing to access other energy, other capacity, with the mental experience of dropping the structures and formations that block higher communion.When we Source, we open to the inspiration, and it brings a kind of knowing of right action — what the moment calls for. We can respond accordingly, and roles emerge; if a Sherpa is needed, we're suddenly a Sherpa.If there is shadow anywhere, there is shadow in me; if there is woundedness, there's woundedness in me. We co-participate in the field of healing. None of us is above the work required.If there is a Second Coming, it is all of us. This time, the upwelling impulse of enlightenment is collective — a collective presence and awakeness — which fills us from a source beyond any personal identity.This conversation is part of the continuing Portals discovery into what is emerging on the frontiers of human experience in this time of profound change. Information about upcoming special events can be found on the Events page. Also visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel. TWEETABLE QUOTES “And I realized that I was having a total life reboot. And, with the benefit of a little bit of hindsight, I can say that the nature of the reboot was a reorientation from mining truth, like rigorously mining truth, in every circumstance: what is true, what is true, what is true, what is true? What is real, and what is not? That had been my inquiry for many years. Subsequent to going all the way to the source, and having this embodied experience, the inquiry changed to expressing love.” (Jeff) “Perhaps because this group was ultra coherent, we were somehow able to become a conscious microcosm of the whole, of let's say the species, and even the whole Gaian system, and offer ourselves in service to the transformation of the entirety and the healing of the human family. So we're going to the source, and we're going to the roots, and we're able to be correspondingly empowered in our service and devotion to the transformation of humanity at this time.” (Jeff) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteJourneying to Source

How would we even consider paying back the universe — returning the favor — for the most amazing gift of being alive? In a simple appreciation, every breath, every heartbeat, demonstrates a greater permission, an ongoing love and care for the human species. Isn't it reasonable to wonder how we might reciprocate?Fortunately, there are many clues and directions in Current Openings that explore the true nature and innate possibility of being human. Much of the discovery has broadened our understanding of a larger purpose in the cosmos and what it means to actually develop.We've learned, for example, that by design we generate and process energy at many levels, frequencies and qualities. We can choose to create and transmit into our lives and the world generosity, care, kindness and peace — qualities that enrich and uplift life itself — instead of being pulled into ever-more-toxic political and cultural polarities.The activation of Homo Universalis, a greater universal possibility, means each of us can choose to become a conduit, a safe harbor, for new evolutionary potential nudging its way into humanity and the planet. We help ourselves (and each other) by helping the future help us. Not a bad first cosmic “thank you.”As we continue the series “Current Openings: What the World Doesn't Quite Get Yet,”Aviv Shahar and David Price Francis further explore the human impulse to reciprocate the cosmic love that keeps our hearts ticking.Among their appreciations:When we talk about dimensions of care and love, the invitation is to become caretakers to ourselves, the planet, and humanity at large in the way we simply make our choices every day.A perspective about the future is to have a degree of humility that goes with humanity. We didn't make the universe; we're co-respondents to new energy appearing, becoming people of the future.We can develop ourselves to become a conduit for a bright future, the portal for all that life can be as the universe continues to release its potential through planetary and human affairs.Humans are contagious: what we think and feel, and the energies we bring into ourselves and transmit, are contagious. If we're inspired in ourselves, other people can also become inspired.Generosity is the inner core of the human. It comes from being stable and strong in yourself; knowing who you are and why you're here; that the universe wants you to be here, and to realize we are of kind; we're kin.This conversation is part of the continuing Portalsdiscovery into what is emerging on the frontiers of human experience in this time of profound change. Information about upcoming special events can be found on theEventspage. Also visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel. TWEETABLE QUOTES “This is looking at the inner core design of the human and having a human perspective on how we can help humanity. And, at the core of that, to me, sits this idea of generosity, which comes from being stable in oneself and strong in oneself, from the personal perspective, having a good sense of who one is and why one is here, that the universe wants us to be here, and to realize that we are of kind, or even a stronger expression, we are kin. We're of kin to the rest of the human race.” (David) “So when we bring the cosmic perspective and we ask, how can you help the universe? The position we take, the invitation we make is, well, you develop yourself. By actually developing yourself you are helping the universe, you're helping humanity, you're helping the planet, you're helping yourself - by developing yourself, period. However, I'm offering the specificity of develop yourself as an agent of evolution, and develop yourself as an agent of the evolution of the universe in human and planetary affairs.” (Aviv) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteCurrent Openings #13 – How Can We Help the Future

What if the underlying natural intelligence and energy that help influence and shape nearly every aspect of our lives were actually identifiable patterns hiding in plain sight — visible in every domain of life to anyone with the eyes (perception) to see?Underlying patterns that together point to a unified universal operating system or source code that is guiding the growth and evolution of our own life, humanity and the planet…and all the ways we connect and interact. Identifying the patterns can open greater possibility of living and working in harmony with, not contrary to, the rhythms of nature and life. Making space and time for the dynamic flow of life itself can transform a society and culture — all that we do, in the workplace, legal system, relationships and communities. How so?We explore the guiding influence of usually unseen patterns and cycles in this conversation between Aviv Shahar and Jose Leal, a founding member of Society 2045, a gathering of visionaries imagining a future that supports and liberates the best of humanity. They first looked into their evolutionary crystal ball in the Portals conversation Imagine 2045.  Among their current insights:We put individuals to work in things that do not serve life, and they hate their work. The people who were meant to move life forward are being hijacked by the systems, and we create the crisis we have today.We are in many ways thriving, and in many ways killing ourselves. The lack of recognition of the patterns of life is removing our energy from being in the flow of what life needs.The new cycle and new patterns arising are an opportunity to build new organizations that will displace part of the current system and operate more closely to the living patterns.Helping people become aware of the arising patterns is a psycho-activating catalyst that unlocks the energy, and facilitates the shift from the static and arresting to the fluid and integrated.We can see each persons' unique configuration in their fingerprint, in their eyes. It's a sacred fact that we show up here as a unique representation of life; it's not just a random thing.A career is not just a projection or destination. I have certain capacities for certain things; if I lean into that, I'm dancing with purpose, to engage in the way that best serves life.We are inter-dependent, as individuals, as life itself. It changes our understanding of what we're doing to and for each other. It fractures the idea of independence; any one individual cannot exist independent of the rest of nature.This conversation is part of the continuing Portalsdiscovery into what is emerging on the frontiers of human experience in this time of profound change. Information about upcoming special events can be found on theEventspage. Also visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel. TWEETABLE QUOTES “There is implicit in these realizations some reframing of belief systems, such as what is it we believe the case to be about decay about dying? Do we believe it's the end of everything? Or do we believe it is simply how the system reboots or regenerates or rejuvenates itself? And that leads us to the third pattern which you decoded as from transactions to relationships, or from impersonality of transactions to depth of relationships. There is an importance here of the word depth, say something about the significance of that depth and relationships in this pattern.” (Aviv)“Nature and its complexity is still happening, we are nature. And those patterns, be it in our organizations or in our agreements, or in the way we do finance or the way we do collaboration, all of those things actually operate at some level, at the nature level, in those rhythms. That is life and nature's complexity. And we're butting against those two every day. And so recognizing that, when we look at, say for example, something that we would call a strategy for a period of time and saying, let's look at where we want to go, but adapt to the flow, the nonlinear flow of where, of how we're going to get there. And recognizing that that's a fluid thing that we do, not a linear story that we can tell and be beholden to the story, no matter what the reality is, in the moment.” (Jose)“Recognizing that we are interdependent as individuals, as life itself, changes our understanding of what it is that we're doing to and for each other. And the pattern that emerged that life seeks to serve life, not as an option, not as a choice, but as the very process of life is to serve life.” (Jose)“The very existence of AI is a pattern of life. AI as a tool, that humans have been building tools for millennia, will alter our landscape like every other tool has altered the landscape. And I think that looking at these patterns lets us understand that we're not here to dictate what happens and doesn't happen. We're here to figure out how to go with the flow of life, rather than contradict the flow of life.” (Jose) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's Website8 Patterns of Transformation with Jose Leal

How do we sidestep a familiar and unhelpful pattern of thought or behavior in that moment when trauma or pain begins to assert itself and trigger a response? Can we in the triggering moment find a uniquely creative and new response that helps illuminate and loosen the trauma's grip?Learning to pause before reacting to a triggering feeling or memory might be one of the most important moments in the healing process. Deciding how we will respond, if at all, engages a larger awareness or consciousness that lifts our perspective above the immediate, often polarized, circumstance. In this view of healing, consciousness is the medicine.In this moment we can remember there is no separation: we are naturally integrated with larger universal patterns of regenerative energy and intelligence. Which means as we heal, the universe heals, and we co-create a new future.We explore further into the realms of light and shadow and healing with a group of Portals friends who bring an amazing depth and breadth of experience as practitioners, authors, and teachers. In this new addition to the What is Healing? series, Aviv Shahar is joined by Lonny Jarrett, AlexanderLove, Randine Anderson Lewis, and Lorie EveDechar. TWEETABLE QUOTES “I think when we talk about healing, it's really a concept very much applied to the bottom, which is that I cut myself shaving. And it takes two weeks for the wound to heal, or I broke my leg and it takes six months for it to heal. And the notion of healing in that regard in the physical realm and in the gross dimension of being is that something's going to get back to like it was, and it's going to be out of the way, and it won't be an inconvenience, and it will be resolved. And just over the course of my life, healing has really changed to evolution and the soul's view of just a very deep time process.” (Lonny) “I love that distinction around healing, often being whether we're thinking about it consciously or unconsciously, as a returning back to something sort of like, oh, well, I had a big trauma in my life. And so, if I heal, then I'll be the person I was before the trauma. And it brings up for me how often, in the West, we think of ourselves as nouns, we think of ourselves as like these fixed things that kind of get broken, and then we have to patch back together. Whereas, in the East, there's a lot of invitation to explore ourselves more like a verb. And when we do that, it invites this notion that every moment is receiving the previous moments, and then creating something new.” (Alexander) “Where does healing come from? I'm really struck with this sense of our vastness, that we are multidimensional beings - it's not just the manifestation of the materiality here. I know from my own experience that what opens me up to that is my own brokenness, my own flaws, the ways that I can't seem to access the healing that I want. So all I can do is surrender and say, I need help.” (Randine)“The second a person says, okay, I'm going to do it, or I'm not going to do it, and I'm putting my stake in the ground and the karmic line ends now, then instantly all the forces that support the evolution of their soul toward the true, the good, the beautiful, toward this wholesome step, line up. And every force inside that wants to maintain the status quo and has no sincerity at all in engaging with healing also becomes perfectly clear - and then we really have something we can work with. And that shifts the whole orientation from healing to evolution.” (Alexander) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteWhat is Healing #3 - Opening to Healing

The teacher-student dynamic has been central for the unfolding story of humanity. Although universities began to emerge in Europe in the 11th and 12th centuries, the modern education system only developed during the Industrial Revolution, in part for adults to be able to go to work in factories. Modern education focused on exterior knowledge of the physical world and was shaped by scientific orientation. It also included learning and development of skills. These were mostly physical and mental skills that would facilitate participation in the workforce and employability.What was largely left out of modern education was the interior and the character development journey. Modern education had no capacity to address this need. It was left for the priest, rabbi, lama, and the guru-teacher. The therapist was added later.Anyone aspiring to deeper self-insight and understanding and the pursuit of perennial wisdom, both in the East and the West, needed to find the teacher and often the community where the quest for truth and self-knowledge could be supported.Recent decades brought new realizations about the dynamic between a searching student and their spiritual teacher. In this conversation between Aviv Shahar and longtime Portals friend Jeff Vander Clute, author of Beyond Every Teaching, they trace the teacher's journey, the identification trap for both teacher and student, and the golden shadow phenomenon. They also are reflecting on the kinds of ethical evolutionary communities that are arising now to address these challenges.These ponders come at a critical time. We've explored on Portals the post-guru quest and the search for truth as new creative capacities come online with the activation of Homo Universalis, the universal human. We can integrate with the new incoming evolutionary impulse as self-authored and self-responsible — our own pathfinders with the help of others around us.Among their insights:If the teacher identifies with the students' love and admiration, or with their criticism, they begin to be more attuned to their students rather than the original purpose or the ineffable source.A pathology of communities that decide to do away with teachers is to bounce to the other side of the polarity and not adopt any form of internal structure.We are in the post-guru phase and the resolution of the story is that the collective — the mutualized ecology and distributed body of people that we are — can become the teaching agency.This is about us as human beings learning to handle power safely before we can become universalized, where the power levels intensify; we go through many tests in our life and experience.For as long as we are in the flesh, we will have unfinished business that needs tending to, whatever the degree of enlightenment, even of a teacher. Nobody is exonerated.This conversation is part of the continuing Portals discovery into what is emerging on the frontiers of human experience in this time of profound change. Information about upcoming special events can be found on the Events page. Also visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel. TWEETABLE QUOTES “And I would say a great way to realize the confirmation, not just the knowing, which could be abstract, to imbibe life and the experiences that life brings through interactions with students through interactions with anyone on the street. And to bring oneself into contact with the world is perhaps the most powerful way, not only to be confirmed in what one knows, you can think of the world as the playground for one's spirituality, and more than that, the testing ground, but also to go deeper. And not only be in the cave from time to time, but to become the cave. So there's no longer a need to go off to the cave. That happens when the inner and the outer are reconciled, unified, and ultimately seamlessly integrated.” (Jeff)“It's well said and I'm seeing the value of the dysfunction in bringing attention and awareness to the higher potential for the teaching and for the teacher. And, as you said, if we start with the goal of empowering, enabling everyone to have their own source connection, source realization, it does flow more smoothly. And if there's dissonance, that's a great indication that maybe we could be, maybe it's time, maybe doing more of that, maybe it wasn't time before. So the dissonance is valuable.” (Jeff)“The trap is there already, it's always ever present, and unless we continually work with it we are captured by the ghostly behaviors, the ghostly patterns, of this trap. For as long as we are in the flesh, even when we feel that we have worked through all our disowned content, there will always be more patterns that with greater power, and with greater intensity, and with greater illumination will come to the surface.” (Aviv) “Now what I'm describing here, in some way, is a central feature of the human experience, even in the child-parent relationship. We each, as children, we had the first moment when we said, well, my father, my mother - hopefully a little later than earlier - and there was, okay, they are human beings, too. They're flawed in their way, they have their weaknesses. And many of us experienced it very early in childhood, for some of us it came later. So there is a disillusionment crisis the student now experiences in relation to the teacher.” (Aviv) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteThe Guru Trap and the Golden Shadow

It's good to remember that whatever the emotional, mental, or life pain or trauma we face — whatever the shadow or ghost — we can at any time assemble the most powerful team of advisors, healers, teachers, and friends available to help us. It can be anyone, close by or at distance; a quality, such as courage or kindness. Whatever we think we need.They all come together in what we call The Inner Conclave, a multi-dimensional interior gathering of the many lives and resources accessible within us. If we face the trauma caused by abuse or loss, for example, we can imagine in our Conclave a person or quality that represents love, or trust, or wisdom.It's not merely a mental picture, but the energetic value and consciousness that work together to illuminate and in time transform the shadow or ghost, the pain and anguish. Where do our ghosts come from? Imagine an inner intelligence we call a soul that seeks always to keep us safe, and reconnect us to the natural love and wonder in us at birth.We discover much more about the ghost and shadow, and the healing possibility of The Inner Conclave practice, in this conversation with Aviv Shahar and longtime Portalsfriend Jeff Vander Clute. Jeff is a consultant and author of three recent books, including Beyond Every Teaching, a collection of transformative spiritual transmissions.Among their insights:It's a step-by-step process, potentially a navigable journey, to engage one's soul and come into the right relationship, a wholeness, with oneself. Miraculously, the world then begins to reflect our wholeness.The Inner Conclave contemplation enables a larger space and capacity, not to bypass or suppress the pain, but to illuminate and metabolize the ache and anguish.Suddenly, what used to be very big is no longer so large, as all the capacities and qualities we imagine and summon come online and take part in the inner conflict.We can bring mental healing to a whole lineage — a tribe, a nation — as part of humanity tapping into a universally-inclined shared experience accessed together in The Inner Conclave.Releasing ourself from the arresting limitation of polarities is to allow the natural multiplicity of voices, qualities, and essences that we are to impart their intelligence and revelation.Whatever the inner script, we each have a shadow or ghost pattern enacted with us because of our formative painful experience. Can it reveal a high truth or voice? How can we disarm it safely?This conversation is part of the continuing Portals discovery into what is emerging on the frontiers of human experience in this time of profound change. Information about upcoming special events can be found on the Events page. Also visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel. TWEETABLE QUOTES “These are two novel objectives. What I simply meant by the transparency offered was that, in this case, we are journeying with a global community of some 150 people where the emphasis is that it's not a teaching or learning situation as a first principle, although the profound revelatory dimension, learning dimension, developmental dimension, and healing dimension all accompany nature and features, the primary impulse is this evolutionary frame of mind.” (Aviv)“I'm appreciating the genius of life in always bringing situations that challenge our core programming so that we can become conscious of our essential qualities and nature.On the one hand, well, this is just what I'm kind of thinking in this moment; we can contest it perhaps later. But I'm seeing that as long as collective human consciousness and there is a collective mind, if you will, that we participate in and are fixated on and have a deep belief in separation from the Divine, let's say, then separation will continue to show up in every domain - in some ways to get our attention. I'm seeing that as we shift collectively into homo universalis, that operating system or way of learning and evolving need not continue.” (Jeff)“One way the ghost compensatory act will express itself in this situation is the person will develop a whole set of behaviors to try to protect from any dimension that will take away from harmony. So, in fact, they're not living in harmony, they're actually defending against anything that will take away from them the sense of harmony, but they are more in the ghostly experience of having been distanced and separated from harmony.” (Aviv)“The stories that we tell ourselves, which so often are unconscious, or maybe at best semi-conscious, the scripts that are cycling round and round, which have their purpose to protect us from pain or to continue to remind us, perhaps, of a state that we feel has been lost. So you're providing a step by step path to go down a layer, down another layer, down another layer, access the agency, access the power of our own soul, frankly, to maybe burn away what is no longer serving, burn away the shadow.” (Jeff) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteThe Ghost and the Inner Conclave

How often do we feel the people closest to us emotionally or energetically — though not related by blood or marriage — are actually our real family? We all know the saying “You can't choose your family,” usually meant humorously when a relative does something we find embarrassing. What if we can choose our family, in all the ways that have consequence, meaning and value for our lives?We're not referring to bloodline or DNA. It's the special relationships — family formed from the bonds, exchange, and shared space of new possibility created when people come together in mutual purpose and vision. How does it happen? It begins with the very real connections among all humans.We are singular and individual, but also born with minds, systems, and highly sensitive faculties that can naturally tune into and connect with the frequencies of our fellow humans. Not only link with one another, but exchange and transfer. Which means my learning and inspiration can become your learning and inspiration; a real shared consciousness.It gets bigger. The same inner technology that connects us with each other also integrates with much larger universal systems and intelligence, allowing the flow of evolutionary energy to feel its way into humanity. Evolving together, us and the universe. Quite a family.This conversation continues our discovery of family and growing together begun in earlier dialogues among Aviv Shahar and Portals friends Nigel Geeves and Well. Among their ponderings and insights:In the economics of the universe, rather than competing with and destroying each other, we can actually benefit each other; we access in each other the power of the work we've done in our unique configurations.People think we get into the universe by going out there. But the codes of the universe are in us, or we wouldn't be able to see it. It's like a tuning fork — we access the universe by going deep within ourselves.Could it be that we are each products of a universal transcendence? In getting together, we're like new chemicals combining into new reactions to create a new, surrogate universe beyond the one that formed us.The gift of human life and consciousness is that we're the portal through which the universe is able to birth a new possibility; we humans become the midwifery agency of universal evolution.My inner systems are way more intelligent than me. They are designed to tune into others; in that connection, I find a different part of my own life. It's like new lives get born in each meeting with another person.While we're here, we have permission to create relationships. The way our body works can give guidance on how to proceed; atoms, molecules, and cells integrate and work together to support our lives.Two people can meet and something else becomes possible that wasn't pre-planned. Life itself takes a huge leap forward because different lives meet, integrate, and build things together; at higher levels, it's even more extraordinary.This conversation is part of the continuing Portals discovery into what is emerging on the frontiers of human experience in this time of profound change. Information about upcoming special events can be found on the Events page. Also visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel. TWEETABLE QUOTES “You could say that each of us has three levels, three fundamental levels. And the first one is, you could describe it as your physical life, your planetary life that you're born into, that grows upon you. And in that, in the beginning, you're very helpless. And in the hands of others clearly, because you need support.” (Nigel)“And one of the problems with a materialistic perspective is that we can only consider the paradigm that begins with dust from atoms and goes up, rather than contemplate what has been the contemplation of people who quest and inquire into the universe, before science, and had their way of knowing and appreciating the universe before we stumbled upon the beautiful, logical roadmap of science.” (Aviv)“Whenever I meet another person, it allows me to be conscious of a different part of myself. I'm discovering that my systems are way more intelligent than me because they're trying to tune themselves all the time to whatever I'm facing. If I meet somebody from a foreign country, I notice my voice box is struggling to match their tone, their accent and, in that, find a different part in my own life. So it's a bit like new lives get born in each by the meeting with others. In meeting others, there's a development opportunity.” (Well)“The uniqueness, the specialness, of each of us as a life, as an individual is something to do with what we came into this world with - however you define that. But when we meet each other, we're actually coming into contact with something else that is different to us. And in the best case of two things that are different meeting, something else becomes possible that wasn't preconceived, wasn't pre-planned, wasn't pre-given, and life itself therefore takes a huge leap forward by the fact that lives can meet, and integrate, and build things together.” (Nigel) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteEvolving Together #3 - Choosing Our Families

We might want to stop and consider if a slightly different approach could help us unlock the core question this conversation is posing: Why develop yourself? Wouldn't it be more accurate to wonder that since we will develop, one way or another, why not choose with intention and awareness what will fill our lives and help shape our future?The human is designed to develop. We know from earlier Current Openings, such as The Addiction Trap, that the open-ended potential of the brain and mind can be programmed by high-intensity, repetitive impressions and activity. Toxic or healthy; healing or harming: the choice is ours. There is no inner void.We can consciously direct our natural creative potential to the process of converting physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual energy into real impacts and results in our inner and outer worlds. Actually shaping our personal and planetary ecology, and the new universal possibility now emerging.The more finely we develop, the greater our inner conductivity and effectiveness in the life we choose. Maybe a beginning answer to our core question.Of course, there are many paths and possibilities to discover. In the latest edition of the Portals series “Current Openings: What the World Doesn't Quite Get Yet”, Aviv Shahar and David Price Francis explore why human development shouldn't be left to chance. Among their observations:It comes down to what we process: how we think, use our emotion, use our life, and apply ourselves. Why develop? At one level we help humanity, at the same time helping the planet and the cosmos.Could we partner with the planet to facilitate the mutual development and evolution of this sacred ecology we call Earth? What about an even broader perspective, where we think about the human as a universal being?Development is the incantation of tomorrow, and how that future reveals itself, through our living process. To develop is to emancipate the universal possibility that can transform our lives.What's coming into focus is that development expands our perspective from the personal to the human, to the planetary, to the cosmic, to the future. We are evolving who we see ourselves to be.A curious part of development is surrender. We can't just say to the universe “take me as I am.” What's our surrender value? What have we assembled in ourselves that has helped the universe move on to a viable future?This conversation is part of the continuing Portals discovery into what is emerging on the frontiers of human experience in this time of profound change. Information about upcoming special events can be found on the Events page. Also visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel. TWEETABLE QUOTES “I think, to help support something that you said, which is about the love of the universe, and how to look at that in a way that to me is infallible, and that is that we can see the love of the universe in what the universe supports. And if we bring that to planetary level - it's easier to see in our own planet because this is the where we are, this is our home planet - that the planet supports actively the forms of organic life that exist on the planet right now. And a really interesting feature, the science tells us that about 93 to 97% of what has been on the planet, the different species of organic life, are already extinct.” (David)“I would, again, make another approach in respect of what is the planetary perspective? What does the planet want from the human? What planetary purpose does a human fulfill? It's easy to see with a daffodil, with a cat, with a squirrel, with a dog - they're processing a particular energy. The planet draws that energy from that part of organic life. And the way I view it is, that's how the planet feeds from universal energy, even by the direct process of sunlight, being beamed through the organic life processing the sunlight, and then producing material which goes into the planet. And she even materially grows her soil. This will be the planetary program functioning at, you could say, an unconscious level.” (David)“We are designed to develop, so why not take a hand and develop what you would choose to develop, from a personal perspective, rather than what everything else would turn you out to be if you don't take a hand in the matter? In other words, everybody is developing, but are they choosing the way of that development, or are they going to turn out to be the way that life turns them out to be?” (David)“Someone says, well, what's your purpose? The answer might be, well, I'm here to help raise the level of vibration of the human race by connecting to higher cosmic energy as much as I can. And I'm developing myself as far as I can to be able to do that. Oh, by the way, I'm doing this, this, and this job to cover the economics because I'm not paid for being a Cosmic Agency right now.” (David) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteCurrent Openings #12 - Why Develop Yourself?

Sometimes it takes courage to heal. It's usually easy to see, feel, and know the pain and trauma from our own lives, our communities, and the cultural upheavals upending many parts of our world. Being able to perceive and register hurt or isolation and loneliness doesn't necessarily make the path to healing and wholeness any more visible, or smooth.How do we find and feel the inner strength to take the first step? One of the paths to healing and transformation begins in the special ecology or space that is created between people who share respect and value for what each life represents. It can be a simple conversation that brings a feeling of safety and trust — a special warmth that begins to melt whatever may be blocking us from connecting with who we really are and can be.A real mutuality not only dissolves the barriers between us, but also enables a shared support and elevation that can reveal the path to deeper emotional and mental healing. In the process, reconnecting us to a natural inner courage and resiliency that carries us forward.In this conversation, we explore further into the healing possibility enabled by a real human mutuality. Aviv Shahar is joined again by Alexander Love, acupuncturist, life coach, and cranial-sacral therapist, who took part in this conversation on approaches to healing. They are joined this time by Veronica Olalla Love, ontological coaching professional and CEO of the Newfield Network.Among their insights:We are not alone, even though we sense despair and loneliness at times. We can reactivate our connection with all dimensions of life, which modern technology can cause to recede and seem far away.We come together and learn both as an individual and a collective. In these curated spaces we invite a depth, safety, and love that don't just reveal personal pain, but show what is possible to do together.The unshakable commitment we're describing is not a mental or emotional muscle; it's a cellular reorientation of the living being that we are. It's a radical anchoring of the heart.The new human discovery emerging is the profound value in what is described as listening priests, the people that create the ecology and enable others to unfold the revelation they couldn't access in themselves before.What's required for a collective to be strong enough to hold shadows and darkness in a way that won't wobble or shake the space, so the darkness can arise and be safely explored?Seeing the different worlds we create in a group journey can help us deeply anchor, in our body, in our cells, what is actually possible; the level of trust people can have with each other is exquisite and profound.When you no longer shun, suppress, or pull outside of yourself the parts you dislike in favor of the parts you like, it becomes a fuller integration of the inner family; you are more relaxed and more yourself.This conversation is part of the continuing Portals discovery into what is emerging on the frontiers of human experience in this time of profound change. Information about upcoming special events can be found on the Events page. Also visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel. TWEETABLE QUOTES “One of the things that I see is so beautiful is that unfolding of somebody's greatness, the big fullness of who someone can be, and also being able to articulate the areas in which we challenge our repeated cycles that we fall into, or to be able to give voice and articulation of that wholeness of life and to be able to speak to it in the space that can be present, with compassion and with care.” (Veronica)“It takes a lot of courage and something else to be able to allow these things to rush in and inform us in the waking, in the light of the waking day. And that something else is some kind of presence, some kind of unbroken radiance or dimension of being that allows us to know, beyond conceptual knowing, that it's okay to feel, that it's okay to explore little by little is probably what I might suggest little by little, opening our hearts to allow in just a little bit more of the whole and that includes the access to ecstasy, and it also includes the horrors. And all that it requires is a nervous system that's able to have some degree of regulation as these things stream in, because if we're honest, they are quite intense in all their faces.” (Alexander)“The essential element I'm experiencing in both of you and what you're describing, is a particular kind of courage. Because there is an invitation you're making to become more spacious, to unravel or bring to life what has been frozen and potentially grow the filaments of possibility beyond that. (Aviv)“The new, or the novel, or breaking patterns can seem dangerous. So there's a sense of, is this actually dangerous? And if so, how? Or is it simply a signal that this is actually new and I'm in the unknown? My sense is that these times require us to be quite a bit in the unknown. And so as we cultivate our capacity to be in the liminal space or in the uncertainty, the ambiguity, the nebulous zones, that is a huge learning. (Veronica)“As we do this process together there can be a recognition that not only am I doing an individual learning, but we're doing a collective learning, and that there's something that we are together that's growing up as a result of these curated spaces - that invites depth, that invites safety, that invites love. And so it doesn't only reveal my personal pain, my personal yearning - that's important - but it also creates an environment where who we are as people, what is possible for us to do together, just that is a beacon of light, a beacon of hope.” (Alexander) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteWhat is Healing? #2 - A New Togethering

Be honest: When we see a friend or colleague achieve a personal breakthrough — barrier overcome; milestone reached; the best of themselves coming forward — do we fully feel the value and joy of their success? Not even a tinge of jealousy, or wish that it had been us instead?What if we embrace a very different view of each other's accomplishments and potential? When we acknowledge and appreciate the struggles and progress in someone else, we actually create space in ourselves for the same success. We grow in ourselves by watching others grow; we liberate a greater possibility that is only accessible when we come together as “we,” beyond the ego of “me.”What's holding us back? Many of the outcomes of modern life: separation, fear, and trauma, which create an emotional and mental scar tissue that prevents us from trusting and accepting each other. Our natural human sensitivity is numbed, inhibiting the fountain of warmth, kindness, and generosity that is our birthright.Fortunately, we also have higher faculties and systems, still connected to our natural intelligence and creativity, that enable growth, development, and integration with an emerging new evolutionary potential.We explore the barriers preventing a greater human mutuality, and the seeds of our healing and integration, in part two of the conversation Evolving Together, with Aviv Shahar and two Portals' friends and life-long spiritual seekers, Nigel Geeves and Well. In part one, the three opened the question, Why evolve together?Among their insights:To evolve together we want to be fearless, which doesn't mean having no fear. It means we're able to move forward and discover that the feeling of bravery on the inside is more powerful.In our human development journey, what seemed intractable and frozen by time and trauma can melt away in the presence of a mutuality that is prepared to support life rather than arrest it.The grip of what is holding us back is made stronger by fear. When we develop above fear in ourselves it no longer has credence or power and control over us.Everything humans do is powered by energy, which creates a form of collective memory. It's like a loose operating system influencing human behavior, unless we develop above our history and co-create our future.The key is in our acceptance of another life and giving a space for the sharing of both of us. It's acceptance of life to life, rather than the historic pattern of how I can win.When you no longer shun, suppress, or pull outside of yourself the parts you dislike in favor of the parts you like, it becomes a fuller integration of the inner family; you are more relaxed and more yourself.This conversation is part of the continuing Portals discovery into what is emerging on the frontiers of human experience in this time of profound change. Information about upcoming special events can be found on the Events page. Also visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel. TWEETABLE QUOTES “But the larger evolutionary strategy is that there is a better chance for survival, in most species in the flora life, in the fauna life, and for us humans, this was going to be more secure and guaranteed if we worked together.” (Aviv)“There's an imagery that comes to mind, and it's one of my fascinations. If you take a mirror, you can look in that mirror and get a reflection of yourself, but it's a singular reflection. We can look at another mirror and do the same, but if you put those mirrors next to each other and put your head in between them, you get a million reflections, and a human is a much better reflector of another human than any physical mirror.” (Nigel)“What it actually means is that we've been very successful in doubling down on sensitivity so that we don't feel or pick up on the vast majority of what is going on because it's too difficult to handle. So this is the beginning of a diagnostic process that really begins to open up those sensitivities again deliberately. So we begin to grow our awareness rather than retreating into a non-feeling state.” (Well)“Emotionally, as one grows and grows with others, and learns that it's possible to be safe with others, it is possible for the scar tissue in a life to begin to heal and melt. And the great benefit of that is that people become able to connect again, because trauma stops you connecting and causes isolation. And when people discover the great joy of being able to connect again, it's such a liberation that they tend to want to take that up and hold it as a valued thing.” (Well)“It just reminds me that shadows are always bigger than the thing itself. And, like you say, fear seems to be a shadow that when you actually face it, it's nowhere near as big as you thought it was. And the curious thing in that is that, how we think about something conditions how we feel about it. So it's vital that we review our views and psychologies, otherwise our feeling life just won't have a chance.” (Nigel) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteEvolving Together #2 - What Holds Us Back?

We're living in a time where increasingly we see what's happening in the world around us and have to wonder how, or even if, we can find deep truth in the age of the “deep fake”. Artificial intelligence can distort or manipulate many forms of data and information we take in through our physical senses. Sights, sounds and “facts” on a page can all be faked. How then do we with confidence make sense and meaning in a life when even what we see with our own eyes may not be true?There are clues in the name itself: “artificial” intelligence. What about natural intelligence? We know from Portals conversations that the human is designed with the capability to connect with larger, universal sources of intelligence, creativity and inspiration, beyond the reach of even the most powerful AI.It's a deep truth explored throughout history by spiritual teachers, shamans and wise men and women attuned to the finer, energetic, subtle realms as a living reality. Sources of profound revelation and learning that can transform lives and communities, and reconnect the human to its natural birthright.In this conversation we are once again fortunate to have as our guide Layman Pascal, a leader in integral thinking and teaching, and a prominent voice on the Integral Stage YouTube channel and podcast. He joins Aviv Shahar for part two of their conversation, begun with Protecting the Sacred.Among their ponders:AI is going to touch everyone and every type of reality, with inevitable distressing effects, including a reduction of cognitive capacities, and an increasing distrust in all information sources.How do we bring the spiritual and sociological closer together? Integrate a life of deep spiritual practice, freed from dogmatic interpretations, with an emerging cultural and community experience?How do we balance the notion of God with our current notion of reality? Or of creating healthier existing religious structures versus cultivating new emergent religion-like experiences?A big-picture model of deep history shouldn't accept mainstream neo-liberal media or academic consensus as reality, but be open to surprises and anomalies that could reverse consensus going forward.We don't want to be naive utopians, but also not nihilistic, pessimistic, or to give up. Let's invest our imagination, heart, and actions in trying to figure out what a better world actually looks like.Just because someone can enter or produce a state — an unusual chemical, energetic, or psychological condition — doesn't mean they have an established stage of development.This conversation is part of the continuing Portals discovery into what is emerging on the frontiers of human experience in this time of profound change. Information about upcoming special events can be found on the Events page. Also visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel. TWEETABLE QUOTES “I think up to that point, what I'm mostly thinking about is something vaguely like enlightenment. Right? So that I'm undertaking experiences very deliberately, because I want to transform my consciousness.” (Layman) “One of the most prominent ways that people have sort of subtle experiences in the modern world is with entities that they feel are extraterrestrial, right? And the work of Jacques Vallee in the 1970s did a lot of under laboring to support the idea that in a previous time period, you might have interpreted these as elves or angels or something like that.” (Layman)“A lot of these communities are centered around meta models, by which we mean attempts to do transdisciplinary philosophical integrations that take many different models and many different disciplines and many different types of perspective taking into account coherently.” (Layman)“There's a phrase I used in that series which was 'to naturalize the sacred and to sacralize the natural'. And I think this goes along with trying to bring the rational and the intuitive together. So you want to say, we embrace a natural science universe, not a reductive natural science universe, but an expanded natural science universe, and at the same time, it's only relevant to us if it can produce the cultural meaning and the individual transformation that's necessary for a human life.” (Layman)“Is it better for you to treat something like a person or not? You can't objectively have perfect knowledge of whether you're dealing with something that's sentient or not. But is it actually better for you to respect everything you're dealing with as if it was another sentient being? And that makes a lot of spiritual and emotional sense. Or is that the gateway to a path of delusion where we lose important distinctions, and we end up over attributing capacity and depth to things that don't have them and lead our society further down a pathway of simulation and meaninglessness?” (Layman) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteA Conversation with Layman Pascal Part 2 - Pursuing Integral Wisdom

Many news platforms today still at times refer to the struggles of life in 2023 as residual pandemic trauma — directly influenced by the painful events beginning in 2020. Is it really fair and accurate to connect today's behavior and attitudes to a three-year-old ‘trauma'?There's no doubt the pandemic caused pain and suffering, and trauma, for millions of people directly affected. But as everyday life finds a post-pandemic new normal, is it helpful to our personal and collective healing and rebalance to see ourselves as traumatized? Or has trauma become a convenient rationale and strategy to avoid fully facing unsettling aspects of our changing reality?The pandemic is one example of how trauma can become what some people describe as a culture and identity — a myth we hold onto to explain and excuse our behavior, where every struggle is attributed to trauma. We explore the nature and outcomes of this all-encompassing focus on trauma in this Portals conversation between Aviv Shahar and Alexander Beiner, author, podcaster, and co-founder of Rebel Wisdom, a highly regarded platform for new ideas in this time of change.Alexander traces his journey to Rebel Wisdom and reflects on the extraordinary phenomenon of its rapid growth as a global community. The conversation then takes a deeper look at the trauma myth.Among their insights:The distinction between a healthy, constructive self-introspection, and one that is narcissistic and destructive, is important because they sound similar but have very different outcomes.There's something healthy about starting with a baseline that life involves suffering, rather than a modern Western consumerist notion of life as the pursuit of happiness.Cognitive flexibility builds on the understanding of brain plasticity; you can create new synaptic connections and circuitries through learning — exposing yourself to new experiences.We reframe resilience from bouncing back to bouncing forward; not reestablishing the old balance.If the story we tell ourselves is that we're inherently fragile, the culture we create prevents the innovation and risk taking needed to come through the mental crisis we're facing.It's a time of great overlapping crises; in Greek crisis means decision point — we must make huge decisions about who we are and the kind of society we want to create.The universe now needs more of the human coming online, not in buildings and churches made of stone, but on the inside, which means turning on the interior lights.This conversation is part of the continuing Portals discovery into what is emerging on the frontiers of human experience in this time of profound change. Information about upcoming special events can be found on the Events page. Also visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel. TWEETABLE QUOTES “As well as for me personally, a lot of the countercultural, psychedelic, countercultural visionary kind of thinking that I was used to, which really gave a message that we can change systems, it is possible. And it's a question of overcoming what was known as the prosaic fallacy, which is this idea that we simply can't imagine a different way of doing things, that doesn't mean that a different way of doing things isn't possible. So that was a big influence as well.” (Alexander) “So it was actually quite a long process I went on and the instigating factor of me wanting to write something about it, or actually originally make a film about it, was a piece I read by Parul Sehgal, who's a literary critic, it was in the New Yorker. And her piece is called ‘The Case Against the Trauma Plot'. And I thought, uh, huh, interesting. What she's arguing is effectively that a lot of writers of modern stories are using trauma to explain their characters.” (Alexander)“So I gathered a circle of friends, psychologists, practitioners, and we spent two years working on the project of resilience and the five key ideas we qualified. And then it became a tool that I've been using for the last 15 years now, with all the teams I've worked with.” (Alexander) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's Website

Portals Into the Soul invites us to realize the soul wants us to be fulfilled — to live a life as closely aligned as possible to the greater connections, intelligence and qualities that are the human's universal birthright.Through a contemplative inquiry process, we can open a living conversation with the soul and its many facets and capabilities. It's letting the unconscious lead the way as we build a bridge to a bridge (the soul itself.)Other dimensions of engaging with the soul are explored in The Ghost and the Inner Conclave.Aviv Shahar and several members of the Portals team get together in this conversation to offer their reflections and experience of the Portals Into the Soul Preamble and the first chapter, which will be published here next month. Among their appreciations:Discovering the soul's nature and mission involves trust — in our instincts and self-leadership, and in the knowledge the soul is part of the fuller truth of being human.Portals Into the Soul is an inquiry quest, not the shortest path or something like packaged convenience food. We're unlocking a connective human capacity.It is courting the intelligence of the soul; creating a conductive ecology where the soul can transfer new knowledge and revelation.What happens when trauma or other real-life experiences cause our attunement with the soul to feel marginalized, reduced or compressed? How does the soul react?Science can't accept the idea of emergence; it wants to define and name things, down to the molecule. “Emergence” means we don't know what's really going on, which is of course the case.If you'd like to participate more actively with like-minded people to decode and metabolize this new revelatory work as it emerges, we can facilitate soul-inquiry pods and discussions coming together. Let us know here if you are interested to join a pod and we will connect you with others TWEETABLE QUOTES “I think that for a lot of people, especially in the West, if you were raised in any kind of a religion, I had a very religious upbringing. You always heard about the soul. But it was this sort of mysterious point of theology, we have this immortal soul, it was never more than that never went beyond that other than it's something that is there.” (Patrick) “You're just knowingly or unknowingly plugging into the very thing I'm working on right now. And I don't want to talk about it too much because it's still in a forming phase. But I will say that there is a whole conversation we ought to come back to in the future to do around emergence. It's a word that traditional scientists hate.” (Aviv)“I want to say how exciting this prospect is, and how important it is to emphasize on the value of shedding light into these territories of the soul, without having to go to Tibet or to India and meet a yogi or do 30 years of psychoanalysis to solve an issue. And I think the element of all of us co-creating this content and discovering it in a playful way and with a lot of practices that are accessible.” (Kyriaki )“I always wondered, what is the soul? Where does it come from? Where does it go? Do we live inside it, or does it live inside us? And, if it has a voice, how to listen to this voice and how to connect with this voice? If we are disconnected from our soul, how does that impact our well being, our health, our fulfillment? So I think all these questions about the soul are very important questions.” (Kyriaki)“If we think of ourselves as spiritual beings first, rather than planetary beings, the idea that the soul is this kind of local guide for us. And in so many of the Portals conversations about human development, human possibility, we see that the natural laws and the physical systems are all supporting us. They have a mission, whether we understand what that mission is or not, in helping us fulfill our lives. So I think the soul is a critical piece of that.” (Peter) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsitePortals Into the Soul – PreambleIntroducing Portals Into the Soul

Is there a unique human or universal possibility in “we” that simply is not available to even the most finely developed “me”? When two human beings meet in purpose — really meet, not just be in close proximity — can they unlock in each other a greater growth and evolutionary potential than either one can even perceive on their own?We can see in world history the obvious survival and evolutionary benefit to living collectively in families, tribes, communities and cities; safety at many levels in numbers. We also see where survival and "safety" can fuel fierce competition and rivalry over resources, ideology and culture. Will fear always override every higher human impulse that would naturally bring people together?Fortunately, no. We can find stories all across the planet of miraculous healing and transformation that take place when people cultivate with each other an ecology that's open and trusting, creating a new sense of what is possible as we evolve mutually and collectively. What else could be holding us back?In this conversation, Aviv Shahar is joined by two Portals friends and life-long spiritual seekers, Nigel Geeves and Well. Through their own journeys they explore and reveal what becomes possible when humans seek to evolve together.Among their insights:Have consideration, have compassion, have patience, and take into account what another life is feeling and what is going through them is an enormous evolutionary leap.Humans have a capacity to transcend the animalistic reactive nature that is part of our DNA and our historic formation, and we access it through our choice.We're discovering a new we; a communal ritual space where a conductive healing presence can unlock and release so much of the trauma built by earlier conditioning.It begins with a willingness to not possess life, not possess each other, not possess ourselves; to be more open to life as a flow, and flow through your experiences and meet others on the way.We're each born into a family by bloodline, and we also can choose to create a new family; it's possible for us humans to find that special love early in life or later in life.There is in our instincts the ancestral DNA that wants to activate some personal protective measure because we've learned to be so afraid of each other.Postmodernity said let's break away from everything the traditional patriarchal structure created and liberate the individual. It was a necessary phase to reclaiming the interior dimension of life.The people I spend time with on the outside come to live inside me in a way, as well; I carry those companions and it increases my stability, like guide ropes on a tent.When you meet another person there is a way the meeting reveals a part of you that you didn't know was there. Openness, intimacy or trust can be developed so we truly carry the potential of each other.This conversation is part of the continuing Portals discovery into what is emerging on the frontiers of human experience in this time of profound change. Information about upcoming special events can be found on the Events page. Also visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel. TWEETABLE QUOTES “I realized psychology is really important and, in the West, we've got this psychology that we are individual and when we come together it's like putting blocks together. But when I traveled to Africa, I came across this word Ubuntu which means something I don't think we've got a literal translation but it's something like “I am because we are,” and in the deep feeling of myself, it feels like that, we do have a deep connection that all comes from the same source. But we are separate among all beings.” (Nigel) “One thing that's come up is how I think about meeting others because, firstly, we meet on the outside, and there's validity in that in the way that our senses look outward. So often, another person will see more about me than I see about myself. So in reflection, there is great assistance possible. But one thing I'm currently discovering and have discovered over the last few years is that those that I spend time with and meeting on the outside, they come to live in me as well.” (Nigel)“If you look at the two words, react, which clearly says doing something again that's been done before and is mostly an automatic process, and response, which is very different and tends to have some element of consideration inside it. Now if you look at the defense systems by their very nature, they are designed to preempt attacks, and they need to work fast and actually block attacks, preferably before they happen. So they're both very much in reaction. As we've already identified, there is so much in us that is set up that way. But mostly, we go on an automatic process of defending even when we don't need to, rather than actually considering, responding, and going deeper. (Well)“I had a very potent experience early in my journey where I kind of met a signal that switched me on to the whole idea of being a part of evolution and playing a part in evolution consciously, and so that turned on in me, and I was very grateful for that. I've been looking around the world and thinking, ‘Where do I fit in this place?' And I hadn't really found where I fit in. But I felt I fit in by playing a part in that bigger process. So that was important at the beginning of a journey I've been making ever since.” (Well) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteThe Evolving Together Series

We haven't followed Albert Einstein's ratio exactly here on Portals, but there is great wisdom in his insight that if given an hour to solve a problem, he'd spend 55 minutes focusing on the problem, and five minutes thinking about solutions. It's one of the perceptions helping us uncover practical solutions to the puzzle and pain of the human predicament.In the latest addition of the series “Current Openings: What the World Doesn't Quite Get Yet”, we distill the new intelligence, power and potential discovered as we face the challenges of living a purposeful life in a time of chaos and crises. Earlier Current Openings applied Einstein's advice and clearly defined the dilemmas: the addiction trap; the knowledge and emotion problems; the brain/body conundrum.In this conversation, Aviv Shahar and David Price Francis review the profound insights that are opening pathways to the true nature and potential of the human mind and emotions. We also see the healing available when we live a life in natural balance and harmony with the planet and universe.What we've discovered along the way includes:Esoteric knowledge isn't a secret to keep hidden, but potential to be activated, brought online vs. online. The key is the initiatory process that activates the energetic and spiritual domains.In challenging times, the best-case scenario is to engage with multiple paths concurrently; find the tethering moment of surrender and uplift through different paths at different times.The communal journey has its lights and shadows, agonies and ecstasies; it's where we can find a distributed collective intelligence and discovery.Another path is a mission-based endeavor and practical application with a purpose that will lead our development, rather than us trying to develop ourselves.Key to the addiction trap is understanding synaptic or circuitry locking — repetitive thoughts creating strong synaptic connections that form grooves in our brain we keep repeating.We understand the universe as a living system that wants to both preserve itself and conserve energy, and evolve to become more capable, connected, and intelligent.We engage with the leading edge of consciousness through the lens of choosing which program and habits will we power; we avoid the erroneous choices that can hijack our system.This conversation builds upon concepts and insights explored throughout the Current Openings series. It is part of the continuing Portals discovery into what is emerging on the frontiers of human experience in this time of profound change. Information about upcoming special events can be found on the Events page. Also visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel. TWEETABLE QUOTES “So I think starting with the predicament — if we don't realize there is a predicament — we don't get to the starting gate. So if we're in our lives and we just think, ‘ Well, this is the way that life is, and I need to be in harmony with the world culture the way it goes on, ' that's as far as it goes. Then we're staying with the exoteric, which is staying within the fact that I've got my established religion that I was born into.” (David)“So if we spend our life, our brain life, playing Mutant Ninja Three or some other video game dynamic that is very separated from the universe, the idea of the meta-universe, the human-made universe -- and then that would be bringing in something that is alien to our systems or actually setting us up for contradiction and various kinds of anxiety -- more medications get sold to handle that -- and we're dealing with a disconnect between our brain and our body in that sense. So probably most of the so-called chronic diseases are a great part of what causes the disconnect between these two parts, I think.” (David)“Collecting our experiences is like gathering potatoes. So we gather and gather and gather potatoes in our life. But then, if we're going to actually then create something out of those potatoes we need to have the ability to distill from the potatoes the spirit of what's at the essence - when we can take them and bring them through a refining process. Because according to our development, it's not just our experience that creates who we are, it's what we make of that experience. And I think that's fundamental to what we're getting to in The Human Predicament.” (David)“So to me, the energy, the connection, is made when we get the right kinds of understanding and have a pursuit of purpose. We can make an energy connection that actually causes that kind of coolness and trilling, and we feel it in our whole system. That is going to be sort of a big part of the human proposition: how we can raise the level of vibration not only mentally but in every other aspect.” (David) “What we essentially said was that, number one, the universe is a living system. And this living system, when we say it's alive it means it is a place full of energy, and it has two drivers. One, the first, it wants to preserve itself, to preserve and conserve energy, and then it wants to allocate the preserved and conserved energy to evolve and become more sophisticated, more capable, more connected, more intelligent.” (Aviv) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteEnergy Worlds

What if we paraphrase a popular saying about the devil* and think “The greatest trick the modern world ever pulled was getting humanity to believe there aren't any options”?As cultural and ecological crises deepen around the world, there are visionaries taking steps to demonstrate that, yes, we have options in how we choose to live and the future we imagine for ourselves and the planet.This emerging and powerful sense of new possibility is transforming, among many other endeavors, how we think about and create a sense of community — the ways we work, live and engage with one another and our environment. Intentional neighborhoods, “metamodern monasteries”, and virtually connected global networks are all part of an expanding vision for a collective human experience.Of course, no one is saying it's going to be an easy transformation. For example, a cultural undercurrent we all share in our collective imagination is for a superhero to come and save the day; always an individual, never a group of people talking through their differences We talk through many visions and ideas for a new approach to community in the second part of our conversation among Aviv Shahar and Sylvie Barbier, French-Taiwanese artist, entrepreneur and educator, and Rufus Pollock, entrepreneur, researcher and technologist. Among their many projects and passions, Sylvie and Rufus co-founded Life Itself, dedicated to wiser living and social transformation. Part 1 explored the emerging, new second Renaissance.From their conversation:We're serving the discovery of our individual purpose and calling, and at the same time, becoming a serv ice agency of evolution itself. Can we wrap our mind and heart around not living just for ourselves? A practice hub is having a space for the modern individual to rediscover in sometimes awkward reengineering how to be together again, at a pace that doesn' t create trauma about the collective. What mix of ingredients — business plus location plus practices — will be scalable to create a transformative region in the next few decades, a place in the world where the future is being pioneered? I see a lot of mov ement coming from fear and panic. Being in service today is to not give in to fear, but slow down and discern what's going on inside and outside. Let the work, work on you.Something bigger than us wants to reconnect with humanity while we seek to reconnec t with it. We're birthing new sense organs and ways of being — connecting with the ineffable that is rediscovering its beloved humanity through our endeavor. People are skeptical; there's a sense that things won't work out. One of the killers of this age i s cynicism; it's an extinguisher of hope.“The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.” Attributed to Charles Baudelaire, and quoted in the film “The Usual Suspects”This conversation is part of the continuing Portals discovery into what is emerging on the frontiers of human experience in this time of profound change. Information about upcoming special events can be found on the Events page. Also visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel. TWEETABLE QUOTES “So some of the practice hubs is that, is like having a space for the modern animal to rediscover, in this awkward reengineering, how to be together again - and do it at a pace that we can process it, that we can integrate it - versus just having a rupture, and another breakdown, and another trauma about the collective.” (Sylvie) “If you go and study their life, in my view, about a month or six months later some people there is something that shifts, but it's a very small minority. We do a month workshop and we have conflict, they have fights with other people in the community. And we're like, that's the best thing. They may not like that as much, but that's when the growth happened. If you can go through conflict, if you can transform that, if you can start seeing your own shadow. And believe me, Sylvie and I have seen a lot of it shatter living community, all the things that you haven't dealt with in yourself, or the ways that you're this way or that way, or reactive or, you know, dominating or whatever else there is about you. I mean, you keep being shown that.” (Rufus)“In my personal journey, a whole part of growing up was to deal with the sense of disappointment because I thought that life was supposed to happen a certain way - from the media and the narrative I was given. And I think in reclaiming a different narrative, which is saying there is difficulty, and there is light and liberation and solace when you embrace the difficulty on the other side. Life is not about trying to not have problems or not have difficulties, but most of the depiction of what people tell you is all they're trying to do is get rid of problems.” (Sylvie) “People are coming, what we're interested particularly in was what we call sustained ontological development, fancy term, but what I mean is the other thing we're interested in is what is the growth people need to go through and want to go through and how does it sustain? One of the things that intrigued us was, I've gone on a retreat, you know, you come back after a week, it's like, Oh my God, I've seen it, I need to change my life. And then three weeks later, you're back doing zero meditation, whatever. How do people sustain it? (Rufus) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteLife Itself

What would it take for us to see the ecological and cultural crises sweeping the planet as possible harbingers of a higher transformation and metamorphosis, a second global Renaissance? Big economic and political change can be traumatic, for individuals and communities. What if the global upheavals shaking our modern way of life actually are part of a natural cycle in evolution, a necessary correction in aiding the appearance of updated human potential?Considering the possibility of a new global Renaissance could also mean revisiting and questioning some of the pillars of modernity that have marked social and cultural progress. Can the individual, the “I” - centric, embrace a new form of community and shared human experience? What about a religion of the future, centered on inner development rather than dogma, to bring people together with a knowing that we're part of something bigger than ourselves?A personal and collective metamorphosis could revive the sacred nature of art, which throughout history has been an expression of humanity and a shared experience of a universal impulse.We explore the many questions and perceptions about a possible new global Renaissance in the first part of a Portals conversation among Aviv Shahar and Sylvie Barbier, French - Taiwanese artist, entrepreneur and educator, and Rufus Pollock, entrepreneur, researcher and technologist. Among their many projects and passions, Sylvie and Rufus co-founded Life Itself, dedicated to wiser living and social transformation.Among their insights:Religion is important because we won't move beyond current crises through the lens of secular modernity where the ego is God; I think, therefore I am, and it's all about my wants. We can integrate the questioning that came with modernity, but questioning in the service of truth. If we question just for the sake of questioning, it becomes a destructive force.We're still discovering what the new emergence may look like, when it will appear, and its various expressions; yet we cannot not respond to that summoning upon our life.Belief is not faith. You can believe in anything, in the illusion and trap of your own mind. Faith is based on direct experience of something beyond you, of yourself as a human being.Ultimately you need something much bigger than yourself to transcend the problem of individuality and “me, me, me” that modernity gave us. A great learning from post - modernity is to integrate multiple perspectives; they're a component of a greater pict ure, which is seeking of the truth.We are children of modernity, and I know the future is much bigger than me and demands me to grow. For the future to have a chance, a real shot, I need to go beyond myself.This conversation is part of the continuing Portals discovery into what is emerging on the frontiers of human experience in this time of profound change. Information about upcoming special events can be found on the Events page. Also visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel. TWEETABLE QUOTES “Second renaissance, I think, is to put a name onto what we're collectively experiencing, which is the death of modernity, and the birth of something to come, which we don't know yet. And that moment of death and birth is the second renaissance, like the first Renaissance, the first Renaissance appeared after great moment of difficulty of hardship with the Black Death, where many people died. And they could not say that they were going through the Renaissance.” (Rufus) “I remember asking a Zen teacher once, when do people change, I asked him, he said when they have to. So the point was that people normally needed quite serious crisis of some kind of fortunate personal life before they take on deep change. And similarly, as a civilization, the sad thing is, I think that we're going to have to confront a very significant crisis to really change.” (Rufus) “But art and religion are sacred, right? You can't touch them. But why can't we touch them? Because we're trying to say there's something of the essence that is untouchable, that is eternal. But somehow along the line, what becomes untouchable might be the words, rather than the essence, and or the cultural frame in which that religion was born.” (Sylvie) “People have a lot of maybe even collective trauma about the word religion. And it's important to heal that word. In using it I want to reconquer this word ‘religion', which is to relink ourselves to each other and to something greater than ourselves. And I think art plays a huge part in that, because art is to express our humanity, what makes us human. We can so easily forget what makes us human. So I think it's essential to reconnect.” (Sylvie) “The dance is sometimes in describing all this stuff, it can seem really like wonderful, but a bit magical. It's like, you know, we need to go from "I" to "we". Sure! Yeah, and one big question is like, how do they connect? How do they dance between those, how do you actually dwell in those? That's a really rich question which even Buddha, you know even some of the great traditions don't really have a sense of like, how do you organize society? It's a very relative question, you know, what does it actually look like? You know, what does production look like? Buddha very wisely didn't talk about this.” (Rufus) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteLife Itself

With so much interest in creating a new type of collective living experience, it's reasonable to wonder why the “we” space is seen to be so important in supporting the next big leap in evolution. What can't the individual alone — me, just being me — accomplish? There is a deepening awareness that a new future, a transforming universal possibility, is revealing itself both through individuals and a collective experience: new configurations of people living, working, and creating together. Small and intimate; networks; experimental.The “me” is a fundamental step in personal development. Becoming a catalyst for a larger universal possibility isn't just a solo act; it needs the power of collective intelligence and integrated capacity. Plus, the natural fulfillment of humans connecting and being together.“Collective” also may not be the best word to describe people coming together in a mutual purpose and vision that respects and allows the individual to be a “me,” inside a much more potent connected creative potential.To help us explore the many faces and possibilities of communal endeavors, Aviv Shahar is joined by Portals friend, author, consultant and Emmy Award-winning documentary film director Tucker Walsh, and musician Turquoise. Among their insights:In a very simple, practical way, it's about being the change we want to see in the world; to show up in the way we want others to mirror; bringing the awareness that from a certain perspective everything in life is relational.An ecology of practice, whatever method, can offer increased capacity — the intentional wielding of the soma of the spirit, mind, body, soul, and great chain of being.We see the reintegration of the blessing realms — pursued since ancient times — now available in an open-source form for anyone who makes themselves available. Portals is an opportunity to decode, narrate, experience, and play together.  When we are down, confused, and depressed, it's not that evolution stopped caring; it possibly reflects the accelerated and potentized nature of what's emerging.The rise of the intellect, the dawn of the modernity project, and the myth of separation, are still a predominantly active actuality in the DNA of our mindsThis conversation is part of the continuing Portals discovery into what is emerging on the frontiers of human experience in this time of profound change. Information about upcoming special events can be found on the Events page. Also visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel. TWEETABLE QUOTES “I call it sometimes a mystery seed. You don't know what's in the seed, but if you kind of wait and look and nourish it and grow, oh, look, it's going to be this thing, and then it turns into a flower, and then maybe the flower was a butterfly, and then, or, you know, it kind of moves and shifts and transforms. As long as you kind of oscillate on the edge there and kind of float on the edge as much as possible and get good and flow as a group, you can kind of move it forward, but be in relation to what you're adding to it or what we're adding to it.” (Turquoise) “Well, to stage us with the polarity that you introduced and build on this for a minute because yes, there is a way to not be part of the evolutionary process. A good provocation is a good reframe, and at the same time, in the imagery that you offered earlier, there are those people who gathered at the gathering, those people who stayed at home and did not show up for the gathering, and then there were those people who stayed in the gathering in some other periphery, and they were those who stepped into the hot tub experience.” (Aviv)“I think the risk of overly creating a menu, anything like this is how you make this recipe, is that it then becomes a fixed thing, and what I'm more interested in is, I guess, having an infinite number of recipes and then being like, well, how can we crisscross combine the recipes and not necessarily or entirely as a predetermined set course like you would when you go to a restaurant, but a sense of, like, what if the people that came to your restaurant sat down with them and you had a conversation and you said, Hey, how are you right now? How are you showing up? What was your day like today? What's your experience with food?” (Tucker) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteTucker WalshTurquoise. 

Imagine a process of healing that is powerful enough to restore wellbeing and transform a life, a family, a community with just a one-degree shift in perception or attention; a state of health and wholeness not defined by medicine or ecology, culture or location.In a time of cultural and environmental upheaval, the natural and regenerative paths to relief of anxiety, pain, and a sense of separation offer us deeper awareness of the true nature of healing — physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. A healthy and balanced mind and body can be the natural outcome of a life rooted in the understanding that wholeness and healing are a human birthright, inherent in our design and purpose. The transforming perception of our natural integration and potential can be the journey of a lifetime, or it can happen in a single moment. In this conversation, Aviv Shahar is joined by two practitioners with extensive experience in the process of restoration, wholeness, and healing: Lonny Jarrett, author, scholar, and teacher of East Asian medicine who has practiced acupuncture and herbology for more than 40 years, and Alexander Love, an acupuncturist, life coach, and cranial - sacral therapist, who brings a unique integration of modalities. Lonny and Alexander discuss their understanding and life-long experience with the healing process, including personal stories of trauma and regeneration. Among their insights:The main medicine the world needs now is to transcend ego and recognize our dependent arising, our intimate relationship with each other, and the biosphere in all things.We are trained from the youngest age to take everything personally, to know ourselves as separate individuals, in denial of the subtle spiritual dimensions of experience.We have a choice. It doesn't start with waiting for the other person; it starts with me. Maybe I get a little curious instead of self-righteous. Healing is an act of inquiry; it's being present.How do we unfold the past in a way that is vibrant, awake, and full so the virtues and wisdom within those experiences of pain can inform our life today and become fertile ground?Each person is a portal into the one conscious. When we make a choice for the truth, even in the face of our own conditioning, it's the cosmos evolving.It's an emergent process where everything frozen in time is released into the currency of this moment now; as if working with one person is working with the entire system, and potentially the whole world.This conversation is part of the continuing Portals discovery into what is emerging on the frontiers of human experience in this time of profound change. Information about upcoming special events can be found on the Events page. Also visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel. TWEETABLE QUOTES “So honestly, I can remember the moment when I was about three or four years old and my mother read me Bambi, and Bambi's mother gets shot by a hunter, and I burst into tears, and she said when you grow up you can be a veterinarian, and I said, what's that? And they said, a doctor who takes care of sick animals, and righ t then and there I knew that I was going to go into medicine, and of course the medicine I eventually went into was not veterinary medicine, but I knew my whole life that that's what I was here for and that's what I was going to be doing.” (Lonny)“In a way, history isn't a burden, and it isn't a hauntology or a ghost that sort of grips us from beyond the grave. But it's been brought into the present as the cultivation of virtue from having faced fragment, and fragments realized its own nature as wholeness.” (Alexander)“So we can have gross levels of illness, and we need to take responsibility for the dimensions of them that we can, so getting enough sleep, hydrating, eating the best food we can, exercising, this sort of thing, but when it comes to the subtle and the very subtle dimensions, I would define illness as a misappropriation of attention. A conditioned identification with finite and materialistic dimensions of the self that perpetuate the illusion of separation and, from the perspective of wholeness, separation as pain.” (Lonny)“So for me, the starting point is a recognition that the past, the present, and the yet-to-be-fully-formed future are all right here, right now, the last 14 billion years, with all of their glory and all of their suffering. It's right here, right now. Not theoretically or philosophically, but it's unfolding at this moment. Some of it is these hidden pockets of history that we don't see. Some of it is visible, like the fact that I am able to speak in a language that took 1000s and 1000s of years to develop, and it's still a visible expression of something that has come previously.” (Alexander) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's Website

Just how important are relationships, really, to our health and happiness? What about to our sense of emotional and spiritual growth and fulfillment? We can trace the influence of intimacy on human development through evolution all the way back to the Big Bang. Humans are social in a way unlike anything else in the universe. The complexity, beauty and possibility of the many forms of human relationships have been a lifelong passion and pursuit of Dr. Keith Witt, pioneering integral psychotherapist, author and teacher. We met Dr. Keith in the first part of his conversation with Aviv Shahar, on the hero's journey from “Trauma to Transcendence”. In part two of their conversation, Dr. Keith traces his own healing journey through early trauma, and the influence of the martial arts in his embrace of the complementary natures of the warrior and the healer. He reveals the inspiration behind his teaching and writing, and the experiences that helped form his core understanding that “everything is relationships”. Along the way, Dr. Keith also has deepened awareness of many dimensions of the human's higher, universal nature and the ongoing evolution of consciousness. Among his insights, professional and personal:If we feel shame, return to the core value and either follow it, discard it, or modify and grow it to better fit what we believe is beautiful, good and true in the present moment. This is how moral systems grow.Research shows that having a secure primary relationship — taking care of your friendship and your love affair, resolving issues with each other — leads to the happiest, healthiest humans and families.In revealing the power of belief, research shows that the form of treatment isn't as crucial as the therapist or practitioner doing something they believe in; clients or patients get healthier.Is there a spiritual impulse in teaching or therapy? To the extent you understand the secrets of the universe, and don't share them, you suffer. It's distressing not to share what we believe to be effective.Attunement is the organizing principle; it's being aware with acceptance and caring intent, first of ourselves — our breath, sensations, emotion, thoughts, judgment and desire.Fields exist outside of us that send flashes of insight through dreams and ideas. We access them when we surrender ourselves to service and to the beautiful, good and true.This conversation is part of the continuing Portals discovery into what is emerging on the frontiers of human experience in this time of profound change. Information about upcoming special events can be found on the Events page. Also visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel. TWEETABLE QUOTES “And weirdly, having a deep understanding of people's interiors makes you a better martial artist. Martial artists are very peaceful. It would require an awful lot to have me do violence to another person. So they're complementary systems.” (Dr. Keith Witt) “I enjoy teaching, and when I taught, people really enjoyed hearing about it, which was very gratifying. Some of it was just ego. But most of it wasn't. Most of it was that to the extent you understand the secrets of the universe and don't share them, you suffer. I was distressed about not sharing this stuff.” (Dr. Keith Witt) “If you reverse engineer our success with each other it tracks with the best social research that's been done on this which is by John Gottman and his group up in Seattle. It's pretty straightforward. You know a couple who cherish each other and are grateful for each other tend to do great. If they cherish each other and are grateful for each other and they put attention into their friendship and their love affair, intention into their friendship and their love affair, and then their ability to resolve and to heal injuries - they do great. They are the masters of intimacy, and they describe themselves as happy and they're happier and they're healthier.” (Dr. Keith Witt) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteDr. Keith's Website

Layman sits down with Aviv Shahar, host of the Portals of Perception, to explore his attempt at charting a grounded esoteric path that grows beyond our integrative metamodels.

Is it a big stretch to think of struggling with trauma as part of a hero's journey? Or is it integral for the hero's transformation? How do we metabolize feeling weak or diminished by fear, anxiety and pain from traumatic events that at times can seem beyond our ability to cope? What if we understood that even the willingness to face a trauma will stimulate the parts of the brain responsible for resilience and, over time, build strength and courage? Advances in neuroscience have shed light on some of the brain's hidden functions in times of pain and trauma, and the resulting influences on our responses and behavior. Moving through the phases of healing trauma is what builds the road to our eventual transformation. We apply emerging new wisdom and strength to reconcile and reshape our experiences with trauma, and perhaps inspire others on their own healing odyssey. A real hero's journey. Unraveling the nature of trauma and its healing is the focus of this conversation between Aviv Shahar and Dr. Keith Witt, an internationally known integral psychotherapist, teacher and author of 15 books. Keith has conducted over 70,000 therapy sessions, written hundreds of blog posts, and appeared on numerous podcasts, including his own, The Shrink and The Pundit, and Witt & Wisdom.Among their insights:Conventional wisdom has been we're all born equal and then the environment shapes us. Research has proved that to be entirely and dramatically wrong.Trauma is a natural part of the experience of life; it's completely integral to the development journey. There are ways to work with trauma to facilitate our growth.A human being accessing their inherent “superpowers” to love and grow will get better, become more loving, and grow on whatever line they're investing in. That's the gift of consciousness.Once you lie to yourself, you do violence to yourself; you lie to somebody else, you do violence to another person. That's not real compassion; it's a defensive state masquerading as compassion.The essence of trauma learning has been being a victim and not having power. The essence of resilience is having agency, and living as if the rest of humanity are your companions, not your enemies.The culture is self-organizing away from comprehensive communication and towards confrontation. But conversation produces progress and solves problems.I am hopeful about humanity because all across the world people are dialed in, not just to spirituality, but also science, and to vast networks of incredible help and resources. It's a great time to be alive.This conversation is part of the continuing Portals discovery into what is emerging on the frontiers of human experience in this time of profound change. Information about upcoming special events can be found on the Events page. Also visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel. TWEETABLE QUOTES “Anybody who does psychotherapy works with trauma, and there's been wonderful systems generated in the last 30 years for treating trauma, normalizing it, studying it, and so on. There's been a lot of neurobiology research, and I study a lot. It's one of the pleasures of my life to study systems, and I practice a lot of therapy, and I realized that the field didn't realize that trauma work proceeds through four stages. People intuitively understood it. If you talk to anybody in the field, say, Bessel van der Kolk or Francine Shapiro, some of those people if you teased it out, they would basically end up talking about these four stages, and I felt like an integral understanding of those four stages was important for psychotherapists because the principles are different in different stages.” (Dr. Keith Witt) “So, when you are practicing awareness with acceptance and caring intent for your interior experience, you're activating circuits in your frontal cortex, particularly your right frontal cortex, that are self-regulatory circuits. If you do that daily for a month, stem cells will divide into daughter cells and become integrative neurons that hardwire self-regulatory circuits from the front of the cerebral cortex back to the amygdala and hippocampus. So, all contemplative work creates the neural territory to be able to self-regulate. That's an important central feature of many systems.” (Dr. Keith Witt) “Dialed in means I feel comfortable in my life; I feel in charge of doing what I need to do; I feel confident and competent; I feel like my life works for me and I work for my life. My relationships are working for me, and so on. It's just that I'm in harmony with my life dialed in, integral mindfulness.” (Dr. Keith Witt) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteDr. Keith's Website

Isn't it curious the only species on the planet that appears concerned about or pursues the notion of “wholeness” is the human? Other highly intelligent and social animals — such as dolphins and elephants — show no evidence of feeling an inner fragmentation, separation from purpose, or impulse to connect with a source of higher intelligence. The comparison might be a bit humorous, but it's a uniquely human feeling to have somehow become separated from the regenerative and creative forces that should naturally flow through and connect us with each other, the planet, and cosmos. Defining wholeness is a challenge: integrating mind and body? The physical and spiritual? The personal and the universal? Or is it found in being joined to something greater? Why is a feeling of separation so common? Perhaps it's the accumulated pain and trauma, personal and collective; technology in many forms replacing human faculties and intimacy; an education system that churns out interchangeable parts for vast economic engines, instead of naturally aware and aligned human beings. In this conversation, we explore these inquiries and more. Aviv Shahar is joined by two next-gen leaders pioneering practical tools and assistance for creating less fragmented lives. Jenn Reilly founded Raising Wholeness, a new paradigm for parenting in wholeness, and Forrest Wilson, co-founder of Light in Action, an “incubator for consciousness” supporting projects and passion on the journey of wholeness.Among their insights:Permission was unlocked in the scientific revolution to separate and favor the exterior objective measure over interior forms of knowing. We need to reintegrate and become whole in ourselves. We're being initiated to give birth to the more universal potential of human life, which says all that happened until now was childhood and youth; we're just reaching adulthood in the universe. In these practical endeavors is the communal and network effect of more people and communities connecting and plugging and playing in the spaces of wholeness. Education is creating ecosystems for happy, healthy and fulfilled human beings to thrive, to cultivate their curiosities, to pursue their passions, creating a more beautiful life. By evolving and developing yourself, you become the best role model for your child. There is something new in the universe birthing itself through us, needing to emerge through the struggle of this time, through contradiction, through being triggered with your child.This conversation is part of the continuing Portals discovery into what is emerging on the frontiers of human experience in this time of profound change. Information about upcoming special events can be found on the Events page. Also visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel.TWEETABLE QUOTES “There's the pieces of just how we're showing up and then there's also I feel the implications of how we were conditioned and raised in our culture, our society, and even in our home unit and the ways that we are born whole, born into this beautiful being, and in the ways that we've been fragmented through trauma, through just seeking attention, seeking acceptance and we cut off parts of ourselves and there are so many different layers to how that's happening in our consciousness.” (Jenn) “So if you look at conventional reality, if anyone is familiar with startup incubators, what we did was, my business partners and I created an incubator for people who are pursuing the path to wholeness, who are on the journey to wholeness and in that journey to wholeness they have a project, a purpose project, a passion project, and a way that supports themselves financially. That is cohesiveness in the being and becoming a more whole journey.” (Forrest) “The moment we realize our sapiens - ness, we step through into homo universalis. But I wonder personally if that doesn't necessarily, since we are interconnected and nothing is separate in the whole, that does not necessarily cause an upshift for all other species on the planet in the universe, and so what I wonder is that when you speak about the oak tree, when you speak about the other animals in the world, we're the only organism that orients this way.” (Aviv) “I guess just one thing that's still alive in me is that there is something around what Forrest was saying that developmental lens and understanding exactly... Because there's the piece of how we are supporting different developmental stages and that awareness, having that knowledge in your pocket as a parent is so relieving. It is so relieving to know that the three-year-old is still building the neural pathways to hold multiple emotions at the same time.” (Jenn) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteRaising WholenessLight in Action

Many of us are getting robbed every day, whether we know it or not. We just may be robbing ourselves, too, without fully understanding the consequences of our behavior. It could be through ignorance, lack of attention, or bad decisions. Whatever the cause, we're getting robbed of the very energy that enables good health, inspiration, and possibility of higher connection, all to the detriment of our physical, emotional, and mental wellbeing. What do we mean? Throughout Portals we explore the energetic nature of human life: our physical systems, mind and body balance, creativity, and natural connections to higher intelligence and expanding awareness, all depend on different levels and natures of energy. Every feeling, idea, and thinking pattern carries energetic potential; we are continually generating or consuming energy from internal and external sources. But what quality of energy? Nourishing or depleting, toxic or regenerative, we can choose. In the latest chapter of the Portals series “Current Openings: What the World Doesn't Quite Get Yet”, Aviv Shahar and David Price Francis guide us through a deeper look at our energetic nature and the five basic fuels we use to generate energy. They explore the various energy ‘robbers' that can leave us susceptible to imbalance and ill health.We live between two worlds: the visible and matter; and the invisible and energy. We need to understand both, and the purpose or direction in which we travel in both worlds. These core self-insights — how to manage our energy, our cycles, our emotions — ought to be part of the knowledge of a life, but are usually left out of education. As the size of the energy problem and challenge grows, new energy potentials and energy sources are coming online to help us re-naturalize to planetary and universal frequencies. The invitation is to reground in our natural system; to become more aware of how we consume each of the five basic types of energy and become more intelligent about the value of sleep. It's the predicament of being addicted to the easy fast solution, easy fast food, easy fast energy sources. We develop our willpower by growing our will not power — what we say ‘no' to. It expands what we can say ‘yes' to, and uses our energies in a more purposeful way.This conversation is part of the continuing Portals discovery into what is emerging on the frontiers of human experience in this time of profound change. Information about upcoming special events can be found on the Events page. Also visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel.TWEETABLE QUOTES “My understanding of the word ‘ education ' in its origin is that it comes from the Latin word "educare," which apparently means to lead out from inside. ” ( David ) “Well, I think beginning today because it's always beginning in the now, what do we call a human with no energy? But I thought of a dead body. That's what a human is — without any energy whatsoever — and even then, there's a process of decomposition that causes certain kinds of energies to leave. So we compose and we decompose as human beings, right? But for a human being with no energy input, you can say the closest thing to it is a coma. But when you go beyond that stage, we move into the process we call death. So death is the departure of the energies that keep us alive. ” (David) “If somebody drinks polluted liquid over a period of time, they're going to disrupt their system through the liquid food. If someone starves themselves of oxygen, or if you've taken yourself too far away from a source of full spectrum lighting, that's where in the northern climates now they have special light boxes to emit full spectrum lighting that they found brings greater harmony and benefit to the human system. So we can cause that erosion and fragmentation through environmental reasons. ” (David) “So I think of the idea of the ‘ Sun Salutation ' in yoga; it's not a posture, although it is as well, but it's the idea of going out into the sun, being in the sunshine, and getting nutrients from the sun. So this would be structuring our lives for maximal nutrition at four levels, and then in the fifth level, it will be being aware of what we're introducing ourselves to. So something about our eyes - it's very interesting.” (David) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteEnergy Worlds

What is the power of a motivating purpose in one's life? What happens when our chosen purpose seems to run out? What do we do when the expected fulfillment at the high point of a career or other life quest feels empty, less thrilling, than anticipated? How do you recalibrate when the change you worked so hard to catalyze has a timeline that doesn't match our expectations? For example, consider what we call the corporate refugees, executives who ticked all the right boxes, made the money, but still find something missing; or veteran change makers and leaders, who might wonder if their driving energy has been used up or burned out. How can any one of us, at any stage in our lives, discover a sense of renewal that propels us forward in harmony with an evolving world and universe?In this conversation, Aviv Shahar explores the many levels and expressions of human purpose with Holly Woods, author, consultant, transformation leader and founder of the Emergence Institute. Holly works directly with people from all paths and levels of accomplishment to discover and re-enliven their purpose and passion. She generously uses her own journey of success and shadow to illuminate a life of self-discovery and change. Among their insights:Living ‘on purpose' is to look squarely at your greatest sorrows and joys, find the connection between them over time, and see they are flip sides of the same coin. Neither is right or wrong; both illuminate who you really are.Many leaders in the transformational arena spend their lives looking, unconsciously, for the next inspiration but are afraid to move out of their existing structures.Enlightenment isn't a destination. We are in an epochal shift with an evolving story; we are forever pushing the void, the frontier, in an on-the-move realization.A form of burnout is doing something in a similar way consistently over time; when the world shifts and it no longer works, we don't know how to adapt.Veteran changemakers will struggle in a transition as their world shifts: they've gained perspective, but their capacity hasn't expanded; another version of themselves wants to emerge.Next-gen leaders can grow impatient with the pace of change, and the impatience can be externalized as righteousness. It's also the impatience of a person with themselves.This conversation is part of the continuing Portals discovery into what is emerging on the frontiers of human experience in this time of profound change. Information about upcoming special events can be found on the Events page. Also visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel.TWEETABLE QUOTES “It's the belief that has haunted us: that we are individuals making our way through work and effort, and that sort of linear cause-and-effect mechanistic version of life separates us from the whole and limits our ability to work with on behalf of and in receipt of the energy that's available to us.” (Holly) “Very important point, and the fulfillment that comes earlier in life when in earlier stages of human development is more concrete, more real-world material world items, and then we move into more intellectual social expectations, and then at some point as we're developing as humans, we gain capacity to see beyond those things, and it becomes more about the internal fulfillment. So earlier fulfillment is usually related being externally oriented, with their family culture, community, corporate, and peer group expectations about what success looks like, and generally, we think of being fulfilled when I've achieved those expectations, so it is a very different kind of fulfillment, and when we wake up to what's inside of us, our internal milieu, we say, ‘ Oh, there's something I'm missing; I'm maybe happy sometimes, but I don't have joy. I don't have a life force; it's missing from me, ' and when people wake up, they really have a deep desire and longing for that, and I can speak more about what the longing actually is, but it's really at a later stage of development.” (Holly) “Sometimes they have successful businesses, sometimes not, and sometimes they come to me after they've been struggling for a long time. But not always; sometimes they're in the middle of their business and it's going well, and they scaled, and they're like, "Oh, I have all these things going, but it doesn't mean anything to me anymore.” They're kind of a mix of the other two categories. They often have figured out how to be successful in the material world.” (Holly ) “I used to tell my clients, ‘ We're going to do these things, we're going to discover your purpose, we're going to do shadow work, and then it's going to be like magic. ' I didn't even know how to explain it. I don't know what happens, but it just does, and it is magic. It shows up a lot, and now I understand it more fully. So, synchronicity is a huge part of my work, and I now understand it, and it really is alignment, which means that discovery through the shadow work helps resolve become clearer and more free of those limitations and constrictions, and then taking small steps into the world to invite in opportunities and, boom, it shows up. It still feels like magic. But I now understand fully how to create that opportunity for my clients. So, it is synchronistic for the vast majority of my clients. We get to a place, and there's usually a session where something happens there, like all kinds of awareness has happened, and then people in other places start showing up.” (Holly) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteEmergence Institute

We're about to get a close-up look at how a creative and successful business leader is using his remarkable experience and passion to transform the civic and business landscape. It's the latest chapter in an accomplished life dedicated to creating positive change in diverse communities. In his 22-year career at Microsoft, Robbie Bach led the creation and development of Xbox, the highly popular and successful video gaming system, in addition to other critical creative and leadership roles. In 2015 he published his first book, Xbox Revisited: A Game Plan for Corporate and Civic Renewal, and in 2021 he published his first novel, The Wilkes Insurrection. Robbie continues his leadership as consultant, catalyst, and speaker to civic, corporate, and university communities. In this conversation with Aviv Shahar, Robbie describes his current endeavors as “civic engineering,” the work we do every day to improve and transform our communities. He traces his personal journey from corporate leader to bridge builder — bringing together polarized political leaders in Washington, D.C., by creating new opportunities for working together. Robbie has an insider's perspective on the role of technology and media in culture and communities, and is open about the religious faith that helps shape his worldview. Robbi e shares with Aviv some of his insights and advice, including:The American experiment is about the middle — the bell curve. When the bell curve gets torn apart by extremes and polarities, we've got a problem.My generation has to take accountability for allowing this cynicism to seep into our society through lack of strong leadership. We are handing the next generation a world in a not very good situation.I look to people in their 20s, 30s, and 40s, and say it's going to be your world. If the environment is going to be fixed and we can still keep the lights on, you have to figure out how to do that.Grace is recognizing what's going on around us, what's happening to us, and knowing there have been purpose and achievement along the way; then being grateful for the good and the bad that have shaped our lives.If you're dealing with anxiety, find a way to talk about it and turn it into something productive; find a friend, a counselor, a coach, a spouse, whoever it is; don't be shy about asking for help.The ability to overcome is one of the most important character traits people can develop.Tragedy is a place where we learn and grow; it's where we triumph. It's where we figure ourselves out. It's where we say, Who am I? What am I doing?Take the long road, have a plan, and then know it's going to change and be excited about it. You might have to zag a bit to be successful or get started, but that's okay.This conversation is part of the continuing Portals discovery into what is emerging on the frontiers of human experience in this time of profound change. Information about upcoming special events can be found on the Events page. Also visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel.TWEETABLE QUOTES “The other thing that I think has changed is the whole context of media. I'll say, in particular, social media, but broadcast media has fallen into the same trap, where all of our leaders feel like they're on 24/7. And the problem with that a) God knows who wants to live that life, that's a separate problem. But the bigger problem with that is, if you're on 24/7, in that world, you're constantly trying to make political points. And the fact is, when you got most of these people away from the cameras and away from the keyboard, they're actually pretty reasonable people.” (Robbie) “When I talk at universities, I do a lot of guest lecturing. And usually, that's business strategy, leadership, the things that you know, come from my Microsoft and Xbox experience. But I always at the end, talked about three things. I talked about faith, I talked about perseverance. And I talked about serendipity.” (Robbie) “In a dialogue, we're one of the characters here of the words, we must all overcome our fear. We must proclaim the true meaning of Islam. We must make people understand that Islam means peace. And she says, I may not practice all aspects of Islam, but it forms the fabric of my principles and beliefs. It shapes who I am and how I care for others. Islam is a faith-based in modesty, forgiveness, tolerance, and morality. So when I read this, in this paragraph, you obviously you've had to find the sense of empathy and embrace of otherness.” (Robbie) “ You know, in the middle of summer, there's not a lot of change going on. Things are sort of green, the weather sort of is what it is, and you're sort of waiting for something to happen in winter. Look, something new is going to come from this. The question is, do we see the opportunity to shape it or not? If we just let it happen, what will come may not be to our like, if we see it as an opportunity, we can shape it and turn it into something that is to our liking. That is wonderful. And that gives us the ability for that next generation that I was talking about to have a really fruitful and intentional adventure.” (Robbie) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteRobbie Bach

In many Portals conversations we explore the nature of the emerging new universal possibility not as a separate and distant change, but as a living reality — an uplifting evolutionary impulse that can transform lives, communities and our planetary ecology. Especially in a time of political and environmental upheaval, how do we discover and more fully engage with the real potential of personal and collective transformation? What is the nature of leadership in a transformational journey of people and communities whose vision is to co-create a positive, sustainable future for humanity and the planet? In this conversation we get a deeper look at the kind of leadership that can facilitate emerging universal change and transformation. Aviv Shahar is joined by Geoff Fitch and Abigail Lynam, from Pacific Integral and Generating Transformative Change (GTC) North America. Jeff and Abigail recount their personal journeys of change and growth, and many years of leading the transformational experience of groups and individuals on three continents.Among their insights and learnings:My greatest fear became my greatest opening.If we don't do anything, we don't make mistakes. So the idea is to create more and better mistakes; new mistakes, rather than repeating the old ones.Humanity is in the midst of a profound period of change; the opportunity of our time requires us to embrace universal human values, ethical action, and engage our evolutionary potential.Unless we find a better way to engage generational resources, wisdom, and collaboration, our chances of meeting som e of the difficult challenges are dramatically reduced.It's how individuals can show up in the development of the collective; we can bring our greatest potential and fullest selves to hold a space of leadership for when it's our time.What makes this poss ible is we all have gifts and blind spots; we're all on our own evolutionary journey. We're whole and beautiful as we are – and we're ready.This conversation is part of the continuing Portals discovery into what is emerging on the frontiers of human experience in this time of profound change. Information about upcoming special events can be found on the Events page. Also visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel.TWEETABLE QUOTES “There have been dozens of people involved in developing and facilitating the program over the years and we are a community of practice. So we've been in the heat of it. It's not us coming from a place of, oh, we figured it out and now we're going to lay it out for you. We are in the practice ourselves and have been since the very beginning and in deep collected process.” (Geoff) “The thing I wanted to add to what you're speaking to Geo ff is one of the ways to hold the work is to say it's about being in relationship with ourselves, who we are and who we're becoming in relationship with one another.” (Abigail) “So one of the projections that we have about later stages of development is that there's somehow more mature, more whole, more complete. But one of my little tricks for counteracting that idealization, they're also more immature, you know, in a way, the most mature stage that we have is baby. It's like you, when you're born, you already know, you're an expert baby, you have it completely nailed, right. As you progress, you learn and grow.” (Abigail) “If you're accessing later stages of consciousness at an earlier age, sometimes that can mean that there are other aspects of the self that aren't as fully robust. And so how to support this sort of widening or growing out into the spaces that the self already has access to, how to stabilize, and how to integrate and work with the parts of ourselves that are less mature, is one of the challenges that we've witnessed.” (Abigail) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteA Community Of Leaders GTCPacific Integral

In many Portals conversations we explore the nature and meaning of what some people describe as expanded or greater consciousness — experiencing directly higher levels of intelligence and creativity than are ordinarily accessible through physical senses; connecting and communing with the universal source of cosmic or divine inspiration and purpose. The paths through history to expanded awareness or deeper levels of spiritual awakening are almost as varied as humans themselves: meditation and spiritual practices; physical ecstasy; hypnosis, and mind-altering substances found in nature or the laboratory. In this conversation, we follow the unique journey of awakening and transformation of Professor Christopher M. Bache, who explored the nature of consciousness through the clinical use of LSD in a 20-year study. Chris chronicles his experiences, perceptions, and thoughts about the future of humanity in his book LSD and The Mind of the Universe: Diamonds from Heaven. Chris currently is professor emeritus in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Youngstown State University. Chris and Aviv Shahar take a deeper look at the premise of an intelligent and purposeful universe that actually seeks communion with the human species, and the moment of peril now facing humanity and the planet. Among their insights:Our entire species and the development of this planet, in this solar system, in this galaxy, are all part of an exquisite purposeful systematic unfolding of this creative intelligence. The universe wants altered human consciousness to permeate all levels of physical reality so it can experience us in a richer, higher fidelity, higher quality, kind of way. There are no victims here, only saints and volunteers who have chosen to participate in the historic transformation of this time. Every person here deserves our respect. Spiritual visionaries of different lineages come to the same conclusion: evolution is speeding up, and humanity is at a pivot point of instability; we grow up, or probably go extinct. We have entered a phase of collective awakening; we may be able to go through an accelerated journey in one lifetime if we engage and participate in the evolutionary process. We generate energy by making choices, and the universe responds to the energy. In complex and subtle ways, we are always creating our own experiences.This conversation is part of the continuing Portals discovery into what is emerging on the frontiers of human experience in this time of profound change. Information about upcoming special events can be found on the Events page. Also visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel.TWEETABLE QUOTES “What I found is that by dissolving into the deeper levels of my own mind, I opened beyond my own personal existence into the mind of the universe itself, and in that process repeated over and over again through many years.” (Chris) “How you use that amplified consciousness, how you care for it, how you protect it, how you isolate it, how you internalize it, how you meditate with it, and how you engage your mind during those hours of hypersensitivity is what determines the quality of the perception that emerges from that dialogue.” (Chris) “I want to be careful, and I want to remind us that a finite mind does as best it can to give cognitive structure to transcendent experiences. So what I'm about to describe is, in terms of justice, a splitting of the Divine Principle into two halves: a male half that stays outside of time and space in a transcendent position, and a female half that begins the process of manifesting time and space in the entire physical cosmos.” (Chris) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteThe Mind of the Universe Diamonds From HeavenChrisBache

Most of us would probably agree that our brains and minds are restless: continually consuming (unless we're asleep) vast amounts of data and information from limitless sources, sometimes of dubious quality, a behavior that is often the direct result of how we programmed ourselves to think. They usually run on automatic pilot, craving a high-calorie diet of constant stimulation. We know our body and physical systems will suffer from a diet too rich in the wrong kinds of calories and energy. So too our brain, mind, and higher faculties can't function near their natural capacity and ability on a diet of ‘junk food' — knowledge with potent energetic content that can supercharge the brain, but leave the rest of our systems deprived of real mental and spiritual nourishment. Our freedom of choice as human beings means we are free to fill our minds with toxic and self-destructive patterns and programs, or the knowledge and awareness that feed our natural intelligence and connections to greater universal possibilities. But how do we improve our mental diet? In the latest chapter of the Portals series “Current Openings: What the World Doesn't Quite Get Yet”, Aviv Shahar and David Price Francis explore the seven types of natural knowledge that nourish our mental activity and support change and personal growth. Among their insights:Unless we are able to source knowledge within ourselves, we are not going to be very good at loving and caring and being compassionate with other people. Only humans have a knowledge problem. Squirrels don't. Cats don't say “What's going to happen when I die?” Everything else in the planetary program is full and complete. There are addictions to foods that are bad for us physically, and similarly to ‘foods' bad for our mental diet, like when we get addicted to provocative headlines created to actually hijack our brains. Many may say that you cannot think of anything original, so why try? That's an abdication of the capacity to live into the fullness of our humaneness as a source of new discovery. We have privileged the telescope and microscope over and above the ‘energy scopes' of ourselves and our natural technology, sometimes with detrimental results. You can't find character-forming knowledge in any app online. How is a young person to realize this unless they are guided to discover their passion and build a character?This conversation builds on concepts and insights first explored in The Human Predicament and Planetary Program and The Addiction Trap. It is part of the continuing Portals discovery into what is emerging on the frontiers of human experience in this time of profound change. Information about upcoming special events can be found on the Events page. Also, visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel. TWEETABLE QUOTES “So the planetary program is an operating system that converts energy through a plethora of living forms, like the tree, squirrel and humans. And, within that, what we said was that the universal feature that enables that evolutionary capacity that we call program m ability that appears up and down the evolutionary track, then what it does is it really enables all that we see and that the brilliance of this universal innovation is how once a solution is developed, it becomes open source, that coded program is available for all forms of life.” (David)“If you want to be a person that is ready to discover flow, it means you will have to find what in you is stable and firm, like a rock and lead, that supports the power that wants to be in flow. You need to integrate these polarities if you want to be in flow. You need to be in another part of yourself, very firm. So that's the provocation we are making, that so much of what we stuff in our heads is truly dead knowledge. Because it is dead knowledge, it is deadening to our natural faculties rather than alive knowledge.” (David)“So there's that massive difference between the integration that experience brings and then purely mental knowledge, and I think a good example is that real experiential knowledge can be accessed and we can even have a complete life experience of it if it reappears in our presence. Like when a person has gone down for the third time, their life flashes in front of their eyes. What they Googled is probably not flashing in front of their eyes. The act of Googling something that will be there, but the actual mental reference is not hardwired in. So we get this ephemeral, we think we've experienced something, but really, we haven't, and that is a big loss.” (David) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's Website

* This conversation was recorded just a few weeks before the conversation The Emergence of Belonging took place. In several profound ways inquiries framed here are answered in the discoveries of The Emergence of Belonging.It shouldn't be surprising that with the cultural changes born of the pandemic, and the ecological crisis of climate change, there is a new passion for, simply put, finding new ways to live — creating ecologies that will support the kind of life we imagine is possible.It isn't easy; as intentional communities create their visions, they face familiar challenges: building a shared living space that respects an individual's passion and growth, while harmoniously supporting mutual values and mission. Surviving practically and financially, when the motivating energy isn't about making money.Easy, no. But there is renewed interest — perhaps an emerging global movement — in imagining new blueprints for collective living in this time of cultural and ecological upheaval. Current events poin t to the motivation: forced isolation during the pandemic; environmental catastrophe from the extraction and depletion of natural and human resources, and a deep intuition that we are due for and can bring about a constructive reset for humanity.What could new models for collaborative living look like? In this conversation, Aviv Shahar joins author, consultant and Emmy Award-winning documentary film director Tucker Walsh for a closer look at the rise of new intentional communities. Tucker's life - long interest in group and collective living has taken him to communities around the planet.Among their observations and insights:You will face the obstacles, challenges, and fault lines; the first being in the paradigm of the modern world where the question is, how will this project support itself?We are able to converge and cohere at the high idealistic aspect of what we imagine, but the breakdown occurs in the "middle spaces" of where we live our lives.These are people that on a deeply intimate level you know their shadow, their light, their stories, their traumas. This also creates a sense of safety.Could there be a community celebrating the miracle of life and living together in away that is ecologically and interpersonally sound? Something like an intentional village?How do we move past the interpersonal conflict? How can we show up and be of service as sovereign individuals that also recognize all of life is a relational process?A voice deep within my being is hungry to fall in love and fully serve and give mylife to something larger than myself. One way that can manifest is through community.Can we engage in a deliberative co-evolving endeavor that will include our desires today and our children's desires? Unless we do, we won't unlock our fullest and highest potential.This conversation is part of the continuing Portals discovery into what is emerging on the frontiers of human experience in this time of profound change. Information about upcoming special events can be found on the Events page. Also visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel.TWEETABLE QUOTES“So imagine waking up and hearing animals outside. You just wake up to nature. You have just direct immediate access to nature in a landscape that is not just a plot of land that you kind of clear cut and built your house next to, but you're actually living embedded in the actual nature, and there's a regenerative mindset that says, "This piece of land is my home and I want to leave it better than how I found it."” (Tucker)“There's a constant awareness and dialogue around trauma, around healing, around shadow work, around awakening. I just sense there are other ways of orienting in a shared collective with people who still feel that healing is an essential part of their daily lives and still feel that doing the work, so to speak, is a part of the work of life, but are here maybe to operate more from a place of service, more from a place of celebration, more from a place of actually healing the external systems and the larger society and the larger structures that are in need of service as well in addition to our ego structure in our psychological health. ” (Tucker)“The fact that we're alive in this moment even as we're dying is even more of a reason to celebrate, and there's a shift in consciousness that's happening around the existential crisis that's coming — I'm certainly not applying this as the only narrative or as a narrative that would work for everyone.” (Tucker)RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteThe New Intentional CommunitiesTucker Walsh Linktree

It's the kind of word we don't see or hear much anymore: valiant. And its siblings valor, fortitude, gallant, and heroic. Or sayings such as “They had the courage of their convictions.” They almost sound quaint and a bit old - fashioned, like chivalry. Is th e nature of valiance even a relevant consideration in a digital age?Yes, absolutely. It's actually easy to find people who believe that valiance, bravery, and determination are core values and virtues in a character formation that would lie at the heart o f a regenerative life. Valiance is part of the natural strength and resilience found in the t rue inner nature of all humans.In the face of global environmental and cultural crises, where people can live in fear for their fundamental safety and survival, v aliance is the living defiance, a connection to our higher self that allows healing and recovery. Consider a ring of valiance: a global network of people with shared value for a natural character of courage and fortitude, and the platform of possibility it would offer to a better future.In this conversation, several longtime Portals friends join Aviv Shahar for a bold exploration of the nature and place of valiance in this time of personal and collective transformation. Among their sentiments and perceptions:Valiance is the buoyancy of spirit that reclaims the power of choice. It helps resist the persuasions of history. Like using a smartphone, we can choose which applications we run.Imagine a huge ring of valiance spanning countries, races, and languages. These qualities are contagious from one person to another; you can inspire another human being to change.Practices that engender valiance include self-love and self-compassion, and basic gratitude to live in a world where we wake up every morning with the gift of consciousness and choice.Institutions that society has developed foster alienation, erecting larger and thicker walls because we don't trust each other. A ring of valiance enables us to feel safe and be our natural self with others.Valiance can help reset the basic biological response to better immunity by resisting compulsions that cause certain behavior. Valiance is a rejuvenation to the inner system.The privilege of human life is that it can, in the consciousness of its history, elevate its response before it's needed. But it must be in place and ready; thinking is slower than reacting.Personal choice is a key thread; we can choose to be whatever or whoever we want; what we want to stand for, support, or donate our time to.Logotherapy is the idea that at any point in time you may view yourself through the eyes of anyone you choose. It could be a deity, or someone else, like a parent or a child.It's the place where we may experience some of the finest sentiments and feelings of communion. If I say to myself "What is this place?" valiance is right there at the foundation.It's seeing friendship and companionship as priestly functions; it's in our human divinity to serve each other.One of the things we're most afraid of is the unknown, and our future is always unknown. If we can get over our fear, the future becomes an open refining possibility.This conversation is part of the continuing Portals discovery into what is emerging on the frontiers of human experience in this time of profound change. Information about upcoming special events can be found on the Events page. Also visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel.TWEETABLE QUOTES“I'm watching the current trends in the world, and I see that humans are not good. They do not behave well towards other humans. We have wars, we have mass shootings, we have all kinds of exploitation, and it's becoming obvious to me, however, at the same time, that the world cannot survive on its current trajectory of greed and exploitation, and people are starting to know this.” (Marianne)“In this world, strength is seen as a physical or external commodity. But I see that strength comes from what works through your life. Well, it is respect, trust, and without connection and usage of these things, we will fall apart as a society.” (Nigel)“I feel that we need to somehow move away from the way the world is governing itself at the moment into something that is more based on the natural purposes of life. This is a deep inquiry, clearly. But it 's almost like we need to press the reset button. You can press the reset button on a piece of equipment to sometimes take it back to it s factory setting. It's almost like we need to find the reset button that takes the human back to its factory setting.” (Well)RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteThe Ring of Valiance

Isn't it interesting that arguably the most connected, in touch and in tune generations ever, Gen Z and millennials — generally people born after 1980 — also report in some surveys feeling lonelier, with fewer close friends, than their older siblings or parents?Even in the digita l age of nonstop texts, tweets and saturation social media, technology alone won't kindle the warmth and depth of real human - to - human bonds. How then in our personal and collective journeys do we sustain the relationships often at the core of our wellbeing and emotional health — our friendships?Portals brought together a group of our international friends to explore their experience of friendship and its role in the happiness, health, and transformation of a life. They find companionship, acceptance, trust and love, yet also challenge, strength and the desire for us to be our best.The friends' conversation with Aviv Shahar reveals the inspiration and transformative power of friendship:True friendship is found not in holding each other back, but in setting each other free.Friendship comes through a look to caress, to swell up the beautiful things that I see around me and in another person; friendship can heal, soften, inspire and make things lighter and happier.Friendship is that immortal recognition and knowledge that I've witnessed you, and you have witnessed me; in that mutual recognition we have something shared that leads beyond time.Friends are there whether we're with them or not; it's a pact of reciprocal maintenance that allows something to build between people that's greater than either one alone.Friendship gathers something together, puts communities together, builds villages, builds camaraderie. It puts people together in a way that magnifies and makes them stronger.This conversation is part of the continuing Portals discovery into what is emerging on the frontiers of human experience in this time of profound change. Information about upcoming special events can be found on the Events page. Also visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel. TWEETABLE QUOTES“I remember having a friend a long time ago, and we used to develop a handshake together. And now it's a special handshake. We put our hands up, twist, jab, and I hadn't seen that person for about 19 years, and as soon as I saw him, guess what? We went together, and we did our special handshake. It hadn't died.” (Robbie)“So there's something magic about ol d friends I think and if you have an old friend that you can reconnect with that is a treasure. That is an absolute treasure. That being said there is a saying, isn't there? Make new friends and keep the old, for the new are silver and the old are gold. So new friends as well.” (Hanna)“One feature, one thing that sort of pops up in me when we talk about the essence of friendship... It makes me think of ginger. You know how you can find like an old knob of ginger and you're just about to throw it away and you're like "Hold on, let me just peel back and almost always at the core of it, it's fresh, full of its lifeforce, zest, and freshness,” so there's something about friendship that is like that's ever fresh with quite an energy to also refresh whoever in ingests it.” (Aud)“When I was young I was shown a demonstration of electricity and magnetism by way of a piece of paper with some iron filings and a magnet underneath, and when the person moved the magnet, the iron filings did a little dance, and that's always stayed with me that image because friendships like that, it's like a magnet and the more you do it, the stronger it gets and it makes people do the most extraordinary things.” (Robin)“I think everybody that's ever experienced some of what friendship has to offer can recognize it as a sacred space. A plasma of possibility and opening to realms that we only dream of, and I have a very strong sense that, at the moment, we only experience these intimate moments with special people that we call friends.”(Daniel)RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteHow to Be a Friend

It's familiar to hear athletes and artists talking about “being in the zone” during moments of peak performance — that feeling of total focus and attention that allows access to one's best and often a sense of greater awareness and capability. It's sometimes described as a feeling of somehow reaching beyond what we thought were our limits.What's remarkable in being “in the flow,” as it is also known, is a natural state of enhanced awareness, connection, and capacity that is always nearby, available to anyone as a source of new intelligence, creativity, and energy for all aspects of our lives and journey. We can also learn to better recognize the mental and energetic barriers that may be preventing a more frequent experience of true flow.In this conversation, Aviv Shahar is joined by three Portals friends — Dan Leahy, Catherine Johnson, and Leticia Nieto — who practice, facilitate, and increase awareness of the flow state in their personal and professional lives as educators, counselors, and therapists.Although difficult to explain or define in words, our flow friends explore ways to move closer to flow by warming up to the readiness of our bodies, minds, and ecology; by playing, role play or psychodrama; by stimulating our natural spontaneity. Their experience and perception of flow includes:- We can facilitate the release and liberation of whatever got arrested in historic or entrenched or limiting patterns through different approaches to creative work.- There were moments where the student's eyes lit up; it was like something showed up that wasn't in the model or the curriculum content. They were just present in some learning kind of way.- Play is what facilitates access; being stilted just makes it take longer. But flow is available all the time; it's not something we have to seek.- There is a novelty factor that emerges in the moment; we are experiencing an innovation, a new synaptic connection in the brain, part of the conductive release that occurs in the process.- The work is not to get rid of the problem or unnecessarily fully dismantle supremacy, but to lean into the rounder patterns of reclamation and resistance that have always been there.- In role playing we invite people to play a different script than the one they have in the moment in which they feel stilted, and flow is becoming more available.This conversation is part of the continuing Portals discovery into what is emerging on the frontiers of human experience in this time of profound change. Information about upcoming special events can be found on the Events page. Also visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel. TWEETABLE QUOTES“I think probably the most dramatic experience of that is that I know if I am paddling whitewater, you must find the path of least resistance and you must relax, even in the most frightening of moments. If you can relax, you can get through it, and that stays with me today.” (Catherine)“So I'm thinking about, for example, working with playback theater, which is one of the things that I do, when it's time to get ready for performance, different actors need different things. Some people need to go for a quiet walk, and some people need to meditate. Some people need to do vocal exercises. Different people may need different things, but they know what they need to be able to get up on a stage.” (Leticia)“Like for me, the words are a parallel process. I find myself really curious about how what's going on externally is also going on in my body, in my heart and soul. Is there some way we can see the complementarity or the intertwine, the weave in the moment? And then what's that like for us? I sort of ponder that. What shows up? What am I curious about? What might that open doors to, other reflections or other things we might play with? So that's what I have in terms of a response to the question.” (Dan)“We're throwing words like noodles on the wall and making meaning of something that's hard to language, but it can certainly be put the way you put it. I tend to think about flow as the ultimate fundamental truth. Flow, the pulse, the movement, the unified field of oneness is always there whether we are aware of it or not, and so when we surrender into it or tap into it or rest in it, then it allows us, or we have the possibility for being filled with that, or having that move through us in a way that is more tasty.” (Leticia)“I think of flow as being sacred, and who am I to try and speak for flow? So I'm wrestling with that. What does come to mind is the metaphor that's most working for me these last few years, which is the transition from caterpillar to cocoon to butterfly, particularly when the caterpillar is in the cocoon and is melting down, literally, and that in that process imaginal cells begin to emerge, which have the information of what's called for next. And at the process is one of the imaginal cells clumping. So I'm imaging that flow is saying, ‘clump, dammit.'” (Dan)RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteDancing in the FlowPortals YouTube

We know from recent conversations the path out of the addiction trap and other unhealthy habitual patterns leads to a life of better balance between the head and the heart, and closer natural alignment with the ways, energies and rhythms of the planet. But it's really just a start; the jo urney can go much deeper.Imagine a two - way conscious living exchange between the human being and the planet for the continual enhancement and benefit of both. It's part of what we could describe as the planet's operating system or program. The human (alon g with other organic life) is an integral player in a process and consciousness that are sometimes called reciprocal maintenance.A simple example is a tree. The roots pull in nourishment from the soil, while the leaves and photosynthesis absorb and conver t cosmic energy from the sun into other types of nourishment that support the tree's continued growth. The tree in turn cleans and balances the ecosystem in which it lives, to the benefit of organic life.For the human, aligning to the natural speeds, cycl es, and energies of the planet allows us to better sense our own finer inner systems and technology that, by design, connect to universal systems and intelligence, which we flow in mutual exchange with our host, the planet.Fortunately, we get more insight and understanding of this amazing process in this conversation between Aviv Shahar and David Price Francis, the latest in the series “Current Openings: What the World Doesn't Quite Get Yet.”When one life form takes over an ecology and breaks the equilibrium that allows for reciprocity, we have an ecosystem that is heading to collapse.Technology is the gift that keeps on giving, but it's also the thief that keeps on robbing. It's the agony and the ecstasy.The human ability to choose and superimpose life-affirming programs onto destructive programs may be the offramp technology to avoid a self-eliminating trajectory.It's mostly positive-thinking people who are doing damage on our planet right now. Positive thinking isn't enough; what are you positive thinking about?What is the precious currency of life in the universe? It's energy; we need energy to move things and facilitate change. We can say the universe is energy and energy is the universe.The brain, becoming programmed to run on toxic processes, shows how the same program that enables life is also what enables us to develop harmful habits and addictions.This conversation is part of the continuing Portals discovery into what is emerging on the frontiers of human experience in this time of profound change. Information about upcoming special events can be found on the Events page. Also visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel. TWEETABLE QUOTES“I realized something the other day, when I was out for a walk and there were cars coming by. And it dawned on me: I'm telling myself that I love the trees, and I'm looking at the trees. And then I realized in my life, in terms of the actual programming by what's visible, I have seen more cars than trees. So, although I might tell myself trees are the priority in my life, the reality of what I've seen and witnessed is that cars are much more populous in their numbers than trees.” (David)“Personally, I see astronomy and astrology as a mutual science. It's simply the physical and the energetic. So, when I go out to get a suntan that's astrology because I'm experiencing the energy of the sun. When I look out and I see the moon drawing the oceans, well, that's astronomy and astrology because you can see the effect of the moon pulling the ocean, it's amazing. That magnet is so powerful it pulls the entire Atlantic and Pacific Ocean toward itself. It also affects us when we get to the human. So, the tree is working with a planetary energy, and that planetary energy creates a program to receive other cosmic energies, including the energy from the sun.” (David)“Just like in organic life, the programs are already running. And then it seems that there's this leading edge of creation, and you're exemplifying right there, in which creation is trying to unders tand and talk about itself, and work out how it does things. And that makes me think about the human side of things. The human program by which we have got this two-stage program where we're on the one hand fully responsive, our body is fully responsive to the planetary program.” (David)“If we were like squirrels, cats, dogs, birds, trees, we would not have a predicament, we would simply be part of the planet's organic life. And we wouldn't have the extra ingredient of conscious choice. So what I'm getting at is we have a planetary program. And then our human predicament is, we can also run our own programs. So that's our extra ability, that's our super ability, that's our specialness.” (David)“A key feature and it's exactly what you say a key feature is that esoteric knowledge what makes it esoteric knowledge is that it's not intellectual, it's connected to energy vibration. So when someone is able to get closer to the truth of their experience, like in that moment, he experienced the truth, very facing truth. And it came through with an energy that caused him, it was literally a life changing moment. And certain truths connect to these energies that can suddenly send a surge.” (David)RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteCurrent Openings SeriesDavid Price Francis Energy Worlds

It's hard to watch the news without also seeing and feeling the pain of toxic and self-destructive behavior influencing so many lives, such as widening and lethal addictions and extremely polarizing ideas and actions.Addiction is a persistent and intense urge to use or do something that brings unhealthy negative consequences. Why do so many people struggle with addictive behavior? Why does humanity seem to be going collectively mad? What are the reasons for the extreme toxicity and polarization?This predicament and its root cause in the brain/body conundrum were introduced in our last edition of the series “Current Openings: What the World Doesn't Quite Get Yet.” In our new Current Openings, hosts Aviv Shahar and David Price Francis delve deeper into the mystery of the human brain and mind - and the pathways of transformation.As the conversation begins to reveal, the human brain is open-ended potential, capable of creating new circuitries and connections. It craves constant stimulation, the more the better, often to the detriment of our overall well being. Addiction to drugs and extreme behavior, as examples, can become familiar outcomes of brain dominance.Aviv and David trace the steps that began this conundrum, from thinking that true knowledge could best be sourced outside of self, to shutting down the intuition and natural human connection to universal intelligence and inspiration. They also highlight the steps back to a balanced, regenerative life, including:We have that second life in us which can select; we can use our human superpower, as I think of it, which is the ability to make conscious choice. We can actually intervene.Any deliberate journey must begin with appreciating the truth of where you are. Like being shown a map a big marker that says, ‘You are here'. Otherwise a map is useless.As our thoughts change, we actually make new pathways in our brain. We change our mind and we change our brain. We change the energetics, and that can change the pathways.The brain always seeks to find the higher octane energetic quality, especially when it is separated from the feedback loop of a well-balanced, well-orchestrated human life.Mindfulness is an attempt to get the brain back to be part of the body; although it is effective, it is not necessarily the smartest or the wisest way.The definition of insanity is doing more and more of what is not good for you, which is also the definition of addiction.This conversation is part of the continuing Portals discovery into what is emerging on the frontiers of human experience in this time of profound change. Information about upcoming special events can be found on the Events page. Also visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel. TWEETABLE QUOTES“I love looking at the etymology of words because they give us a trace through time. And pathology says to me, what's the study of the path that we take? Because the path is something you walk along; what's the path of the human race? What's the path of the individual? And it always gives rise to a pathology, because for every clockwise movement, there's always a counterclockwise movement. And they know this even in the study of pharmaceuticals.” (David)“We've now lived centuries in a system with the brain orientation and its desire for more and more and more exciting food, exciting energy, exciting stimulation, leading the way. And we now see this as normal.” (Aviv)“You can't clear toxic energy with toxic energy. So, it needs something cleaner and clearer. The word sanity is very interesting. I saw this once in New York, that a big truck went by and it said Sanitation Department. I thought, well, that's really interesting because what keeps us sane - and sane is the word sanitation - which has to do with cleaning. And with nutrition, we get the idea of eating foods, which we can assimilate good energy from.” ( David )“So our brain can actually be, I suppose, you could say angelic to our body. We're processing really high frequency, high level, high energy signals and raining that into our body. Then you've got mindfulness, human proposition stuff, but to me that's a mind that's full of a higher frequency. And that is a higher form of meditation. Mind emptiness is just stopping the toxic flow. So that we can also say the energy of the heart. That's where people say, I want to be heart-centered. Energy of the heart can come up into the mind.” (David)“So if we create an empty space, and don't actually then set about making new connections, most likely what happens is what was already there, comes back in. The person can actually bring in stuff that was lower than what was already there. But the purpose of that initial interim step, as you called it, is then to be able to take something and create a higher connection. That's where we get the traditions of such things as mantras, and call overs, and prayers to make a hierarchy action of some kind.” (David) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteCurrent Openings Live EventCurrent Openings SeriesDavid Price Francis Energy WorldsThe Addiction Trap

Welcome to the third conversation in a Portals series that is taking on a life of its own and leading us to deeper, more profound and sometimes surprising insights than we could have expected. “Current Openings — What the World Doesn't Quite Get Yet” is a new collaboration with David Price Francis, author, spiritual teacher and co - founder of Energy Worlds . David joins Aviv Shahar to explore what's appearing in the “current,” or flow, of new intelligence and evolutionary possibility emerging across humanity and the planet. The ease and depth of Aviv and David's first conversations have the nature of what is sometimes called a promissory grace — an extra measure of energy, inspiration and strength that boost the beginning of a purposeful endeavor. The grace, which some might see as beginners' luck or a higher blessing, carries the promise of ongoing enhancement in facing whatever challenges may arise on the journey.In Current Openings we explore ways to reconnect and re - naturalize to the higher intell igence, capabilities and creative power that should naturally flow through human life. It's relying less on digital technology for solutions to a world in multiple crises, and looking instead to activate our natural inner technology and capacity for true h ealing, growth and transformation.A few of David and Aviv's insights and ponders: The mystical is not truly about the escape from life but the embrace of the invisible potential of life; not escaping to fantasy but escaping to reality. An esoteric dimensi on is the bride and groom on their wedding night who receive promissory grace and permission to be rewired in the presence of the new union. Moving beyond the promissory grace means beginning to play with a greater grace of being joined to a greater purpose. There's enough new silicon technology in the world; we're focused on activating the internal carbon technology given to us as a promissory grace by creation. People today are largely occupied not by creating their future, but by multiple programs running in the background, most of which concern survival in a modern world. We're bombarded with how other people want us to think and believe. Part of the joy of working with natural laws is that they're not created by a human. We're not looking to give soluti ons, but to actually get all the way inside the real predicament facing humanity and have the solutions appear, connected to universal energies. Someone may say to me, well, do you think there may be aliens living on planet Earth? I've heard myself say, "Well, yes, and we're the aliens." This conversation is part of the continuing Portals discovery into what is emerging on the frontiers of human experience in this time of profound change. Information about upcoming special events can be found on the Events page. Also visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel. TWEETABLE QUOTES“We're not doing a short hop from point A to point B; we're actually doing a long - haul flight, and we're looking at this as a longer term not only for projects, but we're actually looking at it as a real journey to get to the esoteric truth of things.” ( David )“So, when it comes to just a brief comp arison with the rest of organic life, all other parts of organic life know fully what they are, and they fulfill their, I call it, their universal template.” ( David )“Your identity isn't based on one particular polarity or the other. You're able to use them like the right and left hand, and this is part of an ongoing development. I think of a kind of a being - human skill set.” ( David )“The internal abilities that we have, which we see flashes of in dynamics to do with surveillance, can do amazing memory feats or amazing mathematical feats. This is all part of the capability of our brains. If one person can do it, the potential is there. So, there are incredible abilities. The last unexplored continent is ourselves.” ( David )“So, we're in the process of helping ourselves and then helping others come closer to a current opening into the truth of our human situation. That's our endeavor, and the reality of that is to be discovered over the course of the current openings. But that's our endeavor.” ( David ) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's Websitehttps://energyworlds.com/https://portalsofperception.org/portals/current-openings-series/ 

Welcome to the second conversation in the new Portals series “Current Openings — What the World Doesn't Quite Get Yet.” It's a different approach to exploring what's appearing in the “current,” or flow, of new intelligence and evolutionary possibility washing across humanity and the planet.David Price Francis, author, spiritual teacher and co - founder of Energy Worlds , joins Aviv Shahar in the Current series, this time for a new perspective on natural laws — the universal principles and forces at play in every level o f life on this planet and throughout the cosmos. Natural laws are the invisible infrastructure and core energies that support and influence all human activity and future possibility.Consider duality: the law of opposites. Positive and negative; inhale and exhale; the planet's two poles. How do we embody the balance but also rise above it? Move forward while also escaping the pull of polarity. It's the same with all the laws: finding the harmony and consciousness that will liberate more of our innate capacity.With awareness of natural laws and their connection to universal processes, we are able to accelerate our personal development and become conscious contributors in the unfolding future of humanity and the planet.This wide - ranging conversation unveils new insights about living in harmony with the natural laws and their effect on human capacity for refinement and personal growth, including:We want to align with the natural laws to become conscious in our life and get better results in whatever space we operate in"Trinity consciousness" is the smart person who is neither red nor blue, conservative nor liberal, but moves from being bipolar to the third vector and works with bothThe ability to turn our back on something is a powerful part of life and dev elopment. The exhaustion of our negation capacity is a trigger for mental disordersThere's a natural law that governs how the planet receives and expresses universal energy through a seven - fold system; just look at a rainbowBeing conscious of the natural laws that govern our life enables us to participate in pulling the levers of our development rather than being played by the lawsEvery domain in life has an essence core that is surrounded by many layers and enclosures we must first penetrate to be admit ted to the coreBeing in harmony with the natural laws enables the esoteric musician to create music that can heal the pain of people in grief or inspire spiritual upliftThe alchemists were expressing a system of universal laws with what they called the a ngels: earth, water, air, and fire, and the fifth, essenceHumans have something special, like a superpower — the depth of the power we can access inside ourselves. The world might hypnotize the conscious brain, but our unconscious connects to the natural laws, which are universal in originThis conversation is part of the continuing Portals discovery into what is emerging on the frontiers of human experience in this time of profound change. Information about upcom ing special events can be found on the Events page. Also visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel. TWEETABLE QUOTES “I think with the esoteric comes another unders tanding, which is that we can only develop as human beings in accordance and in alignment with the workings of natural laws and principles. ” ( David )“So, humans have a certain perimeter within which we can gather and within which we can operate. If we choose to try and fly on our own using our own kind of equipment, unlike birds, we're not able. Now, we're clever. We have use of a very advanced brain, more so than anything else on the planet, I believe, and that therefore means that we can manipulate the laws. We can operate inside the laws to create machinery to then enable ourselves to operate within those laws.” ( David )“For every creation, there's a reaction; for every positive action, there's a reaction coming the other way. So, right now, if we look at, say, the realm of politics, we can see the same natural law, universal law, playing out mostly unconsciously. And this to me is the big feature, which is that human development works by becoming increasingly conscious of these laws and therefore being able to use them towards the development and growth purpose.” ( David )“So, being able to position oneself inside understanding that law of human life that we have the power of positive and negative, we could say we have the ability to accept things with one hand and deny them with the other.” ( David )“Yes, so in relationships there are definite laws by which relationships work. It seems to be like this random, do I love him or her? Do I not? Are we soulmates? Are we twin flames? You get it, all this stuff. And I tell folks, psychology usually governs astrology these days for multiple reasons I won't go into too much. But it's the wish at the end of the story instead of, they lived happily ever after. It should be, “...and then the work really started.” (David) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's Websitehttps://energyworlds.com/https://portalsofperception.org/portals/current-openings-series/

One of the most clear and compelling voices across the wide landscape of personal and collective transformation is Dr. Julie Krull , author, mentor, and radio host whose “superpowers” of consciousness and creativity bring new insight to the journey of wholeness and healing.Julie hosts the weekly radio program and podcast The Dr. Julie Show: All Things Connected. Her book Fractured Grace: How to Create Beauty, Peace, and Healing for Yourself and the World challenges an outdated worldview that has long fostered a sense of separation and fear among people and comm unities.Julie's passionate belief in connected consciousness embraces the core understanding that we are not separate from the creative intelligence that designed the universe. The imperative is to embody this conscious integration and co - create a future where humanity and the planet are both enhanced in a mutual destiny.In part one of a two - part conversation with Aviv Shahar, Julie reflects on the insights and new learnings that have emerged from radio show dialogues with thought leaders and other remark able guests from around the world, including:Healing means to make whole again, but we're not going back to something. We literally are healing and transforming forward to something newScience is showing us we're part of this universe; I'm going to say divinely creative — it brings science and spirituality back together. It's whole and unitive and can't be separatedEvery branch of science — cosmology, evolution, biology, consciousness studies, developmental psychology — converge and show how this false belief in separation created the world as we know it, and it's literally breaking downWe have this unified field of consciousness, and life emerges and materializes from this new understanding of information at the center of the universeImagine our definition of wholeness isn't mind, body, spirit anymore; it's understanding we are nested within whole living systems, within a whole living systemWe can trace the effects of five waves of transformation over the last 60 years, from New Age tribalism to intentional communities, the internet, and the new integration of the 2020sWe can see science and evolutionary biology, the environment, and spirituality rising and merging against a backdrop of the metamodern movement and the liminal webWe need to think bigger than we've ever thought beforeWhat would it be like to live so fully in a flow state that the Unified Field of Consciousness is our default, our preferred and normal, playground? This is the invitationAs I create greater coherence, and we create coherence together, we enter the miracle zone where what we can imagine is only the beginning, because we can't even imagine everything that's comingThis conversation is part of the continuing Portals discovery into what is emerging on the frontiers of human experience in this time of profound change. Information about upcom ing special events can be found on the Events page. Also visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel.TWEETABLE QUOTES“I think that the most important piece is that we do now have science, every branch of science. And looking at cosmology, evolution biology, con sciousness studies, developmental psychology, it's like all of them converge with the same story from all the different disciplines now and really showing how this false belief of separation created the world as we know it that's literally breaking down.” (Dr. Julie)“There's an imperative that we understand our wholeness in relation to a greater whole. So that if the whole planet isn't healthy, I can't be healthy, and so my health depends on living for the good of the whole.” (Dr. Julie)“I say the sky's not the limit anymore, the cosmos is the limit. When we begin saying what is possible, literally we need to think bigger than we've ever thought before, and so much of where we're at on the planet is about creating greater coherence among communities and holding, and I'm saying holding, you're right, we don't have to hold it anymore, but as I create greater coherence and we create coherence together, we enter that miracle zone so much more frequently and stay there.” (Dr. Julie)“I have a coaster over thre. There's this leap and the net will appear to leap and this step will appear, and now it's like okay, the steps are appearing for me and there's that embodied remembering, which is very different than before.” (Dr. Julie)“Energetically we know emotions feel different. We know what an angry tear feels like. We know what the tear of awe and beauty feels like, and we know what that sob of grief feels like, and so I love imagining that with our waters on the planet and how we can heal one another fr om that understanding and that wisdom of the waters being encoded like this, it's an amazing thing to ponder.” (Dr. Julie) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's Website

At times it may seem the more troubling features of our collective cultural experience — polarization, conflict, isolation — appear so intractable they are now to be expected as almost normalized behaviors of modern community life. They're not.Each one of us has the natural intelligence and creativity to transcend polarities with a greater perspective, transform the energy of conflict into resolution, and live an authentic life true to our self - chosen path, beliefs and values. At any time we can make a conscious decision that can alter our life, relationships and community.Fortunately, we also have tools and insights available to help explore the practice of what is known as authentic relating and creating deeper human connections. In this conversation, Aviv Shahar is joined by Jason Digges , artist, philosopher, teacher and author of Conflict = Energy. Jason is a global leader of the authentic relating movement.Aviv and Jason take a closer look at its origins and central ideas, and the many revealing stories in Jason's personal and professional journeys. Among their insights:Our empowerment comes from our ability to see the context that we're in and make a conscious decision: Do I want to do this? Do I want to play this game?When we come together and there is friction, we bump up against one another ― there's so much to learn. We need authe nticity and courage to lean into it.The foundation of authentic relating is taking multiple perspectives. We have a polarity of dignity, or my voice matters, and humility — listening to others. If either goes offline, we end up in posture or collapse.The se are simply tools you can use in every situation — to help you get in touch with yourself and create a space with others. That's why it's called authentic relating.The first person you need to become authentic with is yourself, or there isn't really any thing else.Capitalism is killing us; we don't need to abolish capitalism as an economic system, but stop capitalizing on people; stop looking at people as commodities.This conversation is part of the continuing Portals discovery into what is emerging on the frontiers of human experience in this time of profound change. Information about upcom ing special events can be found on the Events page. Also visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel. TWEETABLE QUOTES “You know, our interiors and the human potential movement were so interesting, and then, you know, psychedelics were outlawed, and there was this big swing back to the right in America in the 80s, and a much more conservative atmosphere.” (Jason)“The way I think of leadership is, I have a friend who does Equine Assisted Therapy on horses. Their energetic and emotional systems are so interesting because their hearts are five times bigger than ours. If you take your fist and like your heart is about this big, well their heart is five times as big as that and then the energetic field is actually that big and that strong and so horses are so energetically sensitive and if y ou have a talented equine therapist they can bring you into the paddy with, you know, this fenced in grassy area with a group of horses and they can point out these different dynamics and they can actually show you your own consciousness and your own energ y happening out there in their fields because they're so energetically sensitive.” (Jason)“There were 3000 groups happening in America that were all relational groups. They were all groups based on developing your authenticity and relational practice, li ke working it out together. Because when we come together and there is friction and we bump up against one another, there's so much to learn and what we need is authenticity and courage to lean into it, and then you know that relationship or the relational field of a group can teach us so much about how we're making meaning and doing developmental work, like, is there a higher way to make meaning? Right? So, relational practice really can accelerate development. It accelerates our emotional and social devel opment.” (Jason)“I believe that the foundation of authentically relating to you is taking multiple perspectives and polarity. So we have a polarity that we call dignity and humility, and dignity is my voice matters, and humility is the ability to listen to another person, and if either one of these things goes offline, we end up in posture or collapse.” (Jason)“You know that saying thank you and nice job is called politeness. It's called being cordial. It's actually not really investing in the relationship. They call it the relational capital between us, right? Saying thank you and nice job is like putting pennies in the piggy bank; it doesn't actually do much. But if you can notice a unique quality that this person is bringing to the community and acknowledge them for it, and even one step better, acknowledge them in front of the other people and now all of a sudden, what I'm doing is I'm taking this warmth in heart energy and I'm just spreading it around and I'm acknowledging you in a way that feels specific and unique.” (Jason) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's Website

Welcome to the first conversation in a new Portals series: “Current Openings — What the World Doesn't Quite Get Yet.” David Price Francis, author, spiritual teacher and co - founder of Energy Worlds, joins Aviv Shahar for this adventure. In the case of the title, “current” refers to the flow of energy that is part of the new evolutionary potential was hing through humanity and the planet.In this overture to what is to come, Aviv and David explore the intelligence and universal awareness appearing in this time of profound change - guided by the wisdom and perceptions of three Portals friends: the ‘teric' sisters — esoteric, mesoteric and exoteric.The sisters have much to show us as we journey away from an external exoteric worldview grounded in a shifting and chaotic landscape. It's where personal or collective change can even be viewed as a sign of consp iracy among unseen, unfriendly forces trying to shape our lives. While the elder esoteric sister gently points the way to a larger truth of the innate human connection to the highest levels of universal understanding, and potential for real transformation.Given the sometimes scary state of world affairs, how can we accelerate the perceptual journey from an unstable external reality to an inner knowing of limitless possibility and wellbeing?Among the questions and perceptions the world doesn't quite get yet:Any larger truth must be evidence - based in how the universe actually works — the logos or logic or natural laws pervading and animating the universeWith the psychological, does a person want to be more psycho or logical? Psyche is aligned to our personal bias, but logical is connecting to the original universal logosWe need to understand the role that energetics play in human behavior, human psychology.When two people come together, we literally pass ions backwards and forwardsThere is increasing evidence to support the journey toward the esoteric greater truth, which is a key difference between real esoteric core understanding and conspiratorial thinkingAs we get closer to the core, it actually gets simpler; no complex mathematical formulas as we head toward the esotericThe reason people sometimes are prone to explore conspiracies is because of feeling disenfranchised, or overwhelmed, or confused, or simply feeling their life is not in their controlThe moment a person asks the question ‘why?' is pote ntially the beginning of engaging the esoteric lifeWe're conduits or portals through which new perceptions pass, which means we don't flavor them; it's being transparent for realThis conversation is part of the continuing Portals discovery into what is emerging on the frontiers of human experience in this time of profound change. Information about upcom ing special events can be found on the Events page. Also visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel.TWEETABLE QUOTES“Typically, in relation to that the journey towards that esoteric core sister is the journey toward greater truth, as I see it, it totally fits with that idea of what is the truth of human existence? And something that goes with that, from my own experience, is there's increasing evidence to support it. To me, that's a big difference between real esoteric core matters and conspiratorial thinking.” (David) “Right so, I'd go with the name Portals of Perception on that one, which is that let's take the fact of us talking right now and both of us, this is something a person does have control of. It's like a person may feel disenfranchised, unempowered, and yet they can use their eyes to see. They can use their ears to hear. They can move their arms. They can move their legs mostly with a few exceptions. But we are in control of everything the universe gave us to be in control of. So, that's first principles, and I think of esoteric as first principles. It's like, why are our eyes placed as the highest holes in our heads? It's amazing.” (David) “People identifying with certain modalities, whatever they may be, and then claiming themselves to be a master of this or master of that, or I'm a trained avatar, I'm a trained I won't get into each name, not to be offensive, but people build identities upon certain practices. So, they'll say, well, I'll just give one actual example, ‘I'm a Reiki Master.' Well, just taking the word, what does Reiki mean, it means universal energy. Well, I've been at this forty years, and I would not claim to be a master of universal energy. It's a kind of an outrageous claim to make. And the person will say, well, it's just a brand. Well, the meaning is universal energy.” (David) “I love the word transparent. When you break it into two parts, it's a trans parent. So, a good parent gives the child roots and wings and gives them good grounding and the ability to fly, but they are their own person. They're not brought into the orbit of the parents, and the parents are saying, ‘This is what you're going to be' because the child has its own spiritual authenticity and power. So, transparent to me means new understanding comes in and we're able to then give the best translation we can of what's in that portal, which will never be 100%, but it will be our best attempt to do that.” (David) “So, the more we get to the esoteric, the less mass, which is very often also why there's less mass of people, but the closer to a more potentized energy.” (David) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's Websitehttps://energyworlds.com/ 

For almost as long as Homo Sapiens have been on the planet, humans have sensed and tried to commune with a mysterious presence registered as ‘something higher' – a power, energy, or intelligence bigger than ourselves. For early humans, it might simply have been fear of the power of nature; over time it evolved into a profound spiritual or religious quest to connect with a universal, divine source of life and change. Part of the heightened spirituality and new consciousness emerging in the past few years is the awareness that ‘something higher' is not ‘out there'; it's in here. The human mind, heart and spirit can transcend what previously might have been thought of as an inescapable duality of higher vs lower, of carnal vs spiritual. Join longtime Portals contributor, Jerry Pike, and Aviv Shahar as they explore the inspiration, insights and practices that propel them along the journey to the ‘something higher' in Entering the Higher. KEY TAKEAWAYS 02:41 – Aviv Shahar speaks to the deep crisis of the spirit that Humanity is experiencing04:10 – Aviv welcomes longtime Portal contributor Jerry Pike, who joins the show to share his decades of experience and his endeavors in the space of ‘Entering the Higher'16:18 – Framing ‘The Higher'21:07 – Why it is critical to attend to the higher potential of life28:32 – Jerry defines his belief of the Spiritual Arising31:21 – The search for truth and the connection between Science and Spirituality42:55 – Jerry expounds on the focusing practice of sentiments and feelings of higher states48:18 – Closing thoughts and insights from Aviv and Jerry TWEETABLE QUOTES “Humanity is concurrently experiencing a deep crisis of the spirit. And, the many crisis points that are underway, together they form what we describe as the ‘complexity wall' that creates the metacrisis. And these directly emanate out from and/or are byproducts of this sense of a deeper crisis of the spirit - that is to mean humans being separated from the natural sources that were meant to be part of everything we do in our relational and communal spaces.” (03:06) (Aviv)“Religion is a bit of a classic for saying, ‘There's a them and us. And we are lonely and something above us is high and we need to smarten up if we are to be acceptable to it.' But, I think just a quick run on the notion of ‘higher' compared to ‘low' and what it tends to mean. You see it all over the place in businesses where you get the person who deals with sales inquiries and then you get the person who is ‘higher up,' who is the Managing Director. Higher is all around us, and in us, and we have higher things in ourselves as well as lower things.” (09:51) (Jerry)“This idea of ‘The Higher,' in history, has always been external to people. I think we're entering a phase, this spiritual changeover, where instead of looking outside of ourselves for the enhancement that we seek, the change is that the enhancement is primarily available within.” (14:54) (Jerry)“Although this is not particularly talked about in the spiritual community, I feel obviously that it's there. We should be pursuing the truth and we should be pursuing reality, because I don't think that spirituality is just a ‘nice to have.' I think spirituality is the greater truth of what's going on with the human race.” (28:49) (Jerry)“Beliefs are just a stepping stone and we should be constantly assessing them to see if they're driving us towards a reality. So with the spiritual affair, I feel we're starting to realize there's levels beyond the physical that are more fascinating. And these are things like feelings, emotions, the instinct, the intuition, the ability to perceive consciousness itself...These are the things that move us and get us up in the morning and make us want to understand more.” (30:34) (Jerry)“I would say, for example, that one of the greatest faculties we have to explore the ‘higher' department is actually our feelings. It almost works better than our thoughts. Both are needed, but feelings are almost like unspoken intelligence.” (45:43) (Jerry) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteJerry's LinkedIn 

In this conversation, we take a deeper look at the experience of ‘Searing Moments,' the profoundly meaningful moments, positive or perhaps traumatic and painful, that may be influencing our behaviors and attitudes, and how we engage with life. Even with Searing Moments from early in life, we can decide and choose how we think about and write the experience into ourselves. We call it ‘the Practice of Searing Moments,' continually unfolding their meaning to a point where we rewrite and update their significance. Join Aviv Shahar as he and Jeff Vander Clute explore today's topic, Searing Moments and Their Transformational Power. KEY TAKEAWAYS 02:08 – Aviv Shahar welcomes Jeff Vander Clute, who joins the show to provide his insights and experience with Searing Moments and Their Transformational Power07:38 – Defining the term, ‘Searing Moments'16:12 – Aviv provides specific examples of Searing Moments from his life33:06 – Jeff speaks to the re-authoring process that is alive in his own life38:10 – The transformational power of Searing Moments45:00 – Emergent practices that are vital to Jeff's evolution, including: Awareness, Making Space, Embracing and Re-authoring52:59 – A stream of potential and two realization points of human history1:05:01 – Closing thoughts and insights from Aviv and Jeff, including Jeff's thoughts on the ‘healed and transformed world' TWEETABLE QUOTES “I'm seeing that the people I work with and know and relate with are seemingly slipping across this threshold into Heaven on Earth. Many people are experiencing this profound peace and  settling into true nature and the present moment without worry for the future or carrying the past into the present moment.” (03:48) (Jeff)“I can think of a few [Searing Moments] in my life. I imagine those who are listening may be reflecting on key instances of a transformative nature, be they painful or inspirational. I think what I'm drawn to is the updating or rewriting. It's the reinterpretation that becomes available with perspective, and hindsight, and additional life experience in service to unfolding the universal potential of human life. That's a major theme for me right now and for many others as well.” (15:22) (Jeff)“I now know there is a capacity in me to transfer to others the courage and the bravery to overcome frightening messages and scary moments; to melt, to thaw these experiences because what happens is scary moments tend to freeze us in time. The idea of a Searing Moment is to release that potential. And, once you release the potential, you actually unpack and unlock a tremendous healing permission in your own process, in your own experience.” (20:37) (Aviv)“The human has a capacity to bring to life any feeling, any sentiment, any energy, any presence you can imagine in the entire universe inside your space - inside your energy field. You have that complete freedom.” (26:52) (Aviv)“I was thinking back to the passing of my father and mother. I realized this morning that, yes, liberation was involved in both cases. It cleared the way for me to be me. It abruptly encouraged me to let go of the stories and the baggage that I had been carrying. I feel a great truth in the generosity of my parents in leaving the world so that I could flower. I am fairly certain it would not be possible for me to be now if the family energies had stayed in place the way they were.” (34:40) (Jeff)“There's one quality that I can share from my own experience of Heaven on Earth, which is that there's no emotional charge around anything. And I include the happy and the sad. There's joy. There's lots of joy. In fact, yesterday I got really clear that the infinite energy supply that I am connected to is this ocean of bliss rising. It's a bliss, but it's not a fleeting happiness.” (43:36)(Jeff)“A huge amount of energy that has gone into creating defensive structures - psychological ego- defenses, but also collective defenses at the level of nations - that energy doesn't have to be spent that way.” (1:03:34) (Jeff) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteJeff's LinkedIn

In the most recent Portals Virtual Event, Co-Creating Humanity's Future: Foray Three, a group of visionaries and searchers shared a profound new insight, that the natural inspiration and intelligence innate in all humans, our inner genius, is switched on, energized, accessible, and ready to play an active role in creating the way forward. The genius genie is out of the bottle. During this event, through contemplation and active dialogue, these visionary travelers uncover insights and new understandings about the unfolding next phase of evolution. These events are available on video at portalsofperception.org, which will give you the full sense of energy and excitement captured when a group of young and old gather together to discuss what is possible. Join Aviv as he invites Diego Garcia Schober, Stéphane Segatori, Ofer Dotan, Ari Levari, Forrest Wilson, Enrique Spacca, Lisa Marcus and more to explore Foray Three of Co-Creating Humanity's Future. KEY TAKEAWAYS 02:26 – Aviv Shahar welcomes the panel of guests, leads them in an exercise to create space, and walks them through the cadence and flow of today's exploration10:02 – Ari, Ofer, Diego, Forrest, Enrique, Stéphane, and Lisa share what comes alive in them when they think about the idea of making space for a brighter and wiser future to find us right here and now18:11 – The latent genius in all of us25:06 – Aviv weaves a contemplative story to unleash imagination and frame five themes about co-creating humanity's future44:02 – How each generation experiences new permissions51:24 – Conscious evolution57:47 – Closing thoughts and insights, especially from the feminine universe TWEETABLE QUOTES “Sometimes that brighter, wiser future doesn't always feel that accessible. And that's totally okay. I think that just in the crazy, chaotic lives we live it can be very easy to let that slip away And just the realization that, at any given moment, you may not have access to everything you want to have access to, but you can take small steps.” (12:13) (Ari)“One of the things I thought about was expectations. Because when the word ‘genius' shows up, you already think about the best geniuses the world has ever seen as our measure for genius. However, we should with the very basic simple things. Being a human is basically being a genius. The fact that a child at two or three years old learns to speak is an act of genius.” (24:06) (Avshalom)“What begins to come online is this sense that was available for the renowned philosophers even in the ancient world, but is now becoming available and activated for many more is that sense of the search for objective perception and fourth person perspective. By which we mean, ‘I see you. You see me. I see the way you see me. You see the way I see you. And we see each other seeing the way we each see each other. And then we step outside of that to see how we all look at something in the middle.' That activation, that permission, that broader capacity is coming online.” (34:21) (Ari)“When we talk about co-creating humanity's future, we are forever called to do two things at once. We are called to do the work of healing, and liberating, and absolving all the trauma that the human story has accumulated. And we're called to do the evolutionary work that unlocks the new emerging potential.” (39:43) (Aviv)“There was also an interesting insight about the new generations and children becoming more mature and charismatic and tasked with a function to offer a service in the world and maybe to share wisdom that is much beyond their age.” (46:01) (Kyriaki) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteOfer's LinkedIn Ari's LinkedIn Forrest's LinkedIn 

Co-Creating Humanity's Future is a big idea and a big premise. Yet, simply by being alive, we are, in a sense, creating the future. This series of Portals' Virtual Events was an invitation to be conscious, deliberate and purposeful in co-creating the future we want to see for humanity and the planet. In this conversation, we hear a diverse group of multi-generational voices and perspectives, stepping into the face of discovery. What cannot be captured on the podcast is the many faces, and expressions, and joy, and excitement captured in the videos on the website, portalsofperception.org. Join us for Part Two of Co-Creating Humanity's Future. KEY TAKEAWAYS 02:15 – Aviv Shahar reflects on the past year and a half to bridge previous discussions to today's topic, Co-Creating Humanity's Future, Part Two11:06 – The mission and purpose behind Portals of Perception17:08 – Ari, Ofer and Forrest discuss creating a space of discovery, building deep trust and surrendering to the improv dance of life27:47 – Aviv offers an inquiry on imagination and creativity34:23 – Practices and qualities that enable co-creation42:20 – A short story and poem46:27 – Aviv poses a final inquiry on ‘unlearning' to Ari, Ofer and Forrest TWEETABLE QUOTES “What we are proposing is that we are each, simply by being alive, are already co-creating humanity's future. We're simply making an invitation to be conscious and deliberate about the fact that we are co-creating humanity's future and, therefore, giving ourselves permission to be more intentional and purposeful about it.” (09:15) (Aviv)“I think, for me to engage in such conversations, it starts with my location. So there is much more neutrality and tuning into listening and noticing. From this noticing, recently what came up was a feeling of concern that, ‘Hey, this is not right.' I look around me and I see how I feel and something is not as it's meant to be. So there is a significant clarity involved. Clarity that is directed towards action.” (18:01) (Ofer)“For a beautiful, collaborative future to emerge, you really need to trust those you are engaging with.” (21:14) (Ari)“More and more recently I have been becoming profoundly aware of the linguistic mind's inability to comprehend reality. And letting go of the need to understand what the heck is going on and surrendering into the larger improv dance of life.” (26:07) (Forrest)“The biggest thing I'd offer, in my observation of life, is that the greater unlock is about becoming attractive for something else - call it a domain of intelligence - to imagine and create its possibility through your work.” (31:09) (Aviv)“Who knows what tomorrow brings? Will the stars shine, and will the birds sing? Can we be new and fresh again or will we be lost in history and pain? The future unsets. We feel it so. So, let's be fresh so it can grow. Our dreams of tomorrow are in the seeds of today. Will we be bright, or will it be gray? The life we've been given is such a gift. So, find the knack to make the shift. Not a future darkened by cloud, but one we can build, of which we can be proud. So, now's the time to rearrange, for us to make a necessary change. So come on now, let's send God a letter. Help us make the future better.” (43:43) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteOfer's LinkedIn Ari's LinkedIn Forrest's LinkedIn 

We are proposing that, from the beginning of time, when humans first realized that they were humans, we started to imagine the future. And right from the get-go, we discovered that we can plan, anticipate, respond to needs, and do whatever we can do to make the next hour, the next day, a little better. And so, Portals of Perception set out to create a series of events called ‘Co- Creating Humanity's Future. And so, today we want to introduce a certain question, which is, ‘What holds us back from imagining and creating the future?' Join Aviv Shahar as he welcomes Ofer Dotan, Ari Levari, Forrest Wilson, and Fionn Wright to engage in Foray One of Co-Creating Humanity's Future. KEY TAKEAWAYS 02:37 – Aviv Shahar welcomes Ofer Dotan, Ari Levari, Forrest Wilson and Fionn Wright to engage in Foray One of Co-Creating Humanity's Future10:58 – What holds us back from imagining and creating the future?15:37 – Aviv invites listeners to engage in a practice with him and poses an inquiry to his panel of guests21:05 – Forrest Wilson and Ofer Dotan reflect on what creating humanity's future means to them28:34 – Four qualities that are crucial to imagine a new future30:44 – Ari Levari explains The Paradox Mindset and poses reflection questions to the group37:41 – Fionn Wright guides us through an explorative experience to discover how impactful we are47:07 – The panel imagines what the future could hold for all of us57:31 – Final reflections and celebrating the collective presence of this special group of guests1:02:44 – Aviv provides final reflections on a deeper inquiry and thanks Ofer, Ari, Forrest and Fionn for joining him on today's exploration TWEETABLE QUOTES “And so that recognition that we actually have the power to imagine and think about today and think through today into tomorrow and beyond is so central to who we are as humans and is really part of the essence of our humanness - that sense that we can anticipate tomorrow.” (10:07) (Aviv)“For me personally, I would really want to see in the future these four qualities. One is hope. The second is defiance. The third one is belief. And the fourth is patience. We live in a world where these things are hopefully for free, but you've got to want them. You can't buy patience. But I can invite patience to live in me if I can give it space inside.” (28:49) (Ofer)“So what is The Paradox Mindset? I'd say it begins with noticing this discomfort and desire for certainty, but then not letting your mind jump to an immediate solution. And it's finding a sense of curiosity and openness within that uncertainty.” (33:30) (Ari)“Ours is one perceptual lens of many species that we share this planet with. And to notice how, over time, as humans grew and evolved and flourished, the impact that we had on this planet, the impact we are having on this planet. And to notice how each and every one of us contributes in some small way to some form of impact both on our natural world and as humanity as a whole.” (40:09) (Fionn)“Once we begin to dialogue about the future, we imagine possibilities and experience an influx of energy, excitement, and empowerment that's radical.” (47:24) (Aviv) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteOfer's LinkedIn Ari's LinkedIn Forrest's LinkedInFionn's LinkedIn

In this episode, we look at the changes that are underway all around the world and examine the idea that these problems require our higher capabilities and talents. If we are to solve very complex problems, we will need to make nonlinear exponential leaps. And to make nonlinear exponential leaps, we will need to individually and collectively engage the unconscious. It is there where the answers, and the solutions, and the innovations for individual, collective, and global problems are latent. Join Aviv Shahar and Jeff Vander Clute for Leading from the Unconscious. KEY TAKEAWAYS 02:36 – Aviv Shahar welcomes Jeff Vander Clute to explore the core inquiry of Leading from the Unconscious04:51 – Perception Shutdown Syndrome explained10:23 – The importance of going deep to appreciate the anatomy of an inquiry14:06 – The Five Natures32:47 – Differentiating between an absent unconscious and a presence-full unconscious42:34 – Jeff provides his thoughts on using your conscious awareness to facilitate your unconscious46:03 – The concepts of the superconscious and the mental bungee jump56:37 – Aviv provides final reflections on a deeper inquiry and thanks Jeff for joining him on today's exploration TWEETABLE QUOTES “You bring us into a deep, specific, and I want to say rigorous inquiry. So there is great clarity as well. When we have one specific example where we've gone deep and then we look at the parallel developments that are co-arising, we can appreciate the commonality and the distinctions much more vividly than if we stayed at the surface level.” (12:21) (Jeff)“There is always the prospect of becoming a collective agency, where the inquiry, and the wisdom and intelligence we're seeking will reveal its multifaceted nature through different voices. One person will offer the theological insight, and another will offer the phenomenology of their experience, and a third person will offer the melodic, and a fourth person will offer the poetry, and a fifth person will draw this into a picture.” (19:42) (Aviv)“So, these were the five natures that I observed. We are in a rolling event where we come together with profound shared sentiments to discover that we can become a collective agency where we're being activated at this time. And as part of the activation, we are allowed to recognize and appreciate a sense of different levels and gradients of capacity and capability.” (29:15) (Aviv)“Having a visual such as this makes the decision clear. It illuminates that there's a choice. Now, granted we're talking about unconscious dynamics. But we can consciously choose to work with our being in ways that transform and transmute that which is below the line.” (43:03) (Jeff)“The deeper inquiry about leading from the unconscious is the recognition that the change that we described - the rolling event that is underway, the kind of crises we are now seeing on the world stage - they require our higher capabilities and talents. If we are to solve very complex problems, we will need to make nonlinear exponential leaps.” (57:38) (Aviv) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteJeff's LinkedIn 

There is an ambidextrous quality in the capacity to both be in the here and now and embrace that which is emerging at the edge of our awareness. To be grounded at the moment in what is real is itself a portal into the realms of potential. Our job while we are alive is to translate that potential into action. It can be through new permissions in art and poetry, new discoveries in science, and new frontiers in every other field you choose to explore. For people who are curious, who have a sense of wonder, who want understanding or expression, or some way to connect. We are all coming online for life, to be awakened and transformed and revealed. Every person is a live portal and it is energy that sometimes turns up as poetry. Join Aviv Shahar as he welcomes Libby Wagner and Holly Thomas to dissect today's topic, The Poetry of Transformation. KEY TAKEAWAYS 02:07 – Aviv Shahar welcomes Libby Wagner and Holly Thomas to explore the core inquiry of The Poetry of Transformation and share where they each access poetry in their lives15:32 – Holly and Libby express their beliefs on longing and wonder within the arts and science21:51 – Creativity and neutrality27:53 – The capacity to remain in the here and now30:40 – Aviv poses an intriguing construct to Libby and Holly42:18 – The hydraulic lift of poetry50:55 – Three octaves of transformation1:09:10 – Aviv provides final reflections and thanks Libby and Holly for joining him on today's exploration TWEETABLE QUOTES “To be truly human means I am experiencing this world as a physical being. But also there's this mind and this other realm on the edge of transformation that you're talking about that I think we're constantly trying to make connections.” (10:02) (Libby)“Life is poignant. And, if you have the ability to slow down enough to let yourself feel that - in some people it gives rise to music, acts of kindness, dance, some kind of expression of that which is one of the mysteries of being human. And poetry is one of those attempts to embrace that poignancy and do something with it.” (13:59) (Holly)“[For creativity] I need quiet time. I need time outdoors. More than anything else for me, I feel like I just need to remember more about what I am and what we are as people.” (26:11) (Holly)“Scientists are motivated by a passion to discover something. Poets are motivated by a passion to try and capture, express, or release something. Every artist is motivated by some kind of passion. As are children. As is any living life form.” (41:09) (Libby)“In natural processes and in ourselves, transformation is emergent when different octaves, different realms, different levels of process seem to be able to find each other in one space in a unifying crucible that allows that process to be revealed.” (52:06) (Aviv)“One thing that was really important to me as an artist was there is a difference, I think, between the space where you are actually creating and revisiting and refining and then when you decide it leaves you, then it's not yours anymore.” (58:59) (Libby) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteLibby Wagner's Website  Holly Thomas' Website 

This conversation with Forrest Wilson follows a propelling inspiration for the Portals endeavor, which is to encourage the next generation of leaders, people who intuit the deeper change underway and are endeavoring to step into the transformation arena. We explore here ideas for shaping experiences and ecologies where people of diverse backgrounds can collaborate in ways that heal and give birth to real transformation. Along the way we discover aspects of the new operating system that's emerging across the frontiers of science, the arts, business, health and wellbeing, and almost every field of human expression. We are indeed experiencing a new world that's trying to emerge through us as individuals and communities, where perhaps the cause and the calling of this time is to be engaged in this co-creative process. Join Aviv Shahar with Forrest Wilson for A New World Emerging. KEY TAKEAWAYS 04:16 – Aviv Shahar welcomes Forrest Wilson to explore the core inquiry that has inspired his journey of healing08:07 – Forrest opens up about the loss of his father and how it inspired him to pursue a life and career of service12:30 – Aviv and Forrest share their thoughts on the new world that is emerging17:42 – Forrest analyzes the breaking down of old systems and stories23:01 – What comes alive in Forrest when he becomes resourced by his true essence35:59 – Why putting in work can be playful and fun44:34 – The dawning of a new epoch50:03 – Bringing a new world into being and manifesting manifestation1:06:38 – Connecting and resourcing across generations1:13:44 – The power of community1:18:48 – Aviv and Forrest take the audience on a very special after-show conversation TWEETABLE QUOTES “A propelling inspiration for the Portals endeavor is we seek to encourage the next generation of leaders, people who intuit that deeper change underway and are endeavoring to step into the transformation arena and lead. There are next generation leaders emerging in all the core domains of life: education, health and wellbeing, science and policy, diplomacy, art, and business and entrepreneurship.” (03:20) (Aviv)“It seems to me like what's next for the United States is we're gonna sit down and we're gonna start to talk to each other. Hopefully this is what's gonna happen is we're gonna sit down and a lot of the polarized voices in our culture and our collective are gonna sit down.” (13:35) (Forrest)“If we are encouraged, as human beings, to cultivate our curiosities, then we're going to be lifelong learners.” (19:35) (Forrest)“One thing that just comes up for me is one of the emerging probabilities I have is that there's gonna be these geocentric epicenters of doing the healing work. Healing hostels, transformational cafes, ecovillages, retreat centers, places where people can go physically and be in community that is organized specifically around what we're talking about.” (33:45) (Forrest)“The future ultimately is a concept that we're thinking about right now. And so, we are manifesting manifestation. We are, in this moment from this quality of presence, bringing a new world into being.” (52:37) (Forrest)“Find communities where the leaders of the communities are playing the game with you and not claiming to be above it all.” (1:14:45) (Forrest)“We're all in this together. We're all a part of this evolutionary game. We are manifesting manifestation, and everyone is a part of it whether we're aware of it or not.” (1:26:11) (Forrest) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteForrest's LinkedInForrest's Website

In this special Portals conversation, Aviv Shahar speaks with Tim Coats, a former corporate executive who is focusing his unique background and journey on exploring and sharing new pathways into the art of increasing joy, meaning and belonging in our daily life. Tim Coats is the author of the blog, Towards a Life Well-Lived. In this dialogue with Aviv Shahar, Tim reflects on his time since leaving the business world and the importance of deeper connections with life – with people, with nature, and with how he thinks and feels about spirit. Tim traces the evolution of his sense of self-awareness where he learned to see the business world as not only a theater of achieving career goals, but also a laboratory of self-discovery, achieving high levels of success while preserving an inner dialogue about the deeper meaning of it all. Join Aviv and Tim as they explore today's topic, Toward A Life Well Lived. KEY TAKEAWAYS 02:50 – Aviv Shahar welcomes Tim Coats to explore an inquiry centered on organizing your life around the art of increasing joy, meaning and belonging in daily living03:41 – What fills Tim with energy and joy04:46 – A closet philosopher and mystic flying under the cover of a corporate executive07:51 – Bringing philosophical tendencies to corporate America10:48 – The power of ‘We' and the inquiry that Tim initially set out to answer when he launched his blog15:28 – Defining ‘A Life Well Lived' and the two broad categories of people17:56 – The journey of finding meaning21:43 – Three of Tim's contemplative practices25:55 – The Four Principles: Balance, Awareness, Practice and Wisdom31:32 – Tim speaks to the idea of belonging and the Five Energies of Life38:04 – Being accepted for your own authentic self42:12 – Be the best, look both ways, help others succeed52:59 – The peace that proceeds challenge58:22 – The critical phase in every development journey1:07:33 – The God Test TWEETABLE QUOTES “I found that what's most important in life is connection and how we connect with life, because, after all, life isn't about us; we're about life.” (04:17) (Tim)“I think of a mystic as someone who pursues union with life. And that's what I have always pursued.” (05:34) (Tim)“I think one of the most amazing words in the English language is ‘we.' ‘We' consists of myself and another person, but there's a third entity involved in a ‘we.' It's the relationship.” (10:55) (Tim)“My purpose for the balance of my life is to enjoy a meaningful life. And meaning, to me, involves connection because without connection we lose meaning. So, if one can both be connected and grow those connections and also experience joy that transcends circumstance, that's a pretty strong shout.” (15:53) (Tim)“The question about where we fit in is a question that ultimately asks ‘Where do we connect?' And, I think that to a very large degree, awareness is taken for granted. And yet, if we want to wax philosophical about it, the only way we can know the world is through this facility of awareness.” (18:37) (Tim)“When you force yourself to slow down, to be present, and to look at light, all of a sudden one discovers that everything is interconnected and maybe I'm interconnected as well.” (24:02) (Tim)“Balance is critically important. And, it includes the body, mind, and spirit. The thing that frustrates me, and it's a difficult thing to approach, is that when you invoke the word ‘spirit,' people immediately think of religion. If someone connects to spirit through religion, that's wonderful, but that's not what I'm talking about. When I speak to spirit, I'm speaking to that in- betweeness that's between you and a friend, you and a lover, you and nature, you and your God. It's in-betweeness. And so, when we're balancing spirit, what we're saying is, ‘This isn't all about me. It's about us.” (27:03) (Tim)“Wisdom is insight with respect to connections.” (31:09) (Tim)“Helping others succeed is simply a short way of saying, ‘Be focused on empowerment.' If you can empower all the members of your team to be as good as or better than yourself, just think of what can happen.” (52:24) (Tim) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteTim's LinkedIn Tim's Blog 

In this exchange we are exploring the wide arena of leadership and reaching out to sense its emergent nature in our lives at this time. We sense that leadership is not something out there, but rather it is right here in how we choose to live every day in the various circumstances and roles we operate in. We are not inviting you to a certain method or methodology of leadership, but rather into the bigger inquiry of how we can each, individually and collectively, lead a life of meaning and purpose, a life of learning and development, and growth. Join Aviv Shahar as he welcomes Theodora Papanastasatou, Perry Martin, Jane Goodman, and Liz Halter to share in this conversation on Leadership as an Agency of Assistance and Easement. KEY TAKEAWAYS 02:11 – Aviv Shahar welcomes Theodora Papanastasatou, Perry Martin, Jane Goodman, and Liz Halter as they explore what comes alive in them when they hear the phrase, Leadership as an Agency of Assistance and Easement13:17 – Leadership as a bearer of joy and life15:13 – The panel shares how they've experienced leadership in today's age27:50 – Other observations on leadership, self-leadership and competition37:29 – Collaboration vs. Competition40:36 – Best practices for discovering the emergent version of yourself50:19 – Aviv provides one final piece of inspiration about your own talent, potential and natural brilliance TWEETABLE QUOTES “Each human is unique. Our fingerprints are unique; the iris in our eyes is unique; therefore, each one is allowed and should be permitted to find their uniqueness to be able to locate, understand, learn, know who they are, and what they can offer from themselves that is completely their own. It is a contribution to the whole of their community, their country, and their time. I think this is a part of the quest of many young people today who are meeting to ask, "Who am I, and what can I do?" Not because someone tells me to, but because it's my human right to explore it in my own way.” (06:33) (Theodora)“If you want to be a leader, you have to practice it in small ways, often, for it to live with you.” (09:35) (Perry)“Leadership as an Agency of Assistance and Easement excites me because that makes those roles and those tasks actually enjoyable. Otherwise, if that's not what it's about, it becomes just a task or a job, which takes the joy out of it.” (14:18) (Liz)“The word ‘Leadership' is interesting because it says, ‘Lead Ship,' like the Lead Ship in a flotilla. And the Lead Ship gets to be the Lead Ship, or Lead Captain, because he's got a good compass, he knows the way and he knows where the trouble is.” (22:17) (Perry)“This engine of learning you're speaking of has so much to do with self-leadership as well, because if I don't practice it with myself, it's not going to be effective with others because they won't feel the truth of it. Each day, before going to bed, then again when waking up, ask yourself, ‘What went well, what was optimal, what was suboptimal, where can corrections be made?'” (31:55) (Jane)“Competition is good,. There's nothing wrong with it. It's the words that suggest, ‘come' and ‘petition.' Petition to be better.” (39:01) (Theodora)“A successful life doesn't come without preparation.” (46:42) (Perry)“We're trying to invite you to the discovery of your own self-leadership in a world that is going through change, where you, and your talent, and your potential, and your natural brilliance are important. And especially when you find your unique way to contribute to the circumstance you're in. Let that, perhaps, be the take home value and inspiration from our exploration today.” (52:01) (Aviv) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteYair's Book 

We are starting this conversation about art by entering through a side door and exploring the idea of art as a conversation, an evolving conversation. What comes to mind is that there must be several parties involved to have a conversation. Who or what is "art" talking to? What is passing between us? It's thinking of art as a space where it becomes possible to inspire, to make contact, to create a new connection, to find a new kind of intimacy with life. Join Aviv Shahar as he talks with Aud Wilken and Rita Lampen, two life-long artists, about their love of art, the source of their inspiration, and what is possible through a deeper awareness and appreciation of the true nature of living art. KEY TAKEAWAYS 02:19 – Aviv Shahar welcomes life-long artists, Aud Wilken and Rita Lampen, who join the show to reflect on what comes alive in them when they hear the phrase, Art as an Evolving Conversation10:27 – Art as an exploration and a space for connecting with the intimacy of life15:46 – Art as a liberating force23:09 – The process of keeping one's creative pipes clean27:00 – Aud and Rita speak to the concept of surprising yourself through creativity35:44 – Aviv expounds on two schools of thought about art43:46 – Aviv shares a unique story about Al Pacino/What is the essence and motivating presence that comes through art46:09 – Aud and Rita speak to that moment of connecting with art50:33 – The reverberating impact that live art can have55:40 – Escaping success59:33 – Aviv, Aud, and Rita provide final reflections TWEETABLE QUOTES “It is an absolute gift, and I think I've always felt great freedom inside of art, and the less I separate them from each other, the more access I feel that I have in myself, to myself, and through myself to other things.” (04:46) (Aud)“Conversations where you walk and talk, in my experience, are always the most fertile because you're staying fluid. You're leaving something behind. You're leaving a path behind just as the conversation unfolds.” (24:14) (Rita)“I think this whole aspect of being able to surprise one's self and look at the page of whatever came out and go, ‘That's curious. What is that?' I think that affords a moment of space right there.” (30:42) (Aud)“Artists can lodge different vitamins in different places where, when we come later on in time and really manage to get in tune with what is locked in there, it becomes alive in the moment. We allow it to look into the now and the now to look into it. So it's this multi-dimensional access. What an art.” (47:02) (Aud)“Live art can happen on the stage night after night when the artists are not there saying their lines or singing their songs. They're actually connecting to what caused, in the first place, that play or that song. And sometimes, on rare occasions, that becomes so inspiring and it develops a life of its own outside of the artist themselves all the way to perhaps become a co-creative piece of art that can emerge with people outside and away from the original instance to now become a communion of many.” (53:26) (Aviv)“What comes alive in me is also the responsibility of each of us as humans to honor what knocks on our door or what we feel moved by. And to not so quickly measure it against the standards of someone or something else but instead have alive, ongoing inquiries about what is this, what is it for and how can I best serve this?.” (1:06:00) (Aud) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteYair's Book 

This is a special conversation with award-winning Israeli author Yair Assulin, we begin to take a deeper look at a major shift underway in humanity and consciousness, which Assulin describes as living in the subjective story we tell ourselves about our reality and the world around us. Big changes and upheavals happening across the globe suggest the story we're telling ourselves is no longer the right story and doesn't reflect reality. It's time for a new story. Join Aviv Shahar and Yair Assulin as they engage in a rich discussion on today's topic, We Live Inside a Story We Create. KEY TAKEAWAYS 01:54 – Aviv Shahar welcomes author and columnist, Yair Assulin, to reflect on today's conversation, We Live Inside a Story We Create04:29 – Yair expounds on his belief that the world needs another “flood”07:51 – Telling the high-level story of humanity10:27 – The Age of Politics13:46 – The Century of the ‘How' and the Century of the ‘What'17:07 – Three steps we must take in order to survive and grow22:15 – The impact of technological advances on the connected story of humanity and core observations from Yair32:10 – The diminishing role of the Nation State35:32 – New crafts that Yair has37:34 – Central characters that are emerging in the new story of humanity39:48 – Yair reflects on seminal moments in his story45:30 – What inspired Yair to write his first novel, The Drive51:19 – The rise of China and the inevitable collision with the West53:21 – How Yair responds to comments made on social media57:47 – Yair shares his thoughts on the spiritual realm1:02:09 – The one Biblical figure that Yair identifies with the most1:03:23 – What Yair hopes to be writing about five and ten years from now TWEETABLE QUOTES “My project is to understand society's, companies' and an individual's consciousness. I'm curious about consciousness, the idea of consciousness. I think this is what makes us human beings, the concept of living inside a subjective story. This is what I'm trying to understand, and this is my project in many fields: in my novels, in my columns, when I teach. It's all part of my journey to understand the way that consciousness works.” (03:45) (Yair)“We have to understand that something fundamental is changing, that something fundamental is no longer relevant. The story that we tell to ourselves about our reality is not the right story anymore. We have to create a new story.” (06:20) (Yair)“What's happening in the world is not important. What is important in stories is the meaning that we give to what is happening. And I think this is something that we must remember when we're trying to understand what's going on now. It's not about the world, it's about the way we see the world.” (24:01) (Yair)“I think that today we've really redefined these fundamental ideas of space and time. This is the way human beings understand the world, through space and time. And we see that the idea of space is fundamentally changing. And the idea of time is also changing, not the days or the years or the minutes, but the tempo of time, the way time moves, the way we sense time, it's all changing.” (39:05) (Yair)“I think that the fundamental distinction between China and the liberal order is always the question of freedom.” (51:42) (Yair) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteYair's Book 

The art of mindful living – being fully present in our minds, hearts and consciousness at any moment – just may be more vital, and more challenging, in a time of rapid and unprecedented change. Yet, how do we build and protect a safe inner space for the new and creative to appear in the face of daily avalanche of digital, family, and cultural impressions all clamoring for our immediate attention. This conversation will explore the practices, behaviors, and perceptions that can support an endeavor to lead a life of intention and purpose, well-being and regeneration in a time of global and universal change. Join Aviv Shahar and his panel of esteemed guests as they explore The Art of Cognizant and Mindful Living. KEY TAKEAWAYS 02:11 – Aviv Shahar welcomes an esteemed panel of guests to reflect on today's conversation, The Art of Cognizant and Mindful Living05:18 – Boaz Bar Ilan and Jeremy Stuart share core practices they implement in their daily lives10:06 – Lisa Marcus speaks to the power of checking in with one's self and truly listening to ourselves12:43 – Perry Martin provides an example of how technology has led to him looking inward15:28 – Karen Heney and Kyriaki Nikandrou speak to the constant of change23:17 – Marianne Ashcroft shares one of her best practices for being mindful and grateful24:55 – Building ceremonies and rituals in our everyday lives29:58 – Why we should stop asking young people what they want to be31:20 – The panel continues to propose practices that have impacted their lives, including grounding yourself in your strength38:17 – Avshalom and Miriam speak to curiosity and the concept of conscious evolution46:48 – The inherent pain of human life and the power of human will52:06 – Peter provides final thoughts on The Art of Cognizant and Mindful Living54:19 – Aviv summarizes the three themes of today's exploration TWEETABLE QUOTES “And so, I've found that by repetitively taking myself back to that space, I think things will appear. It's like being a gardener of one's self, because you can go into a place in nature or you can go into a garden and clear the weeds or the grass and you know that you're gonna come back a few weeks later and something is going to be there.” (08:05) (Jeremy)“I want to look at an example of some technology that's transformed our lives and how it can be taken in several different ways. Cell phone service, your instant ability to gain knowledge and to find things, to be in connectivity with people all around the world all the time. But I've found that there's a great drawback in that. And I've found myself having to look inside myself and see what it is that Perry does not want to let go of that's good like a certain kind of manners, patience, taking the time to listen to somebody.” (12:47) (Perry)“I think change is absolutely integral to everything, human life and how things work. So, that leads to the question, ‘Shouldn't we find out how things work?'” (15:37) (Karen)“One of the ways in which I like to be mindful on a daily basis - and I make the space to do this - is to just take stock and be thankful and have some gratitude for everything that I am and can do.” (23:33) (Marianne)“When we ground ourselves in our strength - in what we do well or in what we care about very much - when we engage with those elements in our lives, we join the regenerative ray, the part of the universe that is regenerative. And when we are regenerative in ourselves, we're able to bring more of it to our environment.” (37:52) (Aviv)“You can't leave somebody behind. You have to address the different parts because if you leave a part of yourself behind, it's not gonna be good later. We need to progress the whole of ourselves. And sometimes it helps just to talk.” (48:33) (Aud) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's Website 

You are about to enter one of the most nonlinear conversational experiences you've ever entered. In this conversation, we are seeking to discover that intangible property and nature of human life that is the naturally arising capacity to weave part to part and unlock new possibilities. And you will find, as you stay with us through this conversation, that we go to all sorts of places: the past, the distant past, and the future, the interior human realm, the brain, and the mind, and the exterior of the world at large. Join Aviv Shahar and a global group of "weavers," as they continue their discussion on Part 2 of The Human as a Weaver of Part to Part. KEY TAKEAWAYS 02:08 – Aviv Shahar continues his conversation with this illustrious group of “weavers” who share their thoughts and insights on The Human as a Weaver of Part to Part06:34 – Dr. Alan reflects on the interconnectedness that exists between people13:37 – Theodora speaks to the connection between humans and nature and the importance of striving for not just tolerance, but co-existence18:16 – Robin reads a poem he recently wrote19:10 – Dina expounds on the importance of not chasing perfection25:08 – Imagining a better tomorrow29:11 – Aviv invites this panel of weavers to provide their final thoughts on this discussion40:38 – Why our human capacity to weave and make connections is truly unique45:46 – Aviv shares his final perspective on our capacity to weave TWEETABLE QUOTES “Listening - the act itself, the capacity to listen with presence, to create a space, to skate to the edge of the conversation, like riding a wave, you're not where you were a few seconds ago, but you are right there with the wave of the conversation - that listening capacity, by itself, is a weaving with the here and now.” (06:02) (Aviv)“One of the things that I strongly encourage is to always be asking questions. One of the things I've learned is that you can't put into someone's head a thought, experience, or knowledge. What you can do is create the opportunity for them to construct for themselves a reality.” (07:28) (Dr. Alan)“I was thinking about our relationship also with the animals and the trees, and how maybe that interconnection has been disrupted. But that is of course another story. So, to come into more practical experience, I would say that there is a whole journey to be traveled between tolerance - because tolerance means that issues are not really dealt with, you're just tolerating another person - to going to really active co-existence.” (16:32) (Kyriaki)“Many musicians want to be perfect. And there must be some difference between being excellent and being perfect. Being excellent is weaving things together and finding your best. Being perfect is something that makes you freeze and brittle on the inside.” (21:19) (Dina)“What you can weave is as unique as the fingerprint that you have, which is unlike any other fingerprint. If you follow that line of thought, what it means is that the music that you can play is a weave of music that perhaps can only come through you.” (41:18) (Aviv) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's Website

You are about to enter one of the most nonlinear conversational experiences you've ever entered. In this conversation, we are seeking to discover that intangible property and nature of human life that is the naturally arising capacity to weave part to part and unlock new possibilities. And you will find, as you stay with us through this conversation, that we go to all sorts of places: the past, the distant past, and the future, the interior human realm, the brain, and the mind, and the exterior of the world at large. Join Aviv Shahar and a global group of "weavers," as they bring together the hidden threads and themes behind new possibilities emerging across all aspects of human experience. KEY TAKEAWAYS 02:24 – Aviv Shahar welcomes the global group of “weavers” who share their thoughts and insights on this topic04:15 – Theodora Papanastasatou, Dr. Alan Litchfield, and Elizabeth Lyell share their experience and insights on today's topic, The Human as a Weaver of Part to Part17:49 – Robin Charlton and Kyriaki Nikandrou speak to what comes alive in them when they think about The Human as a Weaver of Part to Part27:12 – The passion of Van Gogh31:14 – Dina Richardson continues this nonlinear conversation by sharing her experience as a composer34:25 – Aviv poses a fascinating inquiry to the panel of guests about the feeling of weaving TWEETABLE QUOTES “Humans are apparently the only beings on this planet that can try to understand and ask why, and how come? Where is it coming from? What does it mean? And how does it bring me to my next discovery, or understanding, or recognition?” (06:18) (Theodora)“And if we think about this question of a human as a weaver from part to part and a connector of possibilities, we also need to consider that humans, by their nature, have a collective sense about them. And, if we look at the way that technology has evolved over time, much of human technology has been related to communal resource sharing and accumulation of things that they need to survive, which have triggered changes in environmental social development and so on.” (14:00) (Dr. Alan)“So, looking back at history, there's also a weave that comes from the past into our future and into the very lives we live today.” (21:16) (Robin)“I was thinking of all the different pathways of learning because we know that we don't just have academic learning. We also have emotional learning and kinesthetic learning and solitary learning. There are all these different pathways like auditory and visual.” (26:44) (Kyriaki)“Every genre of music has borrowed from another genre. And there's been a long line of handing down music as a legacy to the next generation for them to do with what they will because of what's moving through them.” (31:41) (Dina) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's Website

In this conversation, we take a closer look at what's emerging and what's changing in our experience of a familiar environment – the workplace, or career – however those may be defined in a world still responding to a global pandemic. What quickly arises is the idea that we don't want to be locked into just the academic or theoretical approach to things, but rather be able to respond in real time to the needs of the moment. And it may just turn out that our ability to be in flow and with the way things are changing has a lot to do with the inner frameworks we rely on to navigate our world. Join us as Aviv Shahar and Ariel Levari explore the struggles of the new workplace in an evolving world, with an eye to finding joy in the processes and challenges therein in Part One of Sensemaking for Life and Career. KEY TAKEAWAYS 02:10 – Ariel Levari joins the show to share his background in organizational psychology and his thoughts on today's fascinating topic: Sensemaking for Life and Career, Part One  10:02 – Ariel expounds on the difference between the free-flow process of framing and the structured process of framing  13:29 – Aviv breaks down the Universal Operating System and the Mental Bungee Jump  22:01 – The Intention-Action Gap explained  24:55 – Specific steps for developing an inspired agenda for yourself as an individual  29:12 – The importance of finding a support circle of friends, mentors, and colleagues  32:49 – The Solo Hero Myth and balancing the individual and the collective TWEETABLE QUOTES “I think having a couple of key theories, a couple of mental models in your back pocket does a whole lot to build up your self-efficacy and your confidence when you're going into a professional setting.” (08:27) (Ariel)“In terms of actually engaging in the process of framing, or of sensemaking, within the corporate world, it's much less me applying specific theories - that I learned previously - to current challenges, and much more about catalyzing an inner state that allows me to respond to challenges as they arise and do so in an adaptive way.” (09:33) (Ariel)“[Flow state processing] is more of a sense of looseness and a sense of freedom and joy that you can tap into. And there's lots of ways that you can get to that state. But, once you're in that state, the process of framing becomes totally different. You're not trying to box in ideas with things you learned from long ago. You're more looking for what the emerging possibilities might be within a given problem or challenge.” (11:54) (Ariel)“The key insight here, you can lead from the unconscious when you consciously see the unconscious diligently and with discipline.” (19:30) (Aviv)“You also have to be aware of how likely it is that you are going to go into a new environment and have that environment change you, in the sense that it isn't the company's goal at the end of the day for you to be a self-realized and self-actualized person. So, there's a lot of forces that, if you're not careful, can make you forget about that second vector of growth.” (24:06) (Ariel)“It feels like I've been asleep a bit this last year and I'm waking up to that fact right now.” (31:59) (Ariel)“We can no longer afford to shift from one polarity to the other given the amount of existential risk and exponential power that exists in this world. So, what you're saying of having the individual and the collective both existing at the same time in balance, it's critical right now.” (36:28) (Ariel) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteAriel's LinkedIn 

There was, perhaps, a time when the only tool of healing was the human hand. And, to this very day, whenever we have an unfamiliar feeling in our body, the first thing we do is touch the area it is arising from and perform our simple, initial, diagnosis. Today, however, we hear advertising touting the touchless world we live in. How did we get here? And, is this where we want to be, or is there a better way?In this conversation, Aviv Shahar speaks with Jessica Wapner, who traces the arc of touch as a healing modality through the centuries, and how it has gradually been removed from our ever more standardized methods of healthcare. And then she gives us a peek into where we might go next. Join Aviv, as he dives deeper into this exploration. KEY TAKEAWAYS 02:13 – Aviv introduces today's guest, Jessica Wapner, who provides her thoughts on this inquiry exploration into The Role of Touch04:31 – Wall Disease, explained07:16 – The role of touch in healing and medicine14:20 – The healing power of touch in the Bible17:33 – The King's Touch23:09 – The rise of the Scientific Method27:46 – The surge of advancements in medical science31:16 – How touch impacts us as humans37:23 – The introduction of ‘Wellness'50:36 – What the future holds for touch57:06 – Final points from Aviv and Jessica1:00:30 – Aviv thanks Jessica for joining in this discussion today TWEETABLE QUOTES “Wall Disease is multi-dimensional and expresses itself in different ways such as the feeling of being oppressed. When you see a wall near you every day, there's a sense of – as one person I spoke with put it to me – ‘your life is being stopped here.'” (04:40)“It seems that, from what I can piece together, there are references to touch coming from all over the world to do with the healing power of touch and what the hands are capable of doing.” (11:30)“It's almost a hard mindset to imagine that I can say that I'm sick. It's up to me to say that there's something wrong? I don't need you, doctor, to confirm that. And that switches with the progression towards more and more technology where the doctor becomes the authority. And that's what interested me in ‘The King's Touch.' There is this kind of thing through history where there is a person who has the capability to offer healing and I put myself in your hands.” (29:58)“Doctors don't call themselves healers, which is really interesting and weird if you stop and think about it. I never say, ‘I'm going to the healer today.' But why wouldn't I say that? Of course I want the doctor to heal me.” (36:56)“So in the 1960s, the World Health Organization put out a statement about wellness that was more than not being sick – that wellness is about ‘Is your life progressing from one day to the next?'” (39:26)“There's an opening now for medicine and healing to stitch themselves back up together and for this rift to not be so dire.” (56:01) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteJessica's LinkedIn Jessica's Books: The Philadelphia ChromosomeWall Disease

Aviv Shahar enables Fortune 500 companies to create purpose-inspired visions that bring out the best in their people and catalyze growth. As the President of Aviv Consulting and the author of Create New Futures, Aviv guides executive teams at companies around the world to dramatically accelerate the achievement of their business results. In this “Greatest Hits” episode, Aviv discusses key elements of a growth mindset for forward-thinking leaders. Learn about how our Team Performance System and Personal Brand Strategy can Help You Serve Well and Sell More at  www.voiceofinfluence.net   Read the transcript here:   https://www.voiceofinfluence.net/206 Give and receive feedback that makes a difference! Register for our 20 minute Deep Impact Method video course here:  www.voiceofinfluence.net/deepimpact  

Portals of Perception endeavors to create conversations at the frontier of discovery, and to bring to life the natural processes of human development. Each of us, by design, can become a living agency for the evolutionary process, as it arises, through our living expression, and can become an intentional participant in the emergence of a wiser future.Join our hosts Aviv Shahar and Peter Barry every week for conversations on a wide variety of topics including human purpose, personal development, evolution and the future, community of conversation and discovery, and more.

In this episode of the Strategy & Leadership Podcast, we're joined by Aviv Shahar: author of 'Create New Futures' and founder of Aviv Consulting. Aviv was born and raised in Israel, and was originally trained to fly supersonic jets in the Israeli Airforce. Since then, he has spent three decades gaining valuable experience working on the executive leadership teams of Fortune 500 companies. Throughout his work, he's learned that a room full of extremely smart individuals can still produce dysfunction and stupidity. His experience has also helped him realize his passion for helping people unleash their joint capabilities so they're able to create more than the sum of their individual parts. If you are interested in using a facilitator for your next planning session, learn more here: https://www.smestrategy.net/strategic-planning-facilitator-and-facilitation-services If you want to learn how to lead the strategic planning process yourself, take our self guided course at: www.smestrategy.net/course

Aviv Shahar enables Fortune 500 leaders to create purpose-inspired visions, bring out the best in their people and catalyze growth. President of Aviv Consulting and the author of the book Create New Futures, Aviv guides executive teams at companies such as Cisco, HP, Lufthansa, P&G, and General Mills to produce breakthrough collaborations that dramatically accelerate the achievement of their business results. Aviv's unique approach to helping these teams create new futures for their companies integrates the process of developing strategic breakthroughs with the evolution of the team's leadership impact. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Aviv Shahar is founder and president of Aviv Consulting, a strategic innovation consultancy. He is also the author of the book Create New Futures: How Leaders Produce Breakthroughs and Transform the World Through Conversation and hosts the Creating New Futures podcast. He has spent time as a fighter pilot for the Israeli Air Force, where he learned lessons he still uses today. Now, Fortune 500 companies hire him to help their senior teams create purpose-inspired futures and innovative strategies that drive growth.

Aviv Shahar joins me to talk about leadership. He offers great insights and ideas around how business leaders can be more successful. Aviv Shahar is president of Aviv Consulting and a member of the Million Dollar Consulting Hall of Fame. For more than two decades, Aviv has helped leadership teams at Fortune 500 companies including Hewlett Packard, DuPont, Procter and Gamble, General Mills, Lufthansa, and Cisco create new futures. Aviv guides strategy and innovation efforts in ways that build breakthrough collaboration and dramatically accelerate results. His consulting enables leaders to create purpose-inspired visions and strategies that catalyze growth. He is also the author of Create New Futures. Today's show is sponsored by Audible.com. Audible.com is a leading provider of spoken audio entertainment and information. Listen to audiobooks whenever and wherever you want. Get a free book when you sign up for a 30-day free trial at audibletrial.com/businessgrowth.

Are you shaping your life? Or are you allowing outside people and circumstances to determine your yesses and purpose? Aviv Shahar, Founder and President of Aviv Consulting, consultant to Fortune 100 and 500 companies and the host and author of Create New Futures, joins Kim for an amazingly deep and eye opening conversation which is guaranteed to change the way you look at your life and the opportunities in front of you. Get the show notes and transcription at https://thekimsutton.com/pp609.

Do you think it’s possible to produce breakthroughs and transform in the world through a different quality of conversation?Stepping into that "next" role as a leader can be overwhelming… even if you’ve been a CEO before and this is a new gig, or for that matter if this is your first time up to bat in a leadership position. So, what is it that all of us who step into becoming the New Boss need to know in order to not only achieve success, but sustain it?Let's find out together; Our guest on this episode is Aviv Shahar.Aviv Shahar is founder and president of Aviv Consulting, a strategic innovation consultancy, and the author of Creating New Futures—How Leaders Produce Breakthroughs and Transform the World Through Conversation. Fortune 500 companies hire him to help their senior teams create purpose-inspired futures and innovative strategies that drive growth.Aviv’s clients include executives at Alcoa, Chevron, Cisco, DuPont, General Mills, Hewlett Packard, Lufthansa, Procter & Gamble, Ring Central, and Zoom. He’s worked with clients in Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, Great Britain, Holland, India, Israel, Mexico, Poland, Singapore, Spain, Taiwan, and the United States.For more than 25 years, Aviv has specialized in helping executives and managers enhance their creativity and innovation, competence and collaboration, and clarity of vision, especially in critical situations. Aviv’s experience in coaching for high-level performance in critical operations was gained as a fighter pilot who was responsible for training other fighter pilots in the Israeli Air Force. Aviv’s air force training and discipline taught him about thorough planning, flawless execution and the discipline of debrief; it was during these years that he adoptedhis life motto for continual learning: An un-debriefed action is a wasted action.During the course of his leadership work, clients asked Aviv to help them innovate and grow. In response, Aviv developed Strategic Innovation—a multi-functional approach that brings together all assets, capabilities and disciplines of an organization, so they canbe used to create exciting new futures.His work has been published in Forbes, The Huffington Post, the Futurist, as well as other books and publications. He is the author of a new book: "Create New Futures”On this episode we go full Monty on:Lesson's from his Father The potentially devastating diagnosis he received as a 7 year old The 4 zones of Leadership DevelopmentThe Most Critical Currency of LeadershipCollective Stupidity SyndromeHow to know if you are in the RIGHT conversationWhat is Conservation ArchitectureWhy he wrote his book in Portals not chaptersThe spirit of defiance Why telling stories is Not enoughThe 72 Hour RuleHigh Velocity Learning OrganizationsThe three Jobs every employee must embraceand so much more...Find out more about Aviv Shahar: AvivConsulting.comTo find out more about hiring Dov Baron as a speaker or strategist for your organization: http://fullmontyleadership.com/consulting or http://fullmontyleadership.com/speaking.Remember you can now also find us on iTunes, Spotify, iHeart Radio, or wherever you tune into podcasts.And on traditional radio stations across the US every Monday and Thursday on: 99.5 FM & 1520 AM Las Vegas102.1 FM & 1640 AM Lancaster, Philadelphia87.9 FM & 810 AM Macon, Georgia 92.1 FM & 1630 AM Tampa, Florida97.7 The Villages, Florida96.3 FM Boulder, Colorado90.3 FM Milwaukee, Wisconsin 94.7 FM Pittsburg, Philadelphia87.9 FM Colorado Springs, ColoradoAnd NOW LIVE on 96.7FM WASHINGTON, DC and on 96.7FM covering THE WASHINGTON DC & QUANTICO area.Also, look for us on ROKU TV where there are 100K subscribers. If you are a regular listener, then a big thank-you to you for making us the #1 podcast globally for Fortune 500 listeners! And with a potential reach of 2.5 to 3 million listeners for every show, we’re honored and grateful to be cited in INC.com as The #1 Podcast To Make You a Better Leader See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Aviv Shahar enables Fortune 500 companies to create purpose-inspired visions that bring out the best in their people and catalyze growth. As the President of Aviv Consulting and the author of Create New Futures, Aviv guides executive teams at companies around the world to dramatically accelerate the achievement of their business results. In this episode, Aviv discusses what it means to create a new future as leaders of teams and in our personal lives, how “collective stupidity” inspired Aviv’s work, the importance of creating a learning culture, why it’s difficult for leaders to listen to others and even themselves, the two layers of having an authentic voice, the four quadrants of conflict, how he helps his clients improve their introspection skills, the five levels of integrity, and so much more!

This week we are talking to Aviv Shahar. Aviv grew up on a kibbutz in Israel, where he cultivated and internalized his sense of can-do idealism by working in an avocado orchard. Told by a specialist at the age of 8 that he shouldn't exert himself because of his heart condition, Aviv took up running and became a champion runner by age 13, an experience that shaped a spirit of defiance prepared to overcome impossible odds. He subsequently joined the Israeli Air Force, where his fighter pilot training taught him the importance of thorough planning, flawless execution and the debrief discipline. It was during these years that Aviv adopted his life motto for continual learning: an un-debriefed action is a wasted action.   What We Cover: How leaders create the future How to stop what Aviv calls, “collective stupidity” Why life challenges often grow the top leadesr   Learn more about Liz and TLCG at www.theleadershipcoachinggroup.com.   Mentioned In This Episode: Aviv Shahar: www.avivconsulting.com

In this episode, Aviv talks with Harry Duran, founder and CEO at Fullcast, a podcasting production company that helps prospective podcasters develop and cultivate their shows. Aviv starts off the episode by discussing the three value propositions that he provides in both his book Create New Futures as well as his podcast of the same name. Aviv delves deep into the metaphysical theory of the Three Big Bangs and provides insight as to how the Internet is serving and enabling the third Big Bang. Aviv explains the four levels of conversation and the inherent differences between them. Low-level conversations lead to more conflict, strife and misunderstanding, whereas other conversations provide the appropriate framework necessary to enable broader and more enlightened consciousness. Aviv provides insights into his personal background, including two formative influences that changed the way Aviv lived life. Aviv shares the profound lesson he learned while working in leadership development. Finally, Aviv discusses the enjoyment he gets from the discovery journey that has enabled him to meet and learn from fascinating people.   03:44 – Introducing today’s episode 04:20 – The format Aviv follows for Create New Futures 06:31 – The three value propositions Aviv provides 07:38 – The personal and metaphysical reason Aviv kept the same themes within his podcast as he did in his book CNF 09:42 – Aviv discusses the metaphysical theory of the Three Big Bangs 12:53 – Answering the question, ‘What is your highest point of leverage?’ 13:22 – How the Internet is serving and enabling the explosion of consciousness 15:46 – Aviv explains what the Four Levels of Conversations 16:44 – Conversation Level One 17:14 – Conversation Level Two 17:39 – Conversation Level Three 18:19 – Conversation Level Four 19:41 – The Fifth Dimension: How we define intelligence 21:18 – Aviv discusses the importance of creating frameworks 22:35 – Aviv dissects a typical consulting conversation 24:42 – Insights into Aviv’s background and roots 28:03 – How a childhood heart condition influenced Aviv in his life’s pursuits 30:10 – The spirit of defiance 32:19 – Aviv defines the karmic pattern 34:35 – The importance of the developmental journey 35:36 – A lesson Aviv learned while working in leadership development 37:10 – Aviv discusses the three-legged journey into mastery 41:20 – The many mentors who helped Aviv along his journey 43:23 – The oath that Aviv made to himself 45:12 – Aviv’s time in the Israeli Air Force 48:03 – Aviv discusses the enjoyment he gets from the discovery journey while engaging with guests on his show 49:58 – Aviv defines codifying language to achieve actionable insights 52:17 – How Aviv has evolved as a podcast host 54:35 – Aviv compares podcasting and storytelling to the evolution of movies 57:20 – What is something Aviv has changed his mind about recently 59:06 – Aviv discusses the Five Levels of Integrity 1:04:13 – The importance Aviv places on contributing your all 1:05:01 – What is the most misunderstood thing about Aviv 1:08:22 – Aviv and Harry discuss their mutual admiration for each other’s partnership 1:08:55 – Where listeners can follow Aviv 1:10:23 – Harry encourages listeners to subscribe to the Podcast Junkies newsletter 1:10:40 – Harry challenges the audience to tell one new person about this show 1:10:59 – This week’s retention hashtag Full show notes: http://www.avivconsulting.com/cnf53

We do not often have the opportunity to form friendships with those who have had a life as challenging and rewarding as Aviv Shahar. At a young age, a doctor diagnosed Aviv with a heart disease and told him to avoid strenuous activity. He responded to this diagnosis by winning Israel’s long-distance running championship at the age of 13. Later in his life, he became an air force pilot, and then started a very successful consulting business. In this episode, I speak with Aviv about his youth, and how winning that race changed him. We then talk about how we are currently experiencing a “Third Big Bang,” according to Aviv. Finally, we discuss how hosting a podcast has helped him not only with his consulting, but mentally as well. 02:30 Why did Aviv start his podcast? 05:20 The themes of Aviv’s show 07:30 The “third Big Bang” 14:00 Below-the-line conversations 17:30 The Fifth Dimension 20:00 The architecture of learning 22:20 Where did Aviv’s ideas originate? 25:00 Aviv’s heart condition, and how he overcame it 35:00 The three-legged journey into mastery 39:00 People Aviv considers mentors 43:00 How Aviv became a pilot 45:35 How his podcast has helped Aviv 55:15 How Aviv has expanded his mind recently Full Show Notes: http://podcastjunkies.com/Aviv-Shahar-interview★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

In this episode, Aviv Shahar discusses the distinction between the toddler learning experience and the anatomy of adult learning as well as explains the cause of breakdowns in the adult learning cycle that produce devastating loss of ROI. He also explains how you and your team can prevent the failures of collective stupidity and how collective stupidity can be detrimental to opportunities and the growth of individuals and teams. Aviv advises you to teach and coach your teams how to recognize the three points of learning failure, in order to maximize and realize their transformative potential. Full show notes: http://www.avivconsulting.com/cnf40

On this episode of Build Your Network, Host Travis Chappell interviews Aviv Shahar. Aviv helps senior leaders create radically new futures. Here’s what Travis and Aviv discuss in this episode: About Aviv Shahar: The most exciting thing is getting together with a team of very smart people. When Aviv works with those teams, they produce… The post Build Your Network (http://www.buildyournetwork.co). For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy (https://www.acast.com/privacy)

Aviv Shahar is an author, former air force pilot, and an entrepreneur. He has spent the past 17 years building his consulting business by helping senior executives at some of the world’s largest companies. The most impressive thing about his business is that 98% of his new client acquisition is based on referrals from previous clients — and yes, we dive into how he accomplishes this. He is also the author of a new book called Create New Futures. Now, let’s hack… Aviv Shahar.

Welcome to Create New Futures. Every episode, best-selling author and host Aviv Shahar will explore ideas and insights that can awaken and inspire you to the opportunities you have to create new futures for you, your family, your teams, and for your business. Life is too short to not be engaged in fascinating conversations that open, inspire and unleash new ways of thinking and seeing possibilities and beauty in life that work. Through Create New Futures, Aviv will be having conversations with leaders, experts and interesting people to explore ideas and reflect on practices that you can use and apply to create and shape the future. With his guests, Aviv will put a magnifying glass on strategies and frameworks that he has applied to help senior executives and their teams achieve significant breakthroughs that lead to game changing results. Ideas, strategies, breakthroughs and practices that you can apply. Through his concept of Architecture Thinking™, Aviv walks you through what is needed to lead, change, transform an organization, redesign your life to achieve new goals, serve new needs and realize new possibilities. Leaders need to consider how to bring about and enable a compound set of outcomes by integrating multiple inputs. Together with his guests, Aviv will explore how to develop strategy, how to lead to enable teams to unleash their brilliance and what is the inside work that leaders must engage in to develop executive presence and charisma and the capacity to see both the forest and the trees. More than ever, humanity now needs people who are open and prepared to imagine, create, and sustain new futures. This is a time of great transformative and disruptive change. It demands our best imagination, courage, and creativity. Through this podcast, Aviv will inspire you to be tomorrow's agent by creating conversations that birth new possibilities for you and for the people in your life. Listen here: http://www.avivconsulting.com/podcast-create-new-futures/

In part two of my conversation with Aviv Shahar we talk about the importance of having intentional conversations both in your personal and business life and the practice and implementation of The Debrief. For full show notes and to download a FREE copy of the transcript for this episode, visit: http://www.sfgwa.com/blog This Material is Intended for General Public Use. By providing this material, we are not undertaking to provide investment advice for any specific individual or situation, or to otherwise act in a fiduciary capacity. Please contact one of our financial professionals for guidance and information specific to your individual situation. Sound Financial Inc. dba Sound Financial Group is a registered investment adviser.  Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies.  Investments involve risk and, unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed.  Be sure to first consult with a qualified financial adviser and/or tax professional before implementing any strategy discussed herein. Past performance is not indicative of future performance. Insurance products and services are offered and sold through Sound Financial Inc. dba Sound Financial Group and individually licensed and appointed agents in all appropriate jurisdictions. This podcast is meant for general informational purposes and is not to be construed as tax, legal, or investment advice. You should consult a financial professional regarding your individual situation. Guest speakers are not affiliated with Sound Financial Inc. dba Sound Financial Group unless otherwise stated, and their opinions are their own. Opinions, estimates, forecasts, and statements of financial market trends are based on current market conditions and are subject to change without notice. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results. Each week, the Your Business Your Wealth podcast helps you Design and Build a Good Life™. No one has a Good Life by default, only by design. Visit us here for more details: yourbusinessyourwealth.com

Aviv Shahar is a former fighter pilot of the Israeli military, host of the Create New Futures Podcast and author of the book, Create New Futures. Aviv helps company executives become transformational leaders and to create new futures. In this episode I speak to him about how your present and future can update your past and how understanding the idea of a complaint as an unmet need of others can help us address the concerns of customers and team members. For full show notes and to download a FREE copy of the transcript for this episode, visit: http://www.sfgwa.com/blog This Material is Intended for General Public Use. By providing this material, we are not undertaking to provide investment advice for any specific individual or situation, or to otherwise act in a fiduciary capacity. Please contact one of our financial professionals for guidance and information specific to your individual situation. Sound Financial Inc. dba Sound Financial Group is a registered investment adviser.  Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies.  Investments involve risk and, unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed.  Be sure to first consult with a qualified financial adviser and/or tax professional before implementing any strategy discussed herein. Past performance is not indicative of future performance. Insurance products and services are offered and sold through Sound Financial Inc. dba Sound Financial Group and individually licensed and appointed agents in all appropriate jurisdictions. This podcast is meant for general informational purposes and is not to be construed as tax, legal, or investment advice. You should consult a financial professional regarding your individual situation. Guest speakers are not affiliated with Sound Financial Inc. dba Sound Financial Group unless otherwise stated, and their opinions are their own. Opinions, estimates, forecasts, and statements of financial market trends are based on current market conditions and are subject to change without notice. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results. Each week, the Your Business Your Wealth podcast helps you Design and Build a Good Life™. No one has a Good Life by default, only by design. Visit us here for more details: yourbusinessyourwealth.com

Welcome to Create New Futures. Every episode, best-selling author and host Aviv Shahar will explore ideas and insights that can awaken and inspire you to the opportunities you have to create new futures for you, your family, your teams, and for your business. Life is too short to not be engaged in fascinating conversations that open, inspire and unleash new ways of thinking and seeing possibilities and beauty. Through Create New Futures, Aviv will engage in conversation with leaders and experts to explore practices that you can use to create and shape the future. With his guests, Aviv will put a magnifying glass on strategies and frameworks that he has applied to help senior executives and their teams achieve significant breakthroughs that lead to game changing results. Ideas, strategies, breakthroughs and practices that you can apply. With his innovative ideas and frameworks, Aviv walks you through what you need to lead and transform an organization, and redesign your life to achieve new goals. Together with his guests, Aviv will explore how to develop strategy, how to lead to enable teams to unleash their brilliance and what is the inside work leaders must engage in to develop executive presence and charisma. More than ever, humanity now needs people who are open and prepared to imagine, create, and sustain new futures. This is a time of great transformative and disruptive change. It demands our best imagination, courage, and creativity. Through this podcast, Aviv will inspire you to be tomorrow's agent by creating conversations that birth new possibilities for you and for the people in your life. All episodes: http://www.avivconsulting.com/podcast-create-new-futures/

Aviv Shahar has been helping senior executives create new futures for the last 16 years at his company, Aviv Consulting. Aviv is able to to unleash new energy and create happier and healthier teams within organizations. How is he able to do it? Well, it first begins with conversation and seeing it as a powerful currency; not just a tool. For full show notes and to download a FREE copy of the transcript for this episode, visit: http://www.sfgwa.com/blog This Material is Intended for General Public Use. By providing this material, we are not undertaking to provide investment advice for any specific individual or situation, or to otherwise act in a fiduciary capacity. Please contact one of our financial professionals for guidance and information specific to your individual situation. Sound Financial Inc. dba Sound Financial Group is a registered investment adviser.  Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies.  Investments involve risk and, unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed.  Be sure to first consult with a qualified financial adviser and/or tax professional before implementing any strategy discussed herein. Past performance is not indicative of future performance. Insurance products and services are offered and sold through Sound Financial Inc. dba Sound Financial Group and individually licensed and appointed agents in all appropriate jurisdictions. This podcast is meant for general informational purposes and is not to be construed as tax, legal, or investment advice. You should consult a financial professional regarding your individual situation. Guest speakers are not affiliated with Sound Financial Inc. dba Sound Financial Group unless otherwise stated, and their opinions are their own. Opinions, estimates, forecasts, and statements of financial market trends are based on current market conditions and are subject to change without notice. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results. Each week, the Your Business Your Wealth podcast helps you Design and Build a Good Life™. No one has a Good Life by default, only by design. Visit us here for more details: yourbusinessyourwealth.com