Podcast appearances and mentions of aviv shahar

Aviv Shahar explores why we're living through an Epochal Moment—a rare transition between ages where one epoch dies as another emerges. He maps the five-thousand-year journey that brought us here, reveals the “bugs” in our collective evolution that require remedying, and describes the emerging capacities of the universal human we're becoming as we navigate this bewildering, transformative threshold. Note: This interview originally aired on Sounds True One, where these special episodes of Insights at the Edge are available to watch live on video and with exclusive access to Q&As with our guests. Learn more at http://www.join.soundstrue.com

One of the most powerful tools of personal transformation is also one of the most accessible: it's the story we tell ourselves about who we are and the future we imagine. It's a story we can update and recalibrate every day — no permission beyond ourselves required to create and recreate the person we want to be and the way forward.In this conversation, we continue the Epoch Journey series as Aviv Shahar and longtime Portals friend Jeff Vander Clute explore the process of self-authoring appraisal. How do we identify the blockages, possible pain and trauma, and limiting beliefs that hold us back from the vast field of larger potential that is our natural birthright?As we update and realign our values and mental maps of meaning, we liberate greater versatility and range, and foster new pathways into our deeper universal nature. Appraising who we are today and the influences shaping our lives does not deny or bypass real challenges we may face. It allows us to melt and heal many types of inner scar tissue and discover our natural resilience.Among Aviv and Jeff's other insights and discoveries:What external persuasions do we allow inside ourselves? A modern vulnerability is openness to impressions that foster self-doubt.If we deny the point of pain, or suppress unresolved trauma or unmet essential needs, then already we are in a distorted view, bypassing what the case actually is.We explore in the self-authoring appraisal process a way in which we let life itself lead us within the various domains of our growth, development and engagement.With enhanced resiliency available to humanity, the big question for the species is, are we going to make it? Do we have enough resiliency to shift from Homo sapiens sapiens to becoming Universalis?The self-authoring appraisal is a technology we can apply to almost any aspect of our lives, much like carefully attending to a garden, instead of running on autopilot and habit.We can receive guidance by connecting with our inner resources, or inner conclave. If we ask a question, and then clearly see our situation, we're already beyond it.In a post-guru, epochal transition, we all lead; we need each other. Through shared discovery and co-creating, we provoke ourselves and create a greater ecology for the divine.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 “Life is open, life is an open system — the universe is actually an open system. So how do we live? How do we dance with life in an open system? It seems that you are pioneering certain understandings and modalities for how to dance with life, in openness. And in the openness each of us can show up fully, and very resiliently, and creatively. Openness is liberation, and inquiry grounds us in our own nature, which then allows us to continue to express and flower.” (Jeff)“Just capturing two words from what you said that are so central to this appraisal process, and to being generatively creative in telling the story of your life anew every day. Waking up in the morning and saying, 'No, I was who I was yesterday, and today I'm telling the story again in a new way.' You are your own creator. You wake up in the morning and you have permission to rewrite your story today. That is, in what you said, that stopped me.” (Aviv) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteResilience and the Crisis of Belief

A powerful way to envision our entry into this new phase of evolution and epochal shift is as a fusion process — a merging of the physical realm with a new universal potency that unlocks immense possibilities and profound renewal. Imagine it as an energetic Cambrian release for humanity and the planet. We dive deeper into the mysteries of the epochal shift underway in the latest chapter of the “Current Openings” series with Aviv Shahar and David Price Francis.To better understand what we mean by an epoch, Aviv and David begin with a closer look at the energetic nature of the human and the cosmos. Modern thinking often confines reality to the limits of our biophysical form. However, we recognize an energetic dimension residing within and between all layers of organic, physical existence. Humans can sense and attune to these spiritual or energetic frequencies through finer faculties naturally embedded in our design. The energetic or unseen natures of the human and the planet evolve over time, which can be traced in the evolution of culture throughout history. This perspective reveals epochs as intelligent, purposeful programs of growth and refinement — forward-looking pathways guiding us toward a universal future.    Other insights and ponders:The new epoch calls for capacities beyond intellect — faculties essential for deeper integration of human life within the universe.Epochal changes do not arrive all at once. The energetic permission of the past holds initially but breaks down swiftly, giving rise dramatically to the new.By metabolizing new impressions, we activate new capacities and perceptions — a profound act of renewal; an evolutionary process creating something new on the inside.Rather than rejecting the past, we harvest its best elements and respectfully leave behind the rest. We carry forward a tested, validated value system.There is confusion, chaos, and suffering when we're not able to connect with new energetic and spiritual fuel available for healing and development elevation.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 “An epoch is an evolutionary program, a program afforded by the universe and the planet, where humanity can go through specific and necessary development. The idea that the evolutionary process is just a random trial and error makes no sense; it's too brilliantly constructed. And there is clearly an ascending refinement and complexifying vector of life wanting to support higher levels, higher capacities, higher sophistication, higher consciousness.” (Aviv)“This realization that in learning there is renewal. Because what it actually means is that we metabolize new impressions, and those new impressions activate in us new capacities and perceptions. And that, in that itself, is a profound act of renewal. And that therefore, as the epoch shifts and a new energy permission is afforded to human experience and to humanity at large, we are to truly expect that everything around us will continue to change in an intensified manner.” (Aviv) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteCurrent Openings #20 – The Epoch Mystery

Let us imagine that one of the most powerful ways to create space and be open to an incoming wave of evolutionary progress — the future — is to consciously heal and absolve the past, with all of its trauma and scar tissue. Not just our personal past, but imagining in ourselves the flow of history through the current epoch. It's not just possible, but some would say a vital process in a time of great change and new possibility.  In this conversation, Aviv Shahar and Portals friend Jeff Vander Clute take a deep look into the epoch's seven stages and the corresponding potencies of the energy spectrum, Red through Violet. It's a way of attuning to the flow and energetic nature of history, and to what Aviv and Jeff believe is a step-function leap underway to a new wave of evolution.Jeff is a consultant and author of three recent books, including Beyond Every Teaching, a collection of transformative spiritual transmissions.In today's exploration, we focus on the main stories or perspectives of the epoch, especially the very real human capacity to revisit, rewrite and clean in ourselves painful and traumatic aspects of history. It's a process of energetic dialysis powered by the spectrum frequency of Yellow, which we can also trace in the epoch to the emergence of the axial religions.Other amazing insights from Aviv and Jeff's conversation include:Universal culture: For the first time, there is a truly global civilization, with shared communication and commerce platforms — a core premise in the story of the shift from planetary to universal culture and civilization.Power of Yellow: Yellow dialysis enables self-forgiveness and transformation — a life reboot. The Yellow frequency promotes inner rewiring and deeper integration.Great alchemy: As we transcend and reach the source, the point where it all comes together, great alchemy is possible: polarities and multiplicities are seen in their root nature as unified; a new human species can emerge.Liberating essence: The axial religions that emerged around an energetic source became in some paths an institutional bureaucracy. Yellow dialysis liberates the essence into new currency and updating.Universal economy: The universe loves economy; if knowledge was codified earlier in the epoch, why waste it? Distill its essence, release what is no longer needed, and further the evolutionary story.New sense organs: Activating Yellow brings online new human sense organs and communication apparatus; it encourages shared values and meaning, and connects with higher sources of inspiration.Beyond the head: The Enlightenment and scientific revolution are based on the head or intellect-driven knowledge. We can experience knowledge differently through the vibrant, invisible blessing realms.Living history: The feelings and traditions of ancient cultures are alive in energetic form. We can attune to those sentiments and passions to sense and wonder about the grandeur of their appearance.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 so we build into this the recognition that the epoch is not a concept, it's not a mental structure, rather it is a living process. It's arising inside us. It's arising in between us. It arises all around us, and it is something we can live into, inside and in between us, in our conversations and discoveries, which is the premise to come together in small pods or in a larger network, to metabolize, to ease, to decode these ideas as they unfold.” (Aviv)“I've had an interesting esoteric experience in which I actually changed the past and suddenly the map of where I was going in life changed, instantaneously. It's as if the past is actually quite malleable. So when we're rewriting the past here, I would say that it's powerful beyond the words that we use to tell these stories, there's something going on energetically, and archetypally, within the collective.” (Jeff) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteThe Five Stories of the Epoch

For many, last year made it impossible to ignore the scale of global change — what we see as global instability is only one dimension of a larger meta-crisis. Portals has been following the signs of this broader evolutionary cycle, which is reshaping our planet and humanity. With the epoch insight and perspective, we can trace the emergence and patterns of this epochal movement across every area of life, from grand global systems to everyday human endeavors.In the latest conversation from the The Universalis Project, Aviv Shahar is joined by Karen Heney and Kyriaki Nikandrou to explore the flow of history and evolution through a “7-fold epoch.” This special lens examines the nature of each epochal impulse and its influence on culture, as well as on human growth and development. The epoch framework is not a new meta-theory about life or evolution; instead, it reflects an observable quality within all natural processes. We can see 7-fold patterns in the natural world — including flora, fauna, and human behavior.For instance, the world's major religions arose during the Yellow phase of planetary evolution, while the drive to resolve conflict, balance pressures, and collaborate in scalable systems reflects a Blue impulse.Other insights from this exploration include:The nature of Red: This planet, in its cosmology in the galaxy, and its function as the cradle for evolving conscious life, discovers the unique emergence of a new epoch and conscious life in the frequency and nature of Red.Indigo theater: Social media and the internet represent a fantastic Indigo theater of merging and transference.Violet phase-shift: In the larger purpose of the epoch, a great endeavor or civilization ends in Violet as part of a phase-change to the next evolutionary leap, sometimes with a violent dimension.Living History: The living experience of history — the energy — has not been destroyed; those memories, feelings, and sentiments are encapsulated in time; as we become attuned, we feel the living nature of their experience.Capacity for destruction: The unfolding story of the evolution of life includes the capacity to destroy it. We help metabolize lower influences by expanding consciousness and unlocking higher human capabilities.• Indigo-Violet Acceleration: A core premise of the epoch study is that it's a continuing revelation inside the context of a rolling event — the Indigo-Violet acceleration, as witnessed through the meta-crisis and other profound planetary change.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 the story of the evolution of life is accompanied by the story of the development of the capacity to destroy life. And the reason we feel so compelled to bring the consciousness of this story into being is that there is an awareness that when we bring consciousness to this story, we may intensify and unlock capacities for humanity to do both the healing and liberation work, at all the levels, the level of the individual, the level of the group, and the level of the tribe and the nation.” (Aviv)“Every human that's born on the planet, it's designed in such a way that every life can have a spiritual journey, can have a connective, purposeful life. And we're all born into this unfolding epoch. First of all, we need to be aware of it, which is the wonder of these recordings and this journey. Because if we become aware of it, and we opt in to being consciously mindful of these different progressions, then we're saying that we can co-join evolution and a human update.” (Karen) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteThe Universalis Project #13: The 7-fold Epoch Progression

Our adventure exploring the deeper nature of human life forever seeks to find new bridges — the special connecting insights and nuggets of wisdom that remind us why this journey of discovery is so critical to our personal and collective futures. What is the premise that inspires us to unlock the promise of the human capacity to engage with and shape this emerging new wave of evolution?  To help build these bridges of connection, this conversation brings together Aviv Shahar and longtime Portals friend David Price Francis for the 19th episode of their remarkable series “Current Openings.”Even though these are the early days (comparatively) of the emergence of what we call the universal human, Homo Universalis, Aviv and David remind us we can be intentionally present in multiple spaces in the universe today, here and now. We have the capacity and permission of the human design to renew and reconfigure our finer energetic inner lives any time.One bridge into the unknown then might be the awareness of our energetic nature and possibility to actively engage with the flow of an evolving cosmos.Other connecting ideas and scaffolding include:We spiritualize the universe and the world through our refinement — the connection, the embodiment and ensoulment, that enable the universe to birth its higher possibilities through us.Within our carnal form, we're an electromagnetic spirit-soul being; the dimension of energies we process is vast. We can refine, a permission that no other organic life has.We create a space for each other to walk into possibilities that we wouldn't be able to access on our own. That's the other dimension: the universe of energetic potential we create for our collective future.Within the amazing promise and premise of being human is perhaps the greatest gift of all: freedom to decide how to use our life. We can choose to spiritualize our future.Only humans have been given permission to get it wrong; to mess things up. The rest of organic life follows its program; flora and fauna do what they do, naturally, at 100%.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 “When a person has that spiritualized process they walk into the forest, and the trees and the animals, and the flowers they welcome the human. But if the human is full of anger and resentment and the mortgage and what's wrong, and checking their digital media and seeing what's on Twitter whilst they're walking through the forest, well, everything retreats from them because they're on a lower vibration frequency. So we have that amazing promise, but we're not told this is how you have to use it.” (David)“Everything that exists in organic life is processing universal energies, in some fashion, whether lunar energy, solar energy, energy from different planets, it's being processed and received by planet Earth. So I think of the planet in that sense as this amazing crucible of receiving different energies, and she needs form to receive an energy. So whether it be a squirrel, whether it be a cat, whether it be a tree, a bird, everything is processing energetics and delivering that energy into the energy field of the planet.” (David) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteCurrent Openings #19: Spiritualize the Universe – 20 Core Premises

Can we imagine that the simple act of coming together — the “togetherings” of ourselves with our inner lives, our friends, our communities — unlocks the intelligence that enables the “we” to become an integral part of our future and of the evolution of life? What if life itself is intentionally nudging humans together toward a greater discovery of its own nature and possibility?Longtime Portals friends Nigel Geeves and Well join Aviv Shahar for the latest exploration in Evolving Together, a series of conversations uncovering the creative potential unlocked when human beings come together in shared purpose or mission.If two people can face their differences and build the trust required to unlock greater mutual possibilities, can we “scale” that insight to the larger community and culture? Can it help bridge and neutralize the often toxic polarities that divide so many segments of humanity?Aviv, Nigel and Well explore different kinds of gatherings where the fundamental impulse for people to be together creates an ecology in which something bigger, often profound, can join and transform the dynamic (even a Led Zeppelin concert). As they discover, when people come together to consciously give life itself a better future, it fosters a deeper engagement with evolution than was previously possible.Other togethering insights include:Being together, we sense the three core impulses of life: to continue; to be made new and regenerate; to evolve and upgrade to a new, better, improved version of the human species.The real struggle for any life is to elevate in ourselves, which means bringing closer together our own positive and negative, to both squeeze ourselves higher, and invite higher qualities.Evolution begins from the idea of giving back for what life gives us. We are creative beings with something to offer from ourselves that is new and different to what previously existed.We may come together around a shared intention outside of ourselves, such as to reach a common goal, or internally, with a mutual intention to create new possibility for each person.We grow through difficulties we face if we can actually get through them, where the support we offer each other is a powerful opportunity, especially if we're able to be honest and direct.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 “If you think about it, life itself started somewhere, and the whole journey of the evolution of life has added value to the creation that it emerged at. Life has become more intricate, more interesting, more capable, more responsive in all sorts of different ways as the journey of evolution has gone on. For me, the whole journey of that is a journey of things coming together to offer a better response in all sorts of ways, and we're a shining example of that in the human form.” (Well)“So I'm experiencing three core natures in the language you're offering to the shared intention of life. Intention one is to continue. This universe doesn't want to ever stop. But there is an intention two and three, because it doesn't want to continue in an inert way. It wants, intention two, to be vital, be fresh, make a new start. And then there is a third intention, which is it wants to continue to get better, to improve, to evolve its nature - these three core impulses of life.” (Aviv) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteEvolving Together #6: The Shared Intentions of Life

What does it mean to live religiously? How do the premises and ways of living religiously evolve to embrace and embody new evolutionary possibility?How do people register and express perhaps the most intimate feelings a human can experience — the sensing of real connection with universal and divine sources of life?Portals brought together an international group of friends to hear firsthand how their experience and embodiment of the impulse to live religiously may be evolving. Many moving and profound insights emerge in their conversation with Aviv Shahar, including:The religious impulse is a deep longing inside that seeks the highest point of communion we can find; it emanates not from religion, but from a spiritual presence that lives inside the temple of ourselves.We no longer need to build cathedrals of stone but seek the cathedral within.Every person is different; instead of structured religion, we come together in a shared sentiment as individuals with their own power and self-responsibility that allows freedom to do whatever we need to do.We are both human, both man and woman are created in the image of God, which says God has a female side. Whatever comes into the future of religion, it must start from that reality.We have these visions of how to lead a religious life: convent, ashram, mountain top. We're now talking about coming back inside us, the journey to where we are in our life.We bring with us our religious traditions, the ceremonies and rituals, because they are touchstones to connect us with what we're doing and why, and what gives us meaning.Religion can appear through a human being who has value for the planet; there's more intelligence and wisdom that the Great Mother, the great church, offers in abundance.A vital role in religious practices is to learn, educate, facilitate and allow the human to be moved and fashioned by dormant systems that will provide needed new intelligence.We're looking for the religion of what works; being prodded to search for something else, something better, is maybe how we make ourselves fit for the different needs of the times we live in.I want to be part of a religion that can go anywhere from your heart; when the world can't offer stability or love, the universe can; the stars have never failed to make me feel part of something reliable.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 not the religion that is important, it is the religious impulse that gives rise to something very fundamental in human life. And the story that we are seeking is the story of the drama of the relationship between the Source and human beings. And it seems to me that the religious impulse, which is a deep place in humans of longing, and belonging, and being part of, is based upon the fact that we are not complete, and therefore we seek completion with something which is outside of ourselves - which keeps us searching and looking for communion.”(Avshalom)“A human lifespan is pretty short, so I've always had this feeling that I was born into something that's ongoing before me, and it's ongoing beyond me. So, what have I been born into? And can I become a part of what that is? And perhaps, as a next step, can I contribute to whatever that ongoing process is? So, to me, that's the beginning of a religious journey. I think so much of what we're talking about is that it's coming back inside us, where we are in our life, bringing us in closer contact with this whole universe that we're a part of.” (Peter) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteExpressions of Religious Living

Is it possible to appreciate the life of Jesus Christ in a real way that embraces the universal message and mystery, but also finds harmony with a fundamental approach to logic and reason? Can an esoteric perception of the divine find a home inside metamodern spirituality?We continue exploring an evolving perception of God and the many faces of Jesus Christ, the central pillar of Christianity, in the newest conversation with Aviv Shahar and Brendan Graham Dempsey. Brendan is a metamodern leader who combines a personal experience with Christianity and a pioneering exploration of metamodern thinking and philosophy.In a lively exchange, Brendan and Aviv explore different appreciations of the transformative power that spiritual seekers feel in the many facets of Jesus Christ. Could the religious influence that changed the course of human history have naturally emerged as part of a complex, evolving human species? Or can the esoteric pursuit of a deeper truth reveal the divine nature of Christ's appearance?Many enlivening insights emerge, including:The best defense of spirituality is rigorous, critical thinking; integrating nuanced, sophisticated perspectives with an openness to deep esoteric experiences.Some religious traditions can be seen as privileging the irrational: just have faith, and quote a lot of scripture when people ask uncomfortable questions.When you come back from a peak experience, it's essential to engage in what we describe as a rational or debrief process to help separate the real from the unreal.Experience is a valid source of evidence; we can look to it without necessarily bringing down the skeptical, critical, prefrontal-cortex analysis and do science on it.We talk about the soul not as another dogma or form of teaching, but as a guidance to discover a path in ourselves where we can travel to the edge of what we know.There is a moment where you feel you can emerge to a unique combination that is not just the thrill of your mind quivering with new ideas, but is more than the biochemistry of your brain.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 we can reclaim languages of 'soul' and 'spirit' to refer very much to what they kind of used to refer to, but now be more clear about kind of what those things really are, in a sense, and it isn't to say that we fully understand them, either. Because there is this realm of the unknown and the mystery that we should lean into, and again, a lot of that is about the sacred for me. The more we learn, and the more that gets disclosed from that mystery and continues to fill in that causal account of reality is precisely the learning process that connects us deeper to the world, and, I would say, the divine.” (Brendan)“Believe me, I would love nothing more than to really deeply feel in my heart that I am an eternal being that reincarnated here out of a long journey of continuous cycles of birth and rebirth as I develop, and that I am engaged in a kind of multi-lifelong process of learning, spiritual development and growth, so that I can ultimately be more united with the divine on the other side of this existence. And that this whole cosmic situation that we're a part of is part of a divine design and plan that's basically leading in that direction.” (Brendan)RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteReligion and the Esoteric

What is the message we would bring back to our families and friends if we survived a near-death experience? It's the kind of event that could change our lives in a big way. What would we most want the people closest to us to realize from our close encounter with the veil?Such close encounters reveal profound insights and perceptions that can change a life's direction, or bring new understanding about the human's larger universal purpose and potential.Being brought back “online” from an unexpected near-departure also highlights a view of human life as the integration of many different systems in a unified, harmonious whole — physical, mental, and spiritual. An illness or other struggle can be seen as a form of dis-integration, while weaving to reintegrate the parts back together, physical and energetic, enables a larger healing. It brings a clearer vision of the river of life flowing seamlessly within a stream of universal possibility.Longtime Portals friend David Price Francis recently survived a very close call: a scheduled heart surgery did not go as planned. In the latest chapter of the Current Openings series, he talks with Aviv Shahar about the perceptions and meaning the experience unlocked, and the message he'd like us to contemplate. Among their insights:That's how I think of human beings: we're not finished, we're not completed. We're here to learn, to grow, to develop. We're in an embryonic state, which is why planet Earth is so messy.Make the most of life while we're here; pay attention, try to understand how the universe works. Partly why we're here is to read God's signature in the world around us.We can't have the evolutionary stream without being in the river of life; we need to love both. Not trying to be in the realm of consciousness and leaving behind regular life.Instructing and talking to our soul is part of wellbeing and healing. We talk with our intention, our consciousness; we speak to our brain, our body, our soul about what's happening in our life.We might see life in the universe and on Earth as random. Yet the distance from the sun to Earth is exact. In life there is often an exactness to a fraction of a degree. What does this mean for how we live?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 don't want to go to Nirvana, we want Nirvana to come to us - whilst we're doing the washing up - like that idea of chop wood, carry water, that one is actually engaged in the river of life, but one has, at the same time, a higher consciousness and a higher awareness that's active. So both things are happening at once. It's very easy though to get carried along in the river of life and lose consciousness within it; we become automated, we become auto responsive.” (David)“Pay attention to the river of life, the codings, the understandings, you could say the signature of creation, it's all there. And so we don't take our consciousness and seek to separate it and go into some other domain and become blank. It's actually more like, everything is interesting, everything is worth looking at and exploring and trying to understand it. What are the actual laws by which this place works? And what are the connections through which it works? And we've been given this chance to research God through the river of life, because that tells us something about the design of creation.” (David) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteThe Open-Heart Conversation: Current Openings #18

What would the divine feminine or Goddess nature want to ask or expect of a man today? If you were a man representing the divine masculine, and had the chance, what would you want to ask or say to a woman at this moment? Can we even imagine ourselves and each other as different expressions of a divine source, more than merely a personality?These were among the inquiries that helped inspire a profound exploration of the divine feminine and the Goddess archetype at this Fall's Metamodern Spirituality Lab. To learn more, Portals brought together Aviv Shahar and Lab organizers and metamodern leaders Layman Pascal and Brendan Graham Dempsey, along with participants Mariah Rose McKay and Antonia Louise.This is the newest conversation in the Portals series exploring metamodern spirituality.A central theme for this special collaboration of women and men was exploring the role of the Goddess, the feminine, in metamodern spirituality: an embrace, rather than historical denial, of the feminine presence at the heart of the human's universal nature. The Lab itself was a space where gatherings and rituals supported a freer expression of the divine feminine and masculine influences in both women and men.The openness allowed for the emergence of many facets of the Goddess nature: maternal, warrior, healing, wisdom. For many participants it produced a trust and chance for intimacy that in turn generated a deep sense of healing and release of ancient tensions between the genders.Other Lab insights include:It's the importance of community; we cannot do this alone. It's the practical elements, but also the deep and intimate bonds we form, and the healing power of deep relationships.There is the long-wave dimension and nature of this work: we need to include the generational transmission; a project of the next 100 years.When the god and goddess are prepared to embrace each other, inside each of us, a birthing process occurs; those two configurations merge into a third nature that liberates a new future.We don't know the ripple effects of how our hearts and consciousness can affect the world when we change our relationship to the goddess.This quality of intimacy and way of being with each other, where people are held in a place where they can begin a sentence without knowing how they will end it, takes time to build.We honor the broad spectrum of ways women show up from a “masculine” stance, and men from a “feminine” stance; these are potent and helpful ways of looking at the world and ourselves.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 “From the point of view of people who are interested in growth and development and depth and a transformation of civilization, a goddess who's also capable of growth and change and depth, and who could enter into more nuanced or richer relations with human beings, and in the masculine/feminine exchange, is something we would like to be able to facilitate through our thinking, and speaking, and hearts, and relationships.” (Layman)“This is a favorite topic of mine, polarity in masculine and feminine dynamics, and there is something really valuable about having these distinctions and having a spectrum between those poles, but being able to create a magnetism, being able to create something that pulls together and also something that repels, not necessarily in a bad way, just in a separation, individuation way. We are separate, and we can be as one. I feel like there is a lot of healing that we are doing collectively; how do we embody those in the most healthy and conscious way?” (Antonia) RESOURCES MENTIONED Portals of Perception WebsiteAviv's LinkedIn Aviv's TwitterAviv's WebsiteThe Goddess Arising

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