Podcasts about japanese shinto

#TypicalSkepticPodcast #BentonRyer #SpiritualHealing #JapaneseShinto #EnergyHealing #Mage #SoulContracts #Shamanism #SpiritualAwakening #InstagramHealer #AlternativeHealing #EsotericKnowledge #FringeTopics #StayFringeDisclaimerThe following program is for entertainment, educational, and informational purposes only. The views expressed by the guest are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the host or the platform. This is not a healing session and is not a substitute for medical, psychological, or professional advice. As always use your own discernment when watching the Typical Skeptic Podcast and Viewer Discretion is Advised

**SMASH** **BREAKS GLASS** Well folks, here we are with another emergency pod, reviewing another one of Heather Henson's Handmade Puppet Dreams films. This time we opted to forgo spinning the wheel to just go ahead and watch a film suggested to us by a friend over on the discord! (shout out to L_Troemel!)  For the uninitiated, Handmade Puppet Dreams is a series of short films produced by Heather Henson and her puppet company Ibex Puppetry. Founded in 2004, Handmade puppet dreams has provided the means and exposure for smaller puppet artists to create some truly unique films straight out of their own imaginations. This week the boys will be watching a found object puppet piece based on a Japanese Shinto story called Amaterasu.  This one is really special, with beautiful found objects telling a classic mythological story of feuding gods. We hope you enjoy the unique short film from Handmade Puppet Dreams! Join the discussion on our discord! https://discord.gg/JDtWJrhPF6Follow us on twitter @PMoNPodcast and on Instagram and Threads @puppetmastersofnoneFind out more about the puppet masters on our website: https://puppetmastersofnone.wixsite.com/puppetmastersofnoneOriginal Music Composed by Taetro. @Taetro  https://www.taetro.com/Send us a text

And this is Studio Ghibli's 2001 classic from famed writer-director Hayao Miyazaki. When 10-year-old Chihiro moves with her family to a new neighborhood, a wrong turn sees her trapped in the world of kami, the spirits of Japanese Shinto folklore. Raking in almost $400 million in coin, the film stood as the highest-grossing film in Japan for almost 20 years. Widely regarded as one of the best films ever made, animated or otherwise, it became the first hand-drawn, Japanese anime and non-English-language animated film to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature at the 75th Academy Awards. It also received North American distribution from Disney at the urging of Pixar's John Lasseter, who worked on the English dub, raising its profile with audiences stateside and introducing us to Soot Sprites, No-Face, and Haku the Dragon. Now our hosts are here to get Spirited Away!   Someone needs a bath!    For more geeky podcasts visit GonnaGeek.com   You can find us on iTunes under ''Legends Podcast''. Please subscribe and give us a positive review. You can also follow us on Twitter @LegendsPodcast or even better, send us an e-mail: LegendsPodcastS@gmail.com   You can write to Rum Daddy directly: rumdaddylegends@gmail.com You can find all our contact information here on the Network page of GonnaGeek.com Our complete archive is always available at www.legendspodcast.com, www.legendspodcast.libsyn.com  

Hatsumode is the ritual first visit of the year to a Japanese Shinto or Buddhist temple. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dr. Nathan S. French A school field trip to Washington, D.C. is a formative rite of passage shared by many U.S. school students across the nation. Often, these are framed as “field trips.” Students may visit the White House, the U.S. Capitol Building, the Supreme Court, the Library of Congress, Declaration of Independence (housed in the National Archive), the National Museum of the American Indian, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Jefferson Memorial, Arlington National Cemetery, or the Smithsonian Museum – among others. For many students, this is the first time they will connect the histories of their textbooks to items, artifacts, and buildings that they can see and feel. For those arriving to Washington, D.C. by airplane or bus, the field trip might also seem like a road trip. Road trips, often involving movement across the U.S. from city-to-city and state-to-state are often framed as quintessential American experiences. Americans have taken road trips to follow their favorite bands, to move to universities and new jobs, to visit the hall of fame of their favorite professional or collegiate sport, or sites of family history. As Dr. Andrew Offenberger observes in our interview, road trips have helped American authors, like Kiowa poet N. Scott Momaday, make sense of their identities as Americans. What if, however, these field trips to Washington, D.C. and road trips across the country might amount to something else? What if we considered them to be pilgrimages? Would that change our understanding of them? For many Americans, the first word that comes to mind when they hear the word, “pilgrimage,” involves the pilgrims of Plymouth, a community of English Puritans who colonized territory in Massachusetts, at first through a treaty with the Wampanoag peoples, but eventually through their dispossession. For many American communities, the nature of pilgrimage remains a reminder of forced displacement, dispossession, and a loss of home and homeland. Pilgrimage, as a term, might also suggest a religious experience. There are multiple podcasts, blogs, and videos discussing the Camino de Santiago, a number of pilgrimage paths through northern Spain. Others might think of making a pilgrimage to the Christian, Jewish, or Muslim sacred spaces in Israel and Palestine often referred to as the “Holy Land” collectively – including the Temple Mount, the Dome of the Rock, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (among others). Mark Twain's Innocents Abroad, is a classic example of this experience. Some make pilgrimage to Salem, Massachusetts each October. Others even debate whether the Crusades were a holy war or pilgrimage. American experiences of pilgrimage have led to substantial transformations in our national history and to our constitutional rights. Pilgrimage, as a movement across state, national, or cultural boundaries, has often been used by Americans to help them make sense of who they are, where they came from, and what it means, to them, to be “an American.” The word, “pilgrimage,” traces its etymology from the French, pèlerinage and from the Latin, pelegrines, with a general meaning of going through the fields or across lands as a foreigner. As a category used by anthropologists and sociologists in the study of religion, “pilgrimage” is often used as a much broader term, studying anything ranging from visits to Japanese Shinto shrines, the Islamic pilgrimage of Hajj, “birthright” trips to Israel by American Jewish youth, and, yes, even trips to Graceland in Memphis, Tennessee – the home of Elvis Presley. Arnold van Gennep (1873-1957) defined pilgrimage as one of a number of rites of passage (i.e., a rite du passage) that involves pilgrims separating themselves from broader society, moving themselves into a place of transition, and then re-incorporating their transformed bodies and minds back into their home societies. That moment of transition, which van Gennep called “liminality,” was the moment when one would become something new – perhaps through initiation, ritual observation, or by pushing one's personal boundaries outside of one's ordinary experience. Clifford Geertz (1926-2006), a contemporary of Turner, argued that a pilgrimage helps us to provide a story within which we are able to orient ourselves in the world. Consider, for example, the role that a trip to Arlington National Cemetery or the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier plays in a visit by a high school class to Washington, D.C. If framed and studied as a pilgrimage, Geertz's theory would suggest that a visit to these sites can be formative to an American's understanding of national history and, perhaps just as importantly, the visit will reinforce for Americans the importance of national service and remembrance of those who died in service to the defense of the United States. When we return from those school field trips to Washington, D.C., then, we do so with a new sense of who we are and where we fit into our shared American history. Among the many examples that we could cite from American history, two pilgrimages in particular – those of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X – provide instructive examples. Held three years after the unanimous U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, the 1957 “Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom,” led by Dr. King brought together thousands in order to, as he described it, “call upon all who love justice and dignity and liberty, who love their country, and who love mankind …. [to] renew our strength, communicate our unity, and rededicate our efforts, firmly but peaceably, to the attainment of freedom.” Posters for the event promised that it would “arouse the conscience of the nation.” Drawing upon themes from the Christian New Testament, including those related to agape – a love of one's friends and enemies – King's speech at the “Prayer Pilgrimage” brought national attention to his civil rights movement and established an essential foundation for his return to Washington, D.C. and his “I Have a Dream Speech,” six years later. In April 1964, Malcolm X departed to observe the Muslim pilgrimage ritual of Hajj in the city of Mecca in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Hajj is an obligation upon all Muslims, across the globe, and involves rituals meant to remind them of their responsibilities to God, to their fellow Muslims, and of their relationship to Ibrahim and Ismail (i.e., Abraham and Ishamel) as found in the Qur'an. Before his trip, Malcolm X had expressed skepticism about building broader ties to American civil rights groups. His experience on Hajj, he wrote, was transformational. "The holy city of Mecca had been the first time I had ever stood before the creator of all and felt like a complete human being,” he wrote, “People were hugging, they were embracing, they were of all complexions …. The feeling hit me that there really wasn't what he called a color problem, a conflict between racial identities here." His experience on Hajj was transformative. The result? Upon return to the United States, Malcolm X pledged to work with anyone – regardless of faith and race – who would work to change civil rights in the United States. His experiences continue to resonate with Americans. These are but two stories that contribute to American pilgrimage experiences. Today, Americans go on pilgrimages to the Ganges in India, to Masada in Israel, to Mecca in Saudi Arabia, and to Bethlehem in Palestine, and to cities along the Trail of Tears and along the migration of the Latter-Day Saints church westward. Yet, they also go on pilgrimages and road trips to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, to the baseball hall of fame in Cooperstown, to the national parks, and to sites of family and community importance. In these travels, they step outside of the ordinary and, in encountering the diversities of the U.S., sometimes experience the extraordinary changing themselves, and the country, in the process. * * * Questions for Class Discussion What is a “pilgrimage”? What is a road trip? Are they similar? Different? Why? Must a pilgrimage only be religious or spiritual? Why or why not? How has movement – from city to city, or place to place, or around the world – changed U.S. history and the self-understanding of Americans? What if those movements had never occurred? How would the U.S. be different? Have you been on a pilgrimage? Have members of your family? How has it changed your sense of self? How did it change that of your family members? If you were to design a pilgrimage, what would it be? Where would it take place? Would it involve special rituals or types of dress? Why? What would the purpose of your pilgrimage be? How do other communities understand their pilgrimages? Do other cultures have “road trips” like the United States? Additional Sources: Ohio History and Pilgrimage Fort Ancient Earthworks & Nature Preserve, Ohio History Connection (link). National Geographic Society, “Intriguing Interactions [Hopewell],” Grades 9-12 (link) Documentary Podcasts & Films “In the Light of Reverence,” 2001 (link) An examination of Lakota, Hopi, and Wintu ties to and continued usages of their homelands and a question of how movement through land may be considered sacred by some and profane by others. Melvin Bragg, “Medieval Pilgrimage,” BBC: In our Time, February 2021 (link) Bruce Feiler: Sacred Journeys (Pilgrimage). PBS Films (link) along with educator resources (link). The American Pilgrimage Project. Berkley Center, Georgetown University (link). Arranged by StoryCorps, a collection of video and audio interviews with Americans of diverse backgrounds discussing their religious and spiritual identities and their intersections with American life. Dave Whitson, “The Camino Podcast,” (link) on Spotify (link), Apple (link) A collection of interviews with those of varying faiths and spiritualities discussing pilgrimage experiences. Popular Media & Websites “Dreamland: American Travelers to the Holy Land in the 19th Century,” Shapell (link) A curated digital museum gallery cataloguing American experiences of pilgrimage to Jerusalem, Israel, and Palestine. LaPier, Rosalyn R. “How Standing Rock Became a Site of Pilgrimage.” The Conversation, December 7, 2016 (link). Talamo, Lex. Pilgrimage for the Soul. South Dakota Magazine, May/June 2019. (link). Books Grades K-6 Murdoch, Catherine Gilbert. The Book of Boy. New York: Harper Collins, 2020 (link). Wolk, Lauren. Beyond the Bright Sea. New York: Puffin Books, 2018 (link). Grades 7-12 Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales. New York: Penguin Books, 2003 (link). Malcolm X. The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley. New York: Ballantine Books, 1992 (link). Melville, Herman. Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land. New York: Library of America, n.d. (link). Murray, Pauli. Song in a Weary Throat: Memoir of an American Pilgrimage. New York: Liveright, 1987 (link). Reader, Ian. Pilgrimage: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015 (link). Twain, Mark. The Innocents Abroad. New York: Modern Library, 2003 (link). Scholarship Bell, Catherine. Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. Bloechl, Jeffrey, and André Brouillette, eds. Pilgrimage as Spiritual Practice: A Handbook for Teachers, Wayfarers, and Guides. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2022. Frey, Nancy Louise Louise. Pilgrim Stories: On and Off the Road to Santiago, Journeys Along an Ancient Way in Modern Spain. First Edition. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. Lévi-Strauss, Claude Patterson, Sara M., “Traveling Zions: Pilgrimage in Modern Mormonism,” in Pioneers in the Attic: Place and Memory along the Mormon Trail. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020 (link). Pazos, Antón. Redefining Pilgrimage: New Perspectives on Historical and Contemporary Pilgrimages. London: Routledge, 2014 (link). Reader, Ian. Pilgrimage: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015 (link). Van Gennep, Arnold. The Rites of Passage. Translated by Monika B. Vizedom and Gabrielle L. Caffee. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1960 (link)

Today we hear a conversation between CHESS President Yates Lennon and community health expert Randy Jordan, who is the current Chief Advisor of Impact for Health at Next Stage Consulting. We listen as they discuss Managed Medicaid, funding the health safety net for the uninsured, and how different types of healthcare organizations can work together in a sustainable way.Alright, Randy Jordan, welcome to the Chess Move to Value podcast. We're thrilled to have you here today. Look forward to our conversation.Well, thank you, Yates. It's really good to be with you and with your audience today.Awesome. So why don't you just start by telling us a little bit about yourself, what you do today, and then your journey through the healthcare maze to get to where we are today.Be glad to starting with today's probably the easiest part because the rest is kind of a winding path. But today I'm working as a healthcare consultant with consulting practice out of Charlotte by the name of Next Stage. It's an interesting place to work. They have a great vision and mission for helping local communities and underserved populations and that's why I'm there. But prior to this current role, I had started out as a young man as a pharmacist practice pharmacy in the state of Florida come from a long line of pharmacists. So healthcare runs as a deep strain in my family history. After running a pharmacy, community pharmacy for a while, I ended up going to law school and decided to become a healthcare lawyer and that was a really interesting time in my life. I learned a lot from that experience and then moved on to become involved in nonprofit work and spent nearly 20 years working for an international faith-based charity out of Philadelphia by the name Hope Worldwide. And the last seven years I was that organization CEO. And then most recently, having moved to North Carolina eight years ago, I accepted the role as CEO of North Carolina's Free and Charitable Clinics Association. And that gave me a real great sense of the local flavor of North Carolina safety net. So that's how I got here today through that windy path. Always, always focused on healthcare, Always, as I look back, always focused on trying to help others.OK, that's an interesting story. I know you spent a little bit of time in Cambodia. Can you tell us a little bit about what you did there and then we'll come back to that I think more a little bit later in our conversation, but really curious about what that was about and what you learned there.Yeah, I, I actually never lived in Cambodia, but had a a strong period of work there. It started at the beginning of my time at the international charity, where I started as the general counsel, and the first assignment there was to put together a joint venture between Japanese Shinto priest, a journalist from Time magazine, and the CEO of our charity. And so that was an eclectic mix right there. But the purpose of that mix was to open up a free care hospital in Phnom Penh. Cambodia was named after the king and its purpose was to help people that didn't have access to healthcare. At the time, Cambodia was one of the poorest nations in Southeast Asia. They were spending about $2.50 per year on those that live there. They had undergone a horrible genocide through Pol Pot, and it was a very unique chance to get involved in that country. We brought up that first hospital in Phnom Penh. In the course of that work, there developed three free clinics in order to help support that hospital because some of the patients were able to pay a small amount and then finally open another hospital in the South of Cambodia in a little in a town by the name of Kempat. But all very formative experiences for our conversation today.Wow, really interesting. So in your role as the CEO of the North Carolina Association of Free and Charitable...

Follow the homies Cam (Cameron Cox) and Dylan (Dylan Hernandez) two former AMC Theater employees as they take a nostalgic trip back in time to rewatch films that mean the most to them! The film we are discussing in this Season 2 Episode is "Spirited Away" With Special Guest RYAN ARNOLD! Spirited Away (Japanese: 千と千尋の神隠し, Hepburn: Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi, lit. 'Sen and Chihiro's Spiriting Away') is a 2001 Japanese animated fantasy film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, animated by Studio Ghibli for Tokuma Shoten, Nippon Television Network, Dentsu, Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Tohokushinsha Film, and Mitsubishi and distributed by Toho.[7] Spirited Away tells the story of Chihiro "Sen" Ogino, a ten-year-old girl who, while moving to a new neighborhood, enters the world of kami (spirits of Japanese Shinto folklore).[8] After her parents are turned into pigs by the witch Yubaba, Chihiro takes a job working in Yubaba's bathhouse to find a way to free herself and her parents and return to the human world. Now in the Famous words of that Pig from Shrek "Play the movie.. Yeah PLAY Ryan Arnold Socials: https://www.facebook.com/thatryandudeonwheels?mibextid=LQQJ4d Wanna ask us something?!? Hit us up at Xtrabutta@gmail.com or our Instagram https://instagram.com/xtrabuttapodcast?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y= ALSO Follow the homie Dylan on his fantastic Podcast "The Hernandez Variety Show" https://open.spotify.com/show/58pVAOZ5sSK4ti563o5fWn?si=BjR3hTyjR9mjfKIh6itDuw

Hatsumode is the ritual first visit of the year to a Japanese Shinto or Buddhist temple. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Scientists Report Second Highest-Energy Cosmic Ray Ever DetectedAround 30 years ago, scientists in Utah were monitoring the skies for cosmic rays when they detected a surprising particle. It struck the atmosphere with much more energy than they had previously seen—enough energy to cause the researchers to dub it the “Oh My God Particle.”Over the years, a collaboration of researchers in Utah and Japan has detected other powerful rays—about 30 a year—but none that rival the OMG. In 2021, however, a second particle was detected. It was only slightly less powerful than OMG, but still many times more powerful than can be created on Earth. That 2021 particle was named “Amaterasu,” after a sun goddess from the Japanese Shinto religion. The researchers described their observations in a recent issue of the journal Science.The researchers believe the particle must have come from relatively nearby, cosmically speaking, as otherwise it would likely have collided with something in space and lost its energy. However, when they tried to trace the particle back to its origin in space, they were unsuccessful. Both the OMG particle and the new Amaterasu particle seem to have come from empty regions of space, with no violent events or massive structures to create them.Dr. John Matthews, a research professor in physics and astronomy and manager of the Cosmic Ray Physics Program at the University of Utah, joins Ira to talk about cosmic rays, how they're detected, and the challenges of finding the origin of particles like Amaterasu.These Penguins Are The Masters Of MicrosleepingDo you know that feeling when you're just so tired that your head starts to droop? Your eyes feel heavy? And you drift off for just a moment … before snapping back to alertness, wondering what just happened.Sleep comes in a variety of snoozes and sizes. We humans are not going to get a full night's rest by nodding off here and there, but that's pretty much what some chinstrap penguins do: They doze off more than 10,000 times a day, for just a few seconds at a time. And when you do the math, it can add up to 11 hours of sleep each day, according to a recent study in the journal Science.Ira talks with study author Dr. Paul-Antoine Libourel, a sleep biologist at the Neurosciences Research Center of Lyon in France, about how the penguins do this and the advantages of microsleeps.Transcripts for each segment will be available the week after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. To stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

How will you win life? In this episode, Bob Stewart and Chad Hyams break down the key takeaways from entrepreneur and author Jesse Itzler at BuiltHOW LIVE, sharing his methods for winning at life with his “Big A## Calendar” and his take on the importance of challenging yourself, which he relates to the Japanese Shinto ritual of misogi.  In this episode, we cover the following:  Speakers at BuiltHOW LIVE [2:00] Key takeaways from Jesse Itzler [2:55] Doing what makes you uncomfortable [4:42] Winning at life with Jesses's Big A## Calendar [9:45] Misogi, six mini-adventures, and new quarterly habits [12:25] Misogi experiences for modern times [15:35] Choosing a challenge that is fun and aligns with your values [18:55]  Misogi ideas for listeners [19:54] Demonstrating top priorities and values [23:45] Resources discussed in this episode: Win Make Give Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/WinMakeGive Jesse Itzler Big A## Calendar: https://jesseitzler.com/products/bylr-calendar Connect with the hosts: Ben Kinney: https://www.BenKinney.com/ Bob Stewart: https://www.linkedin.com/in/activebob Chad Hyams: https://ChadHyams.com/ Book one of our co-hosts for your next event: https://WinMakeGive.com/speakers/ More ways to connect:  Sign up for our weekly newsletter: https://WinMakeGive.com/sign-up Explore the Win Make Give Podcast Network: https://WinMakeGive.com/ Listen to Win Make Give Season 3 on YouTube: bit.ly/3pPEdAx ------ Part of the Win Make Give Podcast Network

Witness the creation of the world through old stories of Japanese mythology and folklore. Fall asleep with 12 Shinto gods and goddesses: Izanagi, Izanami, Kagutsuchi, Amaterasu, Susanoo, Tsukuyomi, Ame-no-Uzume, Raijin, Fujin, Inari, Kitsune and Ukemochi - as you follow their joys and sorrows across mystical mountains, rivers, and valleys of ancient Japan.  

It's human nature to want biggest and better things. But in order to achieve those things, we need to grow into the person who is ready to receive them. Most people want those things handed to them, instead of facing the challenges that may endure along the way. You asked for growth, so don't be alarmed when you experience growing pains.In this episode we also discuss the Japanese Shinto practice of "Misogi". Misogis can show you that you had this latent potential you didn't realize, and that you can go further than you ever believed. When you put yourself in a challenging environment where you have a good chance of failing, lots of fears fade and things start moving” …………………………………………https://www.balancedartist.comhttps://www.facebook.com/BalancedArtisthttps://www.instagram.com/rorygardinermusichttps://www.instagram.com/balancedartist     

On today's episode, join Dr. Mark Costes as he sits down with Dr. Mark Murdock, dentist and owner at Brigham City Smiles in Brigham City, Utah, to discuss their awe-inspiring journey after conquering the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Sharing their reflections on the trek, they delve into the surprises they encountered along the way and those that left them utterly amazed. From the incredible resilience and dedication of the porters who carried their belongings to the varying climate changes they experienced during the trek, Dr. Murdock and Dr. Costes recount the unforgettable moments that shaped their expedition. Summit night stands out as a pivotal moment, as they embarked on an unforgettable hike to the summit, starting at 11 pm. They discuss the preparations made prior to this challenging endeavor, highlighting the physical and mental readiness required for such a feat. In their candid conversation, they also draw comparisons between the living conditions in Tanzania, Africa, and the United States, appreciating the fortune and opportunities that abound in the latter. Together, they explore the concept of "Misogi," a traditional Japanese Shinto practice of ritual purification, and how finding your own version of it can be a transformative experience. Join in for this captivating conversation filled with insights, reflections, and valuable advice, as they share their closing thoughts on this remarkable journey of a lifetime. EPISODE RESOURCES https://www.truedentalsuccess.com Dental Success Network Subscribe to The Dentalpreneur Podcast

Necromancy is one of the oldest and most misunderstood of all magical operations. Some believe it involves speaking to the dead; some say it involves having coitus with the deceased while others compare it to the Japanese Shinto religion or Native American Sky-walking. YouTube: https://youtu.be/ImuzsQFsZQI More information: https://www.AleisterNacht.com

Located on the island of Honshu, in the middle of the Japanese archipelago, lies one of the most important and iconic places in all of Japan, Mount Fuji. Mount Fuji has held an important place in Japanese culture for centuries as both an important site in the native Japanese Shinto religion and as a subject for artists.  Today Mount Fuji remains an important site for tourism and a subject for modern art forms such as manga comics. Learn more about Mount Fuji, its history, and its significance on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Sponsors Expedition Unknown  Find out the truth behind popular, bizarre legends. Expedition Unknown, a podcast from Discovery, chronicles the adventures of Josh Gates as he investigates unsolved iconic stories across the globe. With direct audio from the hit TV show, you'll hear Gates explore stories like the disappearance of Amelia Earhart in the South Pacific and the location of Captain Morgan's treasure in Panama. These authentic, roughshod journeys help Gates separate fact from fiction and learn the truth behind these compelling stories.   InsideTracker provides a personal health analysis and data-driven wellness guide to help you add years to your life—and life to your years. Choose a plan that best fits your needs to get your comprehensive biomarker analysis, customized Action Plan, and customer-exclusive healthspan resources. For a limited time, Everything Everywhere Daily listeners can get 20% off InsideTracker's new Ultimate Plan. Visit InsideTracker.com/eed. Subscribe to the podcast!  https://link.chtbl.com/EverythingEverywhere?sid=ShowNotes -------------------------------- Executive Producer: Charles Daniel Associate Producers: Peter Bennett & Thor Thomsen   Become a supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/everythingeverywhere Update your podcast app at newpodcastapps.com Discord Server: https://discord.gg/UkRUJFh Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everythingeverywhere/ Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/everythingeverywheredaily Twitter: https://twitter.com/everywheretrip Website: https://everything-everywhere.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Spirited Away is a 2001 Japanese animated fantasy film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, animated by Studio Ghibli. Spirited Away tells the story of Chihiro Ogino, a ten-year-old girl who, while moving to a new neighborhood, enters the world of Kami (spirits of Japanese Shinto folklore). After her parents are turned into pigs by the witch Yubaba, Chihiro takes a job working in Yubaba's bathhouse to find a way to free herself and her parents and return to the human world.

In the fall of 2019, Maria Dominique Lopez was in a trance state while meditating and felt strong tingling in her palms. She had no idea what the tingling in her hands meant, or why every time she touched someone in pain, their pain went away. After months of research, she decided to take her first Reiki course and learned that what she was experiencing was Reiki. Now it is her mission to help a new generation come to consciousness and ascend to their own universal calling.   Learn more about Maria Dominique Lopez at AscendingArts.exchange. Maria's interview is followed by a story about the Power of Resilience by Elena Christopoulos, the founder of a sustainability management consulting firm, Elena's contributions have helped create over 500,000+ green jobs worldwide with 60% of the positions going to women and BIPOC. As a climate scientist and political advisor, she has actively worked throughout her career to bring more women and BIPOC to the table, in both fields and has successfully managed over 40 political and environmental campaigns worldwide. As a Commissioner for the City of Santa Monica her role is to advise City Council on sustainability issues and policies relevant to women and girls. As a member of the LGBTQIA+ community, She uses her voice to ensure we are represented. Our episode ends with a guided mediation from Maria Dominique Lopez.   IN THIS EPISODE [01:03] Maria Dominique Lopez on what she is most passionate about [01:26] Maria Dominique Lopez on her work [02:11] Maria Dominique Lopez on her childhood and spiritual beginnings [04:36] Maria Dominique Lopez on remembering her Reiki awakening [05:09] Maria Dominique Lopez on the beginning of her meditation journey [08:40] Maria Dominique Lopez on the origin of Reiki [11:35] Maria Dominique Lopez on how she began practicing Reiki [14:11] Maria Dominique Lopez on the benefits of Reiki [15:45] Maria Dominique Lopez on how often she performs Reiki [17:47] Maria Dominique Lopez on one's first experience of Reiki [18:30] Maria Dominique Lopez on what she has learned from practicing Reiki [22:53] Maria Dominique Lopez on her background in opera [27:44] Maria Dominique Lopez on advice to her younger self [29:02] Maria Dominique Lopez on a trait that has helped her succeed [33:50] Maria Dominique Lopez on her biggest professional challenge [34:53] Maria Dominique Lopez on the most rewarding part of her life practice [35:51] Maria Dominique Lopez on her dream for women [36:39] Maria Dominique Lopez on her mantra [36:48] Maria Dominique Lopez on her definition of success [37:19] Maria Dominique Lopez on her advice to young women [38:56] Elena Christopoulos on the power of resilience [46:45] Maria Dominique Lopez leads a guided meditation   TRANSCRIPT Passionistas: Hi, we're sisters Amy and Nancy Harrington, the founders of The Passionistas Project, where we give women a platform to tell their own unfiltered stories. On every episode, we discuss the unique ways in which each woman is following her passions, talk about how she defines success, and explore her path to breaking down the barriers that women too often face. Today we'll be talking with Maria Dominique Lopez. In the fall of 2019, Maria was in a trance state while meditating and felt strong tingling in her palms. She had no idea what the tingling in her hands meant, or why every time she touched someone in pain, their pain went away. After months of research, she decided to take her first Reiki course and learned that what she was experiencing was Reiki. Now it is her mission to help a new generation come to consciousness and ascend to their own universal calling. So please welcome Maria Dominique Lopez. Maria: Hi. Thank you so much for having me. Passionistas: We're really excited to hear more about this. What are you most passionate about? Maria: Healing. I'm most passionate about healing, absolutely a thousand percent. There's so much of my life that has been changed and altered since I started my own healing journey, and now I help people embark on theirs every day, and it's, oh, it's the most amazing work that I've ever done with my life, and I just, I so love it. Passionistas: What is that work that you do? Maria: So I work as an energy healer, doing performing Reiki mostly. I also am an intuitive energy reader, so I offer intuitive energy readings as well. I am a certified Reiki master and also a spiritual mentor, which is basically a fancy way of saying life coach without all of the homework or the rah rah shish boomba. We really, we really dive into the shadows of your life and work through the things that really need healing in ways that will promote specifically post-traumatic growth. So, that involves usually a spiritual practice of some kind. Passionistas: So, let's take a little step back and tell us a little bit about your childhood, where you were born, if you had even had any consciousness of any of this kind of stuff back then. Maria: Sure. So I was born in New London, Connecticut. My dad was stationed at the base there, the naval base, and I was born just off base. It was a pretty difficult pregnancy for my mom. There were a lot of health issues. And so I was born in the hospital off base, and then we actually only lived in Connecticut till I was three months old. My dad was medically discharged from the Navy as a hundred percent disabled veteran. And so then we moved to Seattle, Washington, where the majority of their family lived at the time; both of their sets of parents lived there. And so I was kind of raised there. And my dad actually was a professional ice hockey coach, so we ended up moving a lot. We moved from Washington to Mexico City where he built the Olympic hockey program for Mexico. We moved to Phoenix where he coached for the Tucson Road Runners, I think is what they used to be called. I don't know what they are now, but they were an IHL team. Then we moved to Houston, and he coached for the Houston Arrows for a little while. And then, you know, so we moved all over the place basically when I was a kid Was I conscious of Reiki as a child? The answer is yes, but accidentally. I didn't realize until I became a Reiki master. And I was meditating one day, and this memory came to me of when I was, I think I must have been maybe six or seven years old. And I was with my cousins, Janine and Desiree, and we would go picking blackberries. There were these wild blackberry brambles behind my grandma's house. And so in the summertimes we would go and we would pick all the blackberries we could possibly handle and, like, eat them all before we could even get them home. And we'd just covered in blackberry juice and just a total mess, you know. And so we were headed down the hill, back from the brambles to my grandmother's house, and my cousin Desiree fell. And I don't remember if she hurt her ankle or her knee, but I remember her falling and, like, twisting something and being hurt. And right then, I mean, I was like maybe seven, I think six, I knelt down and I put my hands on her, and I was like, “Okay, if I concentrate hard enough, I can take her pain away.” And of course, we were kids. You know, we laughed, we thought it was fun pretending, blah, blah, blah. Right? But even then, something about me understood that this was possible, and I totally forgot about it until about three years ago when I started practicing Reiki and I was like, “Oh my God, I've always been a Reiki healer, and I didn't even know it. Passionistas: That's incredible. That is so cool. Maria: Thank you. Passionistas: Does she remember that experience? Maria: She does. And I think at the time we both just laughed it off. You know, we just thought it was make believe and we didn't really, and I know, you know, she and Janine, they don't really ascribe or believe in Reiki now even. And so it's interesting that, like, we both remember that situation, and I became this Reiki healer, but it's still something that we haven't had the chance to try together yet since I've become a Reiki healer. So, hopefully some day. Passionistas: So, tell us about that journey. So, when did you first get into, I know you do meditation, so when did you first get into that practice and what inspired you to do that? Maria: Yeah, so, I got into meditation in about 2018, so several years now. And I started meditating because my best friend, one of my oldest friends. I've known him for over half my life. We were freshman undergrad musicians together. He was a professional percussionist and I was an opera singer. His name is Ben Irons, and he just published his first book, actually: “Mindfulness for Musicians.” So, that's kind of cool  —a little plug for my best friend there. But he actually taught me how to meditate. He'd been meditating for about 10 years at the time. And I kept saying things, “I need to meditate. I know I'll get around to it. Like, I wanna learn. I know I need to learn, I should learn how to meditate,” all these things, right? And finally one day, he was like, “Maria, why don't you?” And I said, “Well, you know, I gotta be honest, since we've become a little bit more vulnerable in our friendship, and I feel comfortable sharing this with you. I know it's silly, but I just, I'm worried I'm gonna be bad at it.” And he proceeded to laugh in my face, at my perfectionist ass. And he said, “Maria, there is no such thing as being bad at meditation.” He said, “You know, that's why they call it a meditation practice. They don't call it meditation Olympics. There's no gold medal to be won. There's no competition. There's no potential, like, quantifiable measurement of how good you are at it. It's just a practice.” He said, “Some days you'll have efficient days where you'll sit down on the cushion, and you'll tap right in, and you'll have this amazing 45 minute trancey meditation, and you're just gonna, like, fly to the stars. And some days you're gonna have less than efficient days where you're gonna sit down on the cushion, and you're not gonna be able to stop thinking about how your right toe itches, and you're gonna be running through your grocery store list in your head for the whole 30 minutes, and you're just gonna be counting every second wondering when you can get off the cushion.” He said, “On the efficient days, you're gonna learn a lot. On the less than efficient days, you're gonna learn even more. There is no way for you to screw this up.” And I think the perfectionist inside of me just needed someone to give me that permission. So I started the very next day. And I started with three minutes a day, and it was torture. And then I finally got up to about five minutes a day after a couple weeks, and that was even worse. And finally, after about three months of doing five minutes a day, I went back to him and I was like, “I can't, I can't get past five minutes a day. I don't know what to do.” And he was like, “All right, let me teach you a meditation that changed my meditation practice overnight, and it really, it changed my life.” And I was like, “Okay, yeah, gimme that magic pill. Give it to me.” And so he taught me the Mettā Bhāvanā. The Mettā Bhāvanā is from the Vipassana tradition of meditation, and it translates in Sanskrit to “loving kindness” in English. So, if you've ever done a loving kindness meditation, you've done the Mettā Bhāvanā And there are a million “loving kindness” meditations for free on YouTube. I highly suggest anyone who's listening to this, go check 'em out. They're incredible. But I started doing the Mettā Bhāvanā every day, and I immediately went from five minutes to 30 minutes and then to 45 minutes. In six months time, I was sitting every day for 45 minutes. And not only that, but in six months time, my entire, I was a totally different person, a completely different person. I went from being reactive in a miserable marriage that was failing, that was very verbally abusive from both sides, to becoming this person who was full of love and compassion, who became the healer that I became because of this practice. So it really, it changed the whole landscape of my future. This one thing. Passionistas: So, explain to people what Reiki is and how you—we told a little bit of your story in the intro—but how you became, how you started practicing it. Maria: So, Reiki is an indigenous shamanic Japanese Shinto healing practice based in the Shinto religion. It has, however, been whitewashed and colonized by the Western healing world, so much so that it is no longer associated with any of those practices, other than the fact that it is still associated with Japan—because Reiki is a Japanese word, meaning “universal life force.” And what it is, is it's this practice whereby practitioners place their hands onto a receiver, and the receiver has their energy basically balanced. So, from a scientific standpoint, what that means is, you and me and this computer that I'm talking to right now, and my cat and the moon and oxygen and literally everything in existence is all at the very—we're talking broad strokes of quantum mechanics now—at the very quantum level, we're all made up of the same matter, quantum matter, right? Just different conglomerations of the same matter. So, it's kind of like how that Aspen Forest in Utah is made up of 50,000 trees, but it's actually one tree. It's one of the largest organisms on earth, and it looks like 50,000 trees cuz they're all united under the ground by the same root system. Our root system—existence is root system, is quantum matter. We are all one giant organism, if you think about it from a quantum level. Mind you, quantum physics has now been as of, I think maybe like five or six years ago, the most proven science on Earth, which means that there have been more experiments done with more conclusive evidence to the same conclusion than chemistry, than biology. So we know for a scientific fact—you know, depending on how much you believe in science; I personally very much believe in science—but we know for a scientific fact that we live in a quantum universe, and that we are, in fact, one quantum organism. So with that understanding ,what Reiki actually is, is quantum healing. I channel quantum matter that is around you and in you, more of that into you. I'm not giving you my energy. I'm like a meat straw through which the energy flows. I'm just like the lido deck director being like, “Here, right this way to your energy,” right? So, in that in that sense, I don't get exhausted when I give Reiki. It doesn't hurt me. It doesn't drain me. It actually makes me feel great, because I'm receiving Reiki as I give you Reiki. And that's really what it is; it's just a name for quantum healing. Every single indigenous culture in the history of humanity has had some sort of hands-on quantum healing practice. Unfortunately, due to colonization, most of the names of those practices have been lost. So, we're very fortunate that Reiki has survived in the ways that it has survived in order for us to be able to have access to at least one type of healing in that way. Passionistas: What was the incident that happened that helped you realize as an adult that you had this skill, power, what's the right word to use Maria: What happened was, I was meditating with Ben, with my meditation instructor, and I started to feel this tingling in my palms. And I had just maybe a couple weeks prior been in a car accident. So I thought, “Oh, maybe there's nerve damage or something happening here.” You know, again, I like science, I like the things that are quantifiably provable, right? So, I started feeling this tingling in my hands. And in fact, when I was meditating, I opened my eyes ‘cause I could feel this tingling, and I was like, “This is so weird.” I had been working with tantric energy and moving energy through the body for a while. I'd been working with meditation and breath. So, I had started feeling tingling in other places. And I had a Reiki master, and I was receiving Reiki from her frequently as well, so I understood the concept, but I also didn't think it could be happening to me. Like, I didn't think that I had the access to that. So, I was meditating, felt this tingling in my hands, opened my eyes, and my hands were, like, glowing, right? With this, like, golden light. And it was almost like an aura, you know? You see an aura, and it goes away in a second. It was like that. So, it went away. The glowing went away immediately, and I was like, “Okay, I'm not on drugs. What is happening here?” But what I figured was that it would just go away. Maybe it was nerve damage or whatever. Well, the tingling didn't stop for three months. I had such a hard time with how much energy was going through me. I couldn't sleep at night. Like, at the time, I was married to my ex-husband, and I would just roll over in bed just to put a hand on him to get rid of some of the energy. ‘Cause I was like, “What is this? Like, go away. I need to sleep,” right? And every time, like I said in my bio, every time I would put my hands on someone who was in pain, their pain went away. It was so weird. And so finally, I asked my Reiki master, and I was like, “I think maybe this is Reiki. I don't really know.” She was like, “It sounds like it to me. Maybe you should take a class.” So I went and got certified, and it turns out that I had just accidentally universally attuned myself to Reiki. Which, now I run my own Reiki certification program, and I actually will not certify my students until they have figured out how to attune themselves to the energy. Because there are a lot of Reiki courses you can take. You can take a weekend course at the Marriott today and get a Reiki certification for $99. The problem is, all you'll be learning to do is write the alphabet, right? Basically, you're learning how to write the Reiki symbols, and then hopefully the energy will come, you know? But that's what I teach. I teach you how to universally attune yourself and access that Reiki, and then I certify my students to legitimize their practices within the Western framework of needing certifications. But you can't get a certification from me until you can actually channel the energy. Passionistas: So, what are the benefits of Reiki? Maria: So many scientific benefits of Reiki. There have been tons of studies done. I definitely recommend checking out Reiki.org if you're ever interested in reading the multitude of scientific studies that are out there about it. But generally, we've got lowered cortisol levels—which is the stress hormone, lowered blood pressure, lowered heart rates, so increased circulation of oxygen and blood through the heart, which can improve cardiovascular function. We've got increased myelin development on the nerve endings on the myelin sheath of nerve endings, which can help to rewire the nervous system and remove trauma that is held in our autonomic nervous system. Not only that, but myelin sheath development also coats our brain and our neural pathways, which means that developing that myelin sheath lining in the brain also can help with neuroplasticity, which is basically brain youth. It's how we learn and how we retain information. So, there's a lot of benefit to Reiki just scientifically, but people who've received Reiki also report sleeping better, losing weight or gaining weight if that's what they're looking for, improved metabolism. I've seen Reiki cure cancer, for crying out loud. Like, there are lots of things that it can do. I had a friend with hemorrhoids last week. I went and gave her Reiki, and her hemorrhoids are gone. Like it's just, she was gonna have to have surgery. You know, it's kind of amazing how it works, but scientifically proven, we've got a lot of different real scientific things that it does, which is great. Passionistas: How often do people come to you for services? Is it like a monthly thing? Maria: You know, it depends. I like to tell my clients that if a Reiki practitioner says to you, “Okay, you need to see me every week for the health and balance of your system,” they're probably just trying to get your weekly money. I believe strongly that your spirit, your heart, your soul, your body knows what you need to heal. And if you need Reiki, there'll be a random thought that'll pop into your mind and be like, “Man, I could use some Reiki.” And that's when you call me. But I do have programs, both my Reiki master certification program and my trauma healing program, The Phoenix Rising—both of those programs, I require people to get weekly Reiki, and the reason why is very specific. For my trauma healing program, weekly Reiki helps to literally rewire your autonomic nervous system so you can release trauma that's held in the body. But if we aren't doing that, it takes a lot longer. You can rewire your nervous system on your own. You don't need the help of Reiki. It just, it's kind of like training a cat. It takes a lot of patience, and it takes a lot of time, but it is possible, right? That's why most people think that you can't heal or cure trauma. Like, you can never get rid of it; you just get better at coping with it over time. That's not true. Trauma is held in two places in our bodies: one—our brain, and two—our autonomic nervous system. Your brain can process through trauma in 38 seconds. It's incredible how fast our brain can actually process trauma, but our body holds onto it forever until we figure out how to reprogram and rewire the autonomic nervous system. And there's a very important reason why it does that, right? Its whole job is to make sure we survive. It's an evolutionarily created construct. So, we are literally trying to hack our evolution to release trauma from the body. Reiki helps to speed up that process, but only if you're doing it regularly. And then with my Ascension 101 program, with my Reiki certification program, the reason why I have weekly Reiki for that is because we're opening up your channels to become attuned right to the universe. And the more Reiki you receive, the more quickly you become attuned to that Reiki. That's all. Passionistas: So, for someone who's never had Reiki, what do you experience during a Reiki session? Maria: Well, it differs. It differs based off of the person who's receiving it. I've had clients report that they feel tingling all over their body. They feel heat and warmth. They see flashes of light or colors behind their eyes. I've had clients who have visitations from their ancestors, from, like, their, you know, grandmother who passed away or their father who just passed away, or things like that. It really depends on the person. But one thing that I have noticed happens a lot during Reiki sessions is people fall asleep. A lot of people get so relaxed entering into that data state that they do just fall right asleep. Passionistas: What have you learned most about yourself from this practice? Maria: That is such a great question. What haven't I learned about myself from practicing Reiki? You know, becoming a Reiki master and really beginning to offer healing to others really required me to make sure that I was a pure channel, and to make sure that I am energetically, we call it—my mentor and I—we call it “squeaky clean energetic.” Right? So, we like to be the kind of people where, if I'm gonna be messing around in your energy, I can't be bringing my own crap into that, because it's disturbing to the energetic field, right? So, that's been, I think, one of the biggest things that's changed about me, is I've had to really heal a lot of my own crap in order to be able to help others heal. Not because I needed to know what it was like in order to lead them—because we're all just walking each other home. Right? That's what Ramdas said: “We're all just walking each other home.” But because I couldn't energetically and ethically stand for being anything less than energetically squeaky clean. When I started helping others heal, I was struggling with an eating disorder, for example. Here I am guiding women to love themselves unconditionally, to open their heart chakras in a way that allows them to see that they are worthy of love and acceptance and a beautiful, joyous life simply because they exist; not because of how they look, not because of what they achieve, not because of what they do. And yet here I was eating one meal a day for the last 10 years, right? So I finally had to face myself and go, “What are you doing? Like, you can't continue to preach this and then practice something totally different. It's going to make sure that, it's going to completely guarantee that the people you are trying to guide won't heal themselves. Because you lead by example now.” And I think that was the biggest thing, really, that's changed about me, is understanding and really stepping into leadership, which was hard for me. I did not wanna do it. I was like, “I just wanna give people Reiki and let them do their thing. Like, I don't wanna have to do any of this.” And a lot of Reiki healers, they'll place their hands on someone, and they won't say a damn word. Which is fine, but I couldn't stop myself. My body became a mirror for my clients. I could feel pains in their body, and I just started channeling things that they needed to hear, and I just became a leader. And I didn't want to, and I had to anyway. I fought against that “life coach” term for forever. I did not wanna do it, because who wants to listen to someone who's so fucked up? Nobody should be listening to me, right? You can bleep that if you need to. Sorry. But you know, nobody's gonna listen to a leader who who hasn't got her shit together. And that's at least what I thought. What I realized is, a leader is someone who's relatable, who's vulnerable, who can walk with someone and say, “Oh yeah, I've been here before. Here's why I realized this was not gonna work for me, and here's why I can tell you honestly that it's not gonna work for you. But also, do I understand your struggle? Hell yes.” Passionistas: So, how can people work with you? Maria: I have several ways you can do one-on-one Reiki sessions with me. I sell them in single sessions or sessions of 5 or 10 packs. You can do spiritual mentoring with me, which is basically like therapy, but with more empathy and connection and fewer boundaries of, like, laws and, you know, HIPAA regulations. But everything is confidential, and that's in single sessions as well. 5 packs or 10 packs. I've got “The Phoenix Rising,” which is my one-on-one, three month long trauma healing program designed specifically to help you achieve post-traumatic growth and heal your trauma once and for all. And then I've got a wait list started for working with me to become a Reiki certified Reiki master in my year long certified, uh, excuse me, my year long Reiki master certification program, “Ascension 101.” And then finally, the last way to work with me is, if you are in a couple dynamic, whether that's two sisters or a mother-father, or, you know, father-child, parent-child relationship or romantic relationship. I have sessions called the “We Method.” They are two hour long spiritual mentoring sessions for couples, people who want to improve their bond and their love, whatever that is, whether it's romantic, platonic, or familial. And that is all the ways you can work with me. Passionistas: We would be remiss if we did not ask you about your past as an opera singer and possibly your present as an opera singer. So tell us about that. Maria: Yeah, so, I have a bachelor's and master's degree in opera performance from Northern Arizona University, and I studied privately with a teacher from Boston Conservatory Music after that for a couple of years. So I've been singing opera professionally now since 2010. And I have had the great blessing of singing all over the world, of singing with incredible musicians. I made my Kennedy Center debut right before the pandemic hit. I also was blessed to be able to sing in Disney's “Coco.” So, I've had this, like, really, really amazing experience recently of really developing this musical career. And then the pandemic hit. And when the pandemic hit, of course, singers being super spreaders, we were shut down. Everything was shut down. And it was so interesting just to watch, like, every company claim Force Majeure. No singer got paid even for contracts that were already signed. And I kind of was left adrift, you know? And it was funny because the timing of the universe is so amazing that I had already been, I'd already received my Reiki one certification right before the pandemic hit. And I was weighing the options. I was like, “I love healing. I love Reiki. I love this energy. I'm like really passionate about this, but I've loved music for so long. Like, maybe, but maybe it's time to quit. Maybe I should quit and really start something with this Reiki thing. But I don't know what to do.” And I was like, “Oh, what do I do? What do I do?” And then pandemic, hit, and now no Reiki. I mean, no, no music at all, right? So I was like, “Well, I guess the universe decided for me. We're gonna create a business doing Reiki now, and we'll see where it goes.” And now, the interesting thing is, is that, the music industry is hard. You know, it's really hard. It's very toxic, especially the opera industry is very toxic. It's very racist, it's very misogynistic, it's very fatphobic. And these are things that we are working, as younger singers, that we're working on trying to fix about our industry even now as we speak. And hopefully we can do that before the entire industry, you know, implodes on itself because no one wants to work for it anymore. We'll see. But I realized that I had been so burned out on singing because of the minutiae that came with it, and because of, honestly, I was full-time singing when the Pandemic hit. I was one of those people very blessed to support myself entirely on my singing, which is crazy. That doesn't happen. And I was taking every project I could, saying “yes” to everything. Whether or not I wanted to make that art, did not matter. Were they paying me? Great. I was gonna do it. And now that I'm able to not only dive deeply into this thing that I'm so passionate about in healing people and support myself in that way, now I get to turn to music in this way that really allows me to celebrate the art. I get to only take projects I wanna take, whether they're paying me or not. Or I get to only take projects that pay me really well, if that's what I want. But I have the choice now. And because I received that choice back, it was amazing, but my perfectionism died immediately. Almost immediately. I was so scared. You know, in the classical music industry, especially in singing opera, it's all about mimicry. You wanna sound exactly like performance practice has been since 1600 when they wrote that opera. You know, we don't put in our own artistry, we don't put in our own, you know, licks or anything like that, that makes it uniquely ours. You do it the way that the composer wrote it, and you only do it that way. And so if you're not perfect, you're not getting rehired. And that was, that made me into someone who was so tightly wound and so scared and nervous about, like, getting back into it that I would just, oh man, I just, every habit I had with regards to being in the music industry and learning music and performing music was just so devoid of life. And now I get to be here with this music, with this amazing art, and I don't care if I don't get rehired. So I get to be a little bit more artistic. I get to have adventure, and of course I still have respect for the art form and what's required, but all of the fear is gone. And that's yet another unexpected gift that becoming a Reiki practitioner gave me. Passionistas: Wow. What an amazing story of transformation. I love that. You are, by the way, our second Passionista involved with “Coco.” I know. That's so cool. We have an actress named Selene Luna, who played Tia Rosita. Maria: Oh, my gosh, wow! Passionistas: Yeah, that's funny. Maria: I only had three seconds of fame in “Coco.” Literally. I'm not exaggerating. Mine is less, but my name's still in the credits, so. Passionistas: That's excellent. So, thinking back to your younger self that laid your hands on your cousin to try to take away her pain. What advice would you give to that young girl? Maria: Believe in magic. Believe in yourself. You know? I think that is the thing that happens to our children so, so quickly when they're raised, is they, they start believing in magic. They start believing in themselves. They start believing anything is possible, and they begin with really understanding and expressing their most authentic selves. And then we let our societal ego mind get in the way of that. We teach them shame. We teach them how to be smaller to fit in. We teach them how to homogenize themselves, their dreams, their educations, their art, their magic. We teach them how to strip themselves of everything that makes them unique in order to fit in. And that is, it has devastating consequences. And if I had had a parent that was able to tell me that as a young child, I think perhaps I would've found Reiki a lot sooner. And I think also, I would've definitely experienced far less trauma than I did throughout my life. Passionistas: Is there a particular trait that you have that you think has helped you succeed in your life? Maria: Resilience, I think, you know? Post-traumatic growth is definitely something that has been my constant companion in this life. And just to—for our listeners who don't know what post-traumatic growth is—post-traumatic growth is a psychological term that was first coined by scientists in the mid 90s, early to mid 90s. But it's actually a psychological phenomenon that has existed since the beginning of humanity. And every sacred text talks about it. The Bible talks about it, the Quran, you know, Buddhism has talks about this. And this is the idea that suffering births transformation. Post-traumatic growth specifically is identified as a psychological phenomenon whereby we are better, happier, more well adjusted, more authentically ourselves, more joyous because of our trauma, not in spite of it. That our trauma makes us better. And there are only about 10% of people who suffer from trauma that ever actually get to achieve post-traumatic growth. All the studies that they've done on it have shown three main indicating markers of what will help you to develop post-traumatic growth: number one is a community of support, number two is resilience, and number three is a spiritual or faith practice. The numbers are exceedingly high for people who have those three pillars in place to achieve post-traumatic growth. I did not grow up with a spiritual or faith practice. My parents raised me to be agnostic, bordering on atheistic, but they did raise me to believe that if you're a good person, no matter what you believe, if you treat other people with love and humanity and brotherhood, then you're gonna be fine at the end of this life, no matter what happens to you. And I think the biggest thing, though, that my parents taught me that I had growing up, that has allowed me to achieve post-traumatic growth, was resilience. Resilience is this idea that we can bounce back. It's the idea that allows us to accept that failure is positive, not negative. Which, you would think that for a perfectionist like me, wouldn't be the case. And that perfectionism was definitely developed in college as I became a classical musician, but I wasn't always that way. And I think, truly, truly, I believe that resilience was what made me more capable of being successful and more capable of being the healer that I am today. Have you heard of that marshmallow spaghetti experiment? Passioniastas: No. Tell us more. Maria: I cannot remember the name of the sociologist who created this experiment. But it's been going on now for about 30 years, I think. And basically what they do, and they've gone all over the world and they've done this for groups of people. They go to boardrooms, they go to classrooms, they go to colleges, all sorts of places. It's considered a team building exercise. And what they do is they break people out into small groups of like five or six, and they give them: a very large marshmallow, like one of the extra jumbo sized ones, like, I don't know, 15 pieces or something of raw spaghetti, and then, like, three feet of clear tape. Everybody gets the same thing and then they say, “Okay, you have 20 minutes to build the tallest, freestanding structure that you can. But the only caveat is the marshmallow must be at the very top. Ready, set, go.” Guess who are the group of people who, time and time again, have been proven to be the worst at this? MBAs. Yep. People with Masters of Business Administration. The people who are the best at it? Kindergartners. Kid you not, kindergartners. They've, like, by far and away have made so much higher free-standing structures. And the reason why is because adults, especially those of us who've been taught there's a specific way to do things, right? Like an MBA. This is how you build a business. Step one, step two, step three, right? That what we'll do is we break into groups, and the first thing we do is, we jockey for power. Who's gonna be the leader of the group? Who's going to make the decisions of everyone's ideas? Then everyone has to take time to present their ideas to the leader of the group. And then we all discuss, like, “Okay, well, this is what might happen, and this is what might not happen. Oh, this probably won't work, and here's why.” Right? And then by the time we finally come up with an idea that might be executable, we've got three minutes left to build our structure. And of course, if it fails, we have no time to fix it. Whereas kindergartners don't understand the concept of failure equating to shame. That was something that our societal ego mind gave them later, right? So they go, “Alright, well, let's just see.” They don't pick a leader. They don't care who leads. They're just like, “Okay, well, let's try this.” And then they put it together, and they go, “Okay, well that didn't work. Alright. Try this now. Okay. Ooh, what if we do this? Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.” And then finally, by the end, they had this enormous freestanding structure, and they did it in five minutes. Right? So, this teaches us that failure is the way to succeed. If we are willing to be brave enough to fail, we will eventually get to success. That is what resilience teaches us, and that's why I think I've been able to get where I am. Passionistas: What's been your biggest professional challenge and how did you overcome it? Maria: I think my biggest professional challenge has been that I don't know the first thing about owning a business. I was a music major. And you would think that because performance musicians, like, people with performance degrees become their own businesses, they become individual entities, right? You would think that they would've taught us something in college about business, but they taught us nothing. Not one thing about running our own businesses, not tax, literally nothing. So, that's been my biggest challenge in becoming a business owner, was learning how to actually business. I'm very, very blessed that I found a business coach early on who is amazing, who knows just how to speak to me. She's become a mentee of mine as well. And so, we've had this really beautiful symbiotic relationship, and she's really helped me build my business from the ground up. But that was my biggest challenge by far. Passionistas: Yeah. That's, I think, a common thing for most people who all of a sudden become entrepreneurs. What's been the most rewarding part of becoming a Reiki master? Maria: Definitely the ripple effect. That, and the ripple effect is also my, it's my business mission. You know, it's the whole part of my—I call it my life practice, is what I call my business, ‘cause it's so much more than that. And everything in my life has been leading up to this, you know. But I think it's the ripple effect. I've watched the people that I work with heal themselves. And then I watch them heal their families. I watch them heal their relationship with their children. I watch them lead by example to their friends and family, and that to me is…ugh, I get teary just thinking about it, because it's so exciting to me. My whole goal in life is to heal as many people as humanly possible before breath leaves my lungs. And in watching people execute that ripple effect of healing in their own lives and in their own families, it's working. It's really working. Passionistas: What's your dream for women? Maria: My dream for women? Oh, I have so many. My dream for women is that we be able to really, consciously, compassionately, and lovingly see our way through and past and away from the patriarchy. Away from our dominator colonizing culture. And that is going to require us to teach—as mothers and sisters and lovers and friends—to teach every man in our lives to do the same. That is, that is my deep dream for women and for all humanity, is an end to the patriarchy. Passionistas: Do you have a mantra that you live by? Maria: The heart cannot be broken. Only the walls that I have built around my heart can be broken. Passionistas: What's your definition of success? Maria: It's changed a lot over the years, you know? I think colonization taught me one way of viewing success, and decolonizing my mind has taught me quite another. And I think, honestly, to me, success is what we talked about earlier, and that squeaky clean energetics. If I can look in the mirror at the end of every day and be really satisfied with who I'm looking at, that's success. Passionistas: What advice would you give to a young woman that wants to follow her passions? Maria: I would tell her that the most important key to following her passions is believing that she's worthy of following them, believing that she's worthy of achieving them. That's what I would tell her. It's not even about just go and do it, because you can go and try and dive into the deep end, but if there's something inside of you that believes that you're not capable or worthy of achieving it, you never will. Because you will hold yourself back. We do it all the time, subconsciously—unintentionally—but subconsciously, we self-sabotage all the time from success because we don't believe we're worthy of it. So, that's what I would tell her. I would say believe. Believe in yourself. Passionistas: Thanks for listening to our interview with Maria Dominique Lopez. We wanted to give you a special treat this week. Each year we host the power of Passionistas Women's Equality Summit, and we ask women, many of them from marginalized communities to share stories on topics that are most important to them. One of our speakers was Elena Christopoulos, the founder of a sustainability management consulting firm. Elena's contributions have helped create over 500,000 green jobs worldwide with 60% of the positions going to women and people from the BIPOC community. As a climate scientist and political advisor, Elena has actively worked throughout her career to bring women and BIPOC people to the table in both fields, and has successfully managed over 40 political and environmental campaigns worldwide. Here's Elena's story on the power of resilience. Elena: Hi, my name is Elena Christopoulos. I'm a climate scientist, political consultant based in Santa Monica, California and Toronto, Ontario, Canada. And this is my story of equality. How one wind turbine created 500,000 green jobs worldwide with 60% going to women and BIPOC. I grew up in Europe and traveled quite a bit when I was young. It really allowed me to think outside the box. As a child, I had a huge appreciation for the food we ate, the water we drank, the air we breathed. I knew where everything came from. It was just the way I grew up. And it caused me to have a huge passion for Mother Nature, for all its glory, and I had that early on in life. Fast forward to starting university. I went to Queens University in Canada and, using other influences in my life, plus my upbringing, I had this vision to implement a wind turbine in downtown Toronto. Now, many people thought my vision was unusual, shall we say. I didn't have a track record of this. It was an idea. Nonetheless, I went to try to recruit folks who thought this idea and helped me with this. Interesting enough, men stepped up and women did not. I really had to recruit the women and I would get, the usual response would be, “Elena, I'm not qualified enough. Elena, I don't have the confidence, Elena, I don't think I can do it.” And I didn't hear that response from one man. I didn't hear it at all from one man. And this is an undergrad in university. So I took pause. And none of the men told me that they felt unqualified for the job, not one. So, you know, I started to think, “Where are the women in STEM?” I mean, I got into science because I didn't see any women in my classrooms. I didn't see any women in public school in elementary school. So, where are the women in STEM? And here I am implementing an idea, and again, where are the women? So the job got completed. I recruited enough women, and happy to say that it was 60% women and BIPOC and LGBTQIA+, and that was no easy feat. I really had to recruit women. And because of that I got a beautiful project. We worked wonderfully together, and it was the beginning of my career, which I didn't know. The turbine took 256 homes off the grid, and it's really because of the women, I have to say. So the project finished, it wrapped, and I was approached by a person running for mayor of a very large city, and the mayor said to me, you know, “Are you interested in running my campaign?” Now, my first response was, “I don't have a political science degree. I've never worked in politics.” And he stopped me cold my tracks and said, “Elena, are you trying to tell me you're not qualified enough? ‘Cause I'm actually coming to you for the request.” So, it looked like the same exact thing that happened when I was trying to recruit women in STEM for a wind turbine project now was at my door. So I took this opportunity to my three mentors who I've had early, quite early on in my life. And they said to me, “So, Elena, what do you think? Do you actually like the platform? Do you agree with what's going on?” And I just, before I started to say the, “I don't think I can do this, I don't think, I'm not qualified,” my mentor stopped me cold in my tracks again and said, “Elena, he's chosen you. It's really up to you if you wanna go forward in this. He already thinks you're qualified.” and you know, most women feel that they have to be, have 100% of the qualifications for any job they go after. Where men, it's about 60%. And that's still true today, actually. So, what happened? I realized, looking around, where are the women in science? Where are the women in politics? I created my own consulting firm. And I also, hearing that response to me, hearing doubt to my younger self—well, I'm gonna be kind to myself, but it's difficult to hear me say those things. So, I created a consulting firm because of the STEM gender gap. You know, as a climate scientist and political consultant, I realized early on that there was this gender gap, and I wanted to do something concrete. I wanted to create a pathway for women into science and politics, if they chose it. So to date, that one wind turbine in downtown Toronto, which took 256 homes off the grid, was the first urban sighted wind turbine, the first micro feed-in-tariff program. It's created 500,000 jobs. And we are just getting started, I'm really happy to say. It's my lifetime goal to increase the percentage of environmental scientists from 28% to 50%. I'm getting closer with my consulting firm and with mentoring women. So, was creating a firm daunting? Of course it was, but I wouldn't change a thing. It's important to use your voice, and I decided to use it by helping women, BIPOC, LGBTQIA, in representation. Representation matters. It's really important. Because it's important for younger generations to see themselves in boardrooms, in science labs, on campaigns, on the campaign trail. Mentoring is also important, and I highly recommend that you find a mentor as soon as you can. I don't care if you're just beginning your career or at sunset of your career. Mentors give you perspective that you can't otherwise find other, in any other way. Now, I urge you all to do something and try something out of your comfort zone, taking risk, because you know what? The rewards are so wonderful. And of course, you're most likely to fail a few times. I did. But that's where the learning is, you see? Failing forward and moving forward, because I know you can do it. I know it won't be easy, but do believe in yourself, and hey, give it a try. I recently heard this mantra from, I will say a Peloton instructor. Her name's Christine. I am, I can, I will, I do. I am, I can, I will, I do. I am, I can, I will, I do. Powerful words, powerful mantra, and really apply to anything in your life. And, by the way, if you're ever interested in implementing a wind turbine, getting into STEM or STEAM, or entering politics, or interested in running a campaign, well, my zoom is always open to you. I'll always be cheering you on, always. And remember: I am, I can, I will, I do. Thank you. Passionistas: We wanted to share one more thing with you this week. After our interview with Maria Dominique Lopez ended, she very generously offered to record a guided meditation for all of the Passionistas in our community. What follows here is that very beautiful gift from Maria. So please, find a quiet space free from distractions. Get comfortable and let Maria help you transform your day. Maria: Welcome. Welcome to this space. Take a moment now to ground yourself and just be, with your breath. You can have your eyes open or closed. You can be sitting, standing, laying, even walking, whatever is most comfortable for you. Take a deep breath in now. Let the oxygen fill every corner of your lungs. And then slowly exhale, making sure that your exhale is longer than your inhale. Nice and slow. Good. You may find that there are some places—in your lungs, maybe a space in between one of your ribs, maybe a spot in the back of your spine—where the oxygen just simply doesn't wanna go. It's a little tense or a little tight. That's okay. This is just your beautiful body holding space for whatever worries or tension, whatever fears or heaviness is sitting with you. Your body is doing you the beautiful favor of holding that space. But that's no longer needed now. So, as you take this next deep breath in, invite whatever tension is in your body to go. Thank it for its effort and release. Good. On this next breath in, I want you to notice that instead of your lungs filling with oxygen, it actually feels like it's your heart that's expanding with every breath in. Your heart muscle gets wider and wider as you breathe in, and as you breathe out, it releases a little bit of tension. Whatever tightness is being held there. Breathing in love, expanding in that feeling. Breathing out toxicity, anxiety and fear. Good. Breathing in love, feeling that heart grow bigger and bigger. Breathing out toxicity, anxiety, and fear. So relaxing. As you continue this breathing into your heart, you're going to notice that your heart begins to feel warm, nice and warm. A spark has been lit inside your heart, and it heats you from the inside. Moving outward in radiating waves of heat that fill your entire body with every breath. The spark grows bigger into flame, the heat grows warmer, and the waves of heat radiate outward even farther than your body. Outward, further and further into the room. All of this love heating up the entire room around you. As it does, you begin to feel these amazing feelings of love, joy, ecstasy, happiness, tranquility, adventure, excitement, peace, devotion. Beautiful, expanding feelings in your heart that just build and build with every breath, the heat growing, the love growing until it feels like it's going to peak, so much so that it will just burst right out of you. With one final breath, you exhale out all of that love out into the world. Beyond the room, beyond your home, beyond your town, beyond your state, out into the entire world. Your heart beating for you, and beating for all. Doesn't that feel amazing, to love everything? Allowing yourself a gentle smile, you can welcome yourself back to the space. Passionistas: Thanks for listening to this week's installment of The Passionistas Project. To learn more about Maria Dominique Lopez's work as a Reiki master, visit AscendingArts.exchange. Follow Elena Christopoulos on Instagram @BeingElenaLA. And be sure to visit ThePassionistasProject.com to sign up for our mailing list, find all the ways you can follow us on social media, and join our worldwide community of women working together to level the playing field for us all. We'll be back next week with another Passionista who is defining success on her own terms and breaking down the barriers for herself and women everywhere. Until then, stay well and stay passionate.

In this Fit Tip, Tom talks about Misogi, and ancient Japanese Shinto ritual of self-purification and the how applying this mindset to your life can help lead you to spiritual, physical and emotional fulfillment.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hello again witches, seekers, and friends - and thank you for tuning in to The Fat Feminist Witch Podcast! Today's episode is about the champion of love and justice - Sailor Moon! This episode was recorded in front of a live virtual audience, haha! This episode was recorded live on twitter as a fundraiser for my kitty cat Alley - who I am happy to report is doing very well! In the episode I give a quick run down on the story for those unfamiliar, talk about it's affect on me personally, the show's combination of Japanese/Shinto and Greco-Roman mythology, and of course ways you can work moony magic at home with crystals and planetary magic. Saturday March 5th is the That Witch Life Podcast Mini-Con! I'll be attending and hope to see plenty of you witches there for presentations, raffles, rituals, and more! Get your tickets at thatwitchlife.com/mini-con/ Connect with me! The Blog: http://thefatfeministwitch.com Facebook: The Fat Feminist Witch Twitter: @fatfemnistwitch Pinterest: FatFeministWitch You can find links to get copies of my books - Green Witchcraft, The Grimoire Journal, and Witchcraft for Emotional Wisdom on my website at thefatfeministwitch.com/paigevanderbeck Support the show! Patreon: http://patreon.com/thefatfeministwitch Buy me a ☕ : https://ko-fi.com/thefatfeministwitch SWAG FOR FAT FEMINIST WITCHES IS NOW AVAILABLE ON TEE PUBLIC!: Visit the store HERE! Site-wide SALE going on now! As always the opening and closing track is Back To The 90s (Douglas Mulvey AKA D-REX) / CC BY 4.0)

It's Fantasy February here at Movies that Make Us, and this week we discuss the Japanese animated fantasy film Spirited Away by Hayao Miyazaki. It tells the story of a ten-year-old girl who when moving to a new neighborhood, enters the world of Kami (spirits of Japanese Shinto folklore). After her parents are turned into pigs by the witch Yubaba, Chihiro takes a job working in Yubaba's bathhouse to find a way to free herself and her parents and return to the human world.Beautiful, hand-drawn animation brings us into a world lush with unique characters and beautiful settings. The film won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature at the 75th Academy Awards, making it the first and to date, the only hand-drawn and non-English-language animated film to win the award.Did you miss the video premier of this episode? Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel, and then click the little bell to receive notifications when we add a new video or go live.You can also follow our Facebook page so you can receive notifications for new audio or video of our episodes. Sometimes we are even live on Facebook, so you can give us feedback right then and there. It's pretty sweet.As always, thank you for listening, and for now, we won't see you at the movies… See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hatsumode is the ritual first visit of the year to a Japanese Shinto or Buddhist temple. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this episode of the Becoming You podcast, I share how I'm designing my 2022 for success and how I'm doing it a little differently than in previous years. I stopped setting New Year's Resolutions years back once I realized that it's nothing more than an arbitrary way to design goals. More often than not, we disappoint ourselves a few weeks into January when we fall off the wagon. When we fail our New Year's Resolutions, it compounds any shame we have and tends to make us believe that we're not enough. You might have listened to my previous episodes where I share my 29029 Everesting experience where I finished the challenge with two hours to spare. It was the hardest thing I'd done to date. Jesse Itzler, a billionaire partly responsible for the creation of 29029, has another fantastic year-long coaching program called the Build Your Life Resumé. I've recently enrolled in it, and I'd like to share the three foundational lessons I learned from taking the program that you can use in designing your 2022 for success. Lesson #1: Choose your misogi We have a resumé for work. Why not have one for life? What if we put as much energy and focus on building our life as we do building our career? The big things that fill you up, whether it's charity work or out-of-town trips with your family—put them all on your calendar. The number one thing that Jesse recommends you put on your calendar is a misogi. This is a Japanese Shinto practice of ritual purification by washing the entire body. For the purposes of this program, your misogi is one life-defining event that you will commit to within the year. Your misogi has to scare the heck out of you so much that you're more likely to fail at it than to achieve it. However, the journey to get there is the real gift. Unbeknownst to me, my misogi last year was 29029. So, pick your misogi for 2020, whether it's writing a book, starting a business, launching a podcast, or creating a piece of art. Whatever it is, it's a memory that you'll be telling your kids and their kids. Life is short. Your misogi is part of your legacy, so don't be afraid to aim high. Lesson #2: The Kevin Rule Named after his friend Kevin, Jesse recommends doing something that you wouldn't normally do every eight weeks. That's six experiences a year. For example, if you have another 40 years to live, you will be doing 240 of these experiences in your life. Personally, I've got skiing, running a 5k, and setting up my own composting system lined up for the year! Just like your misogi, these are exciting, but smaller, events you'll be doing to spice up your year and offer you a regular sense of accomplishment for going out of your comfort zone. Lesson #3: Create a habit The Build Your Life Resumé program recommends creating a new habit every quarter. However, I'll be tweaking it for myself to create a new habit every month. I know that sounds like a lot, but remember that it takes 21 days to create a new habit. I love the idea of solidifying a new habit for 30 days before starting a new one and really stacking up a whole new approach to life as a result. Whatever frequency you choose, really take the time to pinpoint the habits that you know, if you end up living them out, can completely transform your life. Learn more about me and my coaching services: Free resource: 10 Ways to Spark Your Self Love Journey iTunes/Apple Spotify Google Stitcher Amazon Tune In Deezer

Spirited Away is a 2001 Japanese animated fantasy film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, animated by Studio Ghibli for Tokuma Shoten, Nippon Television Network, Dentsu, Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Tohokushinsha Film, and Mitsubishi. The film features the voices of Rumi Hiiragi, Miyu Irino, Mari Natsuki, Takeshi Naito, Yasuko Sawaguchi, Tsunehiko Kamijō, Takehiko Ono, and Bunta Sugawara. Spirited Away tells the story of Chihiro Ogino (Hiiragi), a ten-year-old girl who, while moving to a new neighborhood, enters the world of Kami (spirits of Japanese Shinto folklore). After her parents are turned into pigs by the witch Yubaba (Natsuki), Chihiro takes a job working in Yubaba's bathhouse to find a way to free herself and her parents and return to the human world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirited_Away

Dr. David DeSteno has embarked on a project he calls “religio-prospecting.” In other words, he has been looking at the scientific evidence that many ancient religious traditions can confer all sorts of benefits, whether you're a believer or not. He points out that many secular people practice mindfulness, even if they're not Buddhists. His question is - what's the next mindfulness?David DeSteno is a professor of psychology at Northeastern University, where he directs the Social Emotions Group, and the author of a new book called How God Works: The Science Behind the Benefits of Religion, and is the host of a new podcast on PRX, also called “How God Works.” This episode explores David's desire to study the benefits of religious practice in a scientific way and the evidence behind such practices as: sitting shiva, gratitude, the Apache sunrise ceremony, and Japanese Shinto rituals around childbirth. Subscribe by December 1 to get 40% off a Ten Percent Happier subscription! Click here for your discount.Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/david-desteno-397See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We are celebrating AAPI month here at What Would Mom Do Pod!Today, we're chatting about a 2001 classic, Spirited Away. The tagline:The tunnel led Chihiro to a mysterious town.Spirited Away s a 2001 Japanese animated fantasy film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, animated by Studio Ghibli for Tokuma Shoten, Nippon Television Network, Dentsu, Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Tohokushinsha Film, and Mitsubishi. Spirited Away tells the story of Chihiro Ogino (Hiiragi), a 10-year-old girl who, while moving to a new neighbourhood, enters the world of Kami (spirits of Japanese Shinto folklore).[7] After her parents are turned into pigs by the witch Yubaba (Natsuki), Chihiro takes a job working in Yubaba's bathhouse to find a way to free herself and her parents and return to the human world.Enjoy this week's episode!

This week's special extended episode kicks off "AniMay" month! The siblings break down a golden childhood favorite, Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away (2001). Ross learns a great deal about Japanese Shinto folklore, Carie cries at the end, and the siblings reflect on how Miyazaki's movies are one-of-a-kind masterpieces.  Related Media: The Folklore of Spirited Away; Hayao Miyazaki: The Mind of a Master; Spirited Away Sound & Music Copyright 2021 Sorry Mom Productions

In this Japanese Shinto tale, two young deities are tasked with marrying each other and creating the world. But when their idyllic existence is threatened, they must choose between rebellion and obedience.  This episode is brought to you by Mythology, a Spotify Original from Parcast. For more episodes like this one, follow Mythology, free on Spotify! 

Grace Woodcock selects 'Mind of my Mind' by Octavia Butler. Published in 1977, it details the development of a new species of telepaths led by Mary, a mixed-race young woman raised in poverty. In our conversation, we discuss what distinguishes Octavia Butler as a unique sci-fi voice as we focus on Grace's debut London solo exhibition GUT-BRAIN at Castor, exploring the ideas behind her research-led practice around the body, mind, tech, science and alternative medicine.   0:00-0:20 Summary of the book 'Mind of my Mind', wondering how to make the book into a movie, afro-futurism, what it might be like to be in someone else's mind, hybridity, blue-blackness, meaning through action, transcending racial delineation, transracial, breeding programme elitism, shapeshifting gender and race, jealousy of the next generation. 20:00-45:00 Grace's art practice, retro futurism, the current dystopian edge, pills for sex, pushing the limits of what it is to be human, NASA spaceship design, how sliding doors came about, shaping of sculptures around the body, memories in objects wrt Japanese Shinto, hidden materials, potential medicinal elements, gut as the original brain, the fate of the sea urchin brain, multiples, subconscious, conversation pits, the gut as a surveillance system for the body 45:00-55:00 other stuff about Grace, from her influences to the books she's reading now!   GRACE WOODCOCK gracewoodcock.com castor.gallery   BOOKS Aldous Huxley 'Brave New World' by 1932 Jonathan Crary '24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep' 2013 Mark Fisher 'Capitalist Realism' 2009 Octavia E Butler 'The Patternist Series' 1976-1980, 'The Parable Series' 1993-1998, 'Bloodchild & Other Stories' 1995 Phillip K Dick 'The Man in the High Castle' 1962 Svetlanda Boym 'The Future of Nostalgia' 2001 Tibor Fischer 'The Collector Collector' 1997   FILMS & SERIES 'Barbarella' 1968 'Forbidden Planet' 1956 'Gattaca' 1997 'Star Treck' 1966-1969 'The Devil Girl from Mars' 1954 'The Jetsons' 1962-63 'The Man in the High Castle' 2015-2019 'The Truman Show' 1998   ARTISTS & THINKERS Alison Wilding Anicka Yi Diane Simpson Ernesto Neto Glenn Ligon Hannah Levy  Ittah Yoda Keith Piper - BLK Art Group Pakui Hardware Paloma Proudfoot Rafal Zajko Saelia Aparicio Wilhelm Reich - Orgone Theory  

This is the Japanese Shinto tale of the god Izanagi and the goddess Izanami: two young deities tasked with marrying each other and creating the world. Their idyllic existence is threatened when Izanami rebels against the subservient role she’s expected to play—and Izanagi must choose between obeying the elder gods or supporting his wife.

This episodes explores machine gender roles, why it’s never a good idea to borrow someone else’s god (after you’ve killed your own god), and what it takes to rise above “your circumstances” once you’ve become aware of the meaninglessness of existence.  The episode also explores the philosophy of Simon de Beauvoir, individualism, why the Japanese Shinto religion cannot be practiced outside of Japan, and why the West has become infatuated with Japanese culture. |myghostinthemachine.com|

Spirited Away (2001) is a Japanese-animated fantasy film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, animated by Studio Ghibli. It tells the story of Chihiro Ogino, a 10-year-old girl who, while moving to a new neighborhood, enters the world of Kami (spirits of Japanese Shinto folklore). After her parents are turned into pigs by the witch Yubaba, Chihiro takes a job working in Yubaba's bathhouse to find a way to free herself and her parents and return to the human world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirited_Away

Let me offer a brief orientation to our text since this is the first time, at least in a while, that we're jumping into the Epistle of Hebrews. So, Hebrews was probably written sometime in the mid 60s AD or so. It's a unique book in the New Testament canon because we don't really know who wrote it. Unlike most of the epistles in the New Testament, the author never reveals himself. Although many in church history have suspected that the Apostle Paul, who wrote so many of the other epistles in the New Testament, is also responsible for the Epistle of Hebrews. That's possible, but it also seems unlikely for a variety of reasons. Among other options proposed for the mysterious author of Hebrews some have suggested Apollos, who we encounter in the book of Acts, that's what Martin Luther thought. Others think that Luke may be the author. Others think Barnabas, and still others Silas or Sylvanus may be the author. In the end we don't know and it's probably best to say merely that Hebrews is apostolic. It was almost certainly written by a companion of one of the apostles, and it without a doubt promulgates the apostolic gospel. Beyond that it's probably best to land where Origin of Alexandria lands in the mid 3rd century AD on this question when he writes, “but who wrote this epistle? In truth God knows.” Nonetheless, while we don't know the human author who's responsible for penning this theologically rich and pastoral sensitive sermon, many scholars actually say that this has more affinities to a sermon than it does a formal epistle. Nonetheless while we don't know with certainty who wrote it, we do know like every other book of the Scriptures that this is a book with a divine author. So, with that said, hear now the words of the Lord from Hebrews 1:1-4. 1 Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our Fathers by the prophets, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. 3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, 4 having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs. Hebrews 1:1-4, ESV Again, this is the word of the Lord. One of the major pastoral and theological concerns of this epistle before us, the book of Hebrews, is the issue of perseverance or endurance in the Christian life. We will hear this theme of perseverance or endurance repeat itself over and over as we work our way through the epistle. You see certainly acknowledged that the original Christian audience, to whom our author is writing in the mid 1st century AD, were faced with the potent persuasion by way of some type of persecution. We don't know the nature of it but some type of persecution they were undergoing was causing some to renege on their commitment to Jesus Christ. They were more than likely a Jewish Christian audience, hat is Christians who converted out of a Jewish background. They were undergoing some type of social marginalization, as our author writes. They may have feared something more severe, maybe something like martyrdom, lay on the horizon. Because of that, some among the original Christian readers of this epistle were ready to throw in the towel on Christ and to return to their former lives in Judaism. They were ready to go back to the Old Covenant, the Old Testament system of bloody sacrifices and temple. They had once embraced those systems that, theologically speaking, had been rendered obsolete given the person and the work of Jesus Christ, but systems for whatever reason that wouldn't have stirred up as many waves as their present commitment to Christ was doing. So, faced with these persuasions to turn back from Christ, to renege on their commitment to Jesus Christ and to live like Christ really hasn't accomplished anything, our author presses his readers in all sorts of ways throughout this epistle. He presses them to stay the course, to recognize that the goal of everything the Old Covenant, Old Testament, system of bloody sacrifices for instance look to had all arrived in Jesus' priestly ministry. So, don't turn back from Christ, don't return to shadows and types when the incarnate reality is there to behold by faith. Not to be sure a few of us, and more likely none of us, have faced pressures to toss aside Christ for the sake of bloody sacrifices. Yet we do regularly face an equal and opposite persuasion to go beyond Christ. Whether it's because we fear marginalization or ostracization in our world, the world that would seek to render the church irrelevant. Maybe it's because we can't see how the Bible really has anything applicable to say the big questions of our day. Perhaps we have been persuaded in our Christian walk at one time or another to go beyond Christ, to live our lives as if the fullness of revelation in the Old Testament and New Testament that collectively bears witness to the person and work of Jesus Christ and His gospel, offers nothing more than an outmoded ethic that no reasonable or enlightened person could accept. To live and act as if Christ, and in particularly the Word of God where we encounter Jesus Christ, simply offers a sage advice that could be placed alongside any number of texts that promulgate the philosophies of our day. Friends what both of these approaches to Christ and His Word have in common, the approach that stops short of Christ and the approach that goes beyond Christ, is the belief that Christ is deficient. They share the common assumption that something is lacking in Christ and something is lacking in the fullness of the revelation that testifies to Jesus Christ in Old Testament and New Testament. Whatever ways we might be persuaded in our lives to set aside Christ and his Word, whatever persuasions we face to capitulate, what we need to hear is exactly what the original Christian readers of Hebrews needed to hear. That is the absolute supremacy of God's Son and the absolute sufficiency of his Word. It is a Word that reaches its completion, it's fulfillment and fullness, in the God's Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. So, our big idea this morning is this, God has spoken definitively in his Son. In this text were challenged above all else to behold the Son of God by faith. To recognize that Christ, in whatever we face, is worth it really is worth it. That Christ is the Amen to all of the promises of God throughout the Scriptures and to trust that his Word is really sufficient to tackle the big issues that we face in our day and in our lives. In particular we're challenged to behold the Son of God in three ways in our text, and here's our outline. 1. Behold the Son as the Completion of Revelation 2. Behold the Son as the Fullness of God's Glory 3. Behold the Son as Prophet, Priest and King Behold the Son as the Completion of Revelation So, first, behold the Son as the completion of revelation. When our passage opens our author offers up a proposition, a proposition that nearly every person among his original readers would have heartily assented to, but a proposition that remains extraordinary, nonetheless. Again, we read in verse one, 1 Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our Fathers by the prophets, Hebrews 1:1, ESV Now right off the bat we learned something about the God that we have we worship, the God who calls his church into worship this morning. Namely that we worship a speaking God. A God who voluntarily and intentionally took the initiative, in diverse manners and ways throughout history, to communicate with his people divine truth so that we might know him. While our minds could never in themselves reach into the infinite depths of God and there is no possible way that we could reason that towards God, God gladly and willingly revealed himself in history to conscious subjects like you and me. When we open up our Bibles, we see this voluntary revelatory act on the part of God unfold from the very beginning of history. In the Garden of Eden, in the book of Genesis, Adam didn't have to engage in some kind of existential self-reflection about his own self existence or about the God who created him and created the world. God, from the very beginning, met with Adam and Eve in the garden. He spoke with his creatures and he revealed his will for them to walk in. Then later after Adam and we find that God even speaks to Noah, he speaks to Abraham, he speaks to Moses, to David, and the rest of the prophets who prophesied both before the Exile, during the Exile, and after the Exile. He spoke in various epochs of redemptive history, progressively revealing more of himself and more of his will and in each of these epochs. He also spoke, as the author of Hebrews tells us, in many ways. To some God spoke through angelic intermediaries, to others he spoke through dreams or visions, and we saw a little of both of that in our recent study of Daniel. As each prophet received revelation from God, well what did they do? They wrote it down, they wrote down what God communicated to preserve the Spirit inspired words of God for God's people, which we have at disposal for us in the Old Testament Scriptures. Friends understand that the God who we come before, the God who calls us into worship, is a God who speaks to his church. He spoke to our Fathers through the prophets and he still speaks to us today. Not in the sense of giving us new revelation mind you, or a fresh word from the Lord, but by his Spirit who illuminates the words that are written down and preserved for us in the Scriptures. We don't look under a rock to find God. We don't look into ourselves to find God, as an article proposes that I read this week. If you do that, you're only going to find a god made in your own image, I promise you that. Instead we look to God's Word and God's Word alone to find God and to meet with God and to know God. As remarkable as it is that God would speak, that we worship the speaking God, that God has spoken to us, that God still speaks to us through the Old Testament Scriptures, these words of the prophets that our author alludes to here were still in themselves incomplete. The words of the prophets themselves looked forward in redemptive history to new revelation, they look forward to a new covenant that would come with covenant documents of their own. They also look forward to the completion of this metanarrative of redemption that began in the book of Genesis. So our author continues in verse 2 that while God spoke long ago and many times and in many ways in the prophets, in what we now know as the Old Testament Scriptures, in these last days what he spoken to us by his Son, in the person and work of Jesus Christ, in all that Jesus Christ accomplished, we have God's final word. Friends that completes the words of the prophets in Jesus and in Jesus's apostles who testify authoritatively to his person and work with the New Testament Scriptures that that complete the Old Testament and finalize God's revelatory activity for his church. 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. Hebrews 1:2, ESV Notice in our passage that God's revelation in and through his Son is said to take place in these last. So, there's a conclusive character to this revelation in his Son. Understand that when you encounter this phrase in the New Testament the last days or are similar derivatives of that which we encounter in several places in the New Testament, understand that that's not a reference to something that still lies in our future. Perhaps that's what we think about when we think, or we read of the last days. Yet throughout the New Testament the shared understanding amongst the apostles is that the days in which we live, the days between Christ's first coming and the days between his second coming, between these two poles are understood to be the last days. Wer ae in these last days right now, as much as Calvin was, as much as Augustine was, and as much as the apostles were. As one scholar put it, “these last days isn't a commentary on the length of time that remains until Christ comes again as much as it's a commentary on the quality of time in which we live.” The last day signals that there's no more redemptive work required until Christ comes again to make all things new and nothing else redemptively speaking that needs to happen before Jesus comes again and the curtain closes on the grand finale of redemptive history. That has implications for how we understand the sufficiency of revelation, the sufficiency of the Scriptures. Understand that because God has already spoken in these last days by his Son, there's no new revelation or word from the Lord that we should expect beyond the Scriptures, beyond the words of the prophets and the words of the Son. The Old Testament and the New Testament leave nothing unsaid that's left to be said until Jesus comes again on the clouds and brings us home. Divine revelation has been completed in and through Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and it's to that revelation, the fullness of that revelation Old Testament and New Testament, that we as the people of God are called to look, to know God and to hear God's voice speak authoritatively for his church. So, don't, as maybe the original readers of Hebrews were tempted to do, don't stop short of the fullness of that revelation but also don't go beyond that revelation. I'm going to circle back around to this point a little bit later, especially when we unpack a little application and what we're supposed to take away from this text. Before we do that and consider our next point, there are two theological points that we should also bear in mind on this topic of divine revelation. Understand this is a theologically rich passage and so we're getting a little bit theologically dense, so just bear with me because these are important thing, nonetheless. The first is this, in the New Testament Scriptures, again we have the final complete and decisive word that God spoke, but that doesn't mean that the words of the prophets that spoken many times or in many ways are of less or subsidiary value in comparison to the New Testament. After all, all Scripture, as Paul tells us, is breathed out by God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in all righteousness. All Scripture, friends, has the same source. All Scripture is equally valuable to equip the church for lives of godliness and holiness. Our author's point here isn't that that the words spoken to us by his Son obliterates the words that were spoken by the prophets. Instead his point is that the words spoken to us by the Son completes and fulfills the words spoken by the prophets. Now there is discontinuity also in terms of the Son's ministry being so much more superior to the ministry of the prophets, and we'll get to that in the next point. Importantly there's also an indispensable continuity between Old Testament and New Testament. Together as the Word of God they unfold one grand story of redemption. There's also continuity in the people of God right; the Fathers to whom God spoke through the prophets and the Old Testament are called, in this text, our Fathers. We are saved in the same way that they were, and they were saved in the same way that we are, through faith in Jesus Christ as God's Messiah. There may be two Testaments friends, but there's one unified story of redemption, there may be Jew and Gentile, but in Christ we have become one. There may be two different agents of revelation, the prophets of God and the Son of God, but there is one God who speaks in and through the Scriptures. So that's the first theological point that is to bear in mind. The second is this; even though God spoke in these last days through his Son, which again corresponds to the New Testament Scriptures, that doesn't mean that the Son of God was in any way absent in the Old Testament. Reformed theologian, Michael Horton, reminds us that, “In every external work of the Godhead, the Father speaks in the Son, and by the perfecting agency of the Spirit.” Remember a few weeks ago that Pastor Jacob reminded us that every external work of the Godhead is both undivided and common. Well the same is true in terms of God's revelatory activity, whenever it took takes place, the Father, Son, and Spirit do not exist apart from one another and neither do they work apart from one another. In 1 Peter 3:18-20, I'll be at a text that elicited a fair amount of debate, we learned that even in the days of Noah, many years before Jesus Christ incarnate ministry on earth, Christ actually preached in the Spirit through Noah. U Unlike the revelation of the Son in these last days, this was still revelation mediated through a prophet, but the eternal Son of God was nonetheless present throughout God's revelatory activity throughout the Old Testament. So that's the second, somewhat dense but important, theological point to keep in mind. In all of this, in both of these theological points and also in the text itself, lies an important expectation for us to heed an exhortation that's summarized so saliently for us later in the Epistle to the Hebrews, where in Hebrews 12:25 our author exhorts, 25 See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven. Hebrews 12:25, ESV Friends, as you interact with God's Word in both the Old Testament and the New Testament, don't spurn Jesus Christ by failing to trust him and him alone as the solution to our sin problem, a sin problem that runs the gamut of the story of redemption. Don't spurn Jesus Christ by treating him, or appraising him, as anything less than the way, the truth, and the life. Don't spurn Jesus Christ by looking beyond his Word for answers to the big questions of life. Look to the Son and to his Word as the climax, the completion, and the fulfillment of God's revelation. Behold the Son as the Fullness of God's Glory As we come to our next point, our second point, we learn why this revelation in and through the Son is the fullness and the completion of God's revelation. That is because the Son who speaks is also himself the fullness of the glory of God. So, second point, behold the Son as the fullness of the glory of God. Now if we were to study this passage in a classroom setting, which might be fruitful to do at some point, and maybe even get into the Greek of this introductory four verses a little bit, we'd be able to marvel at a few things. One we'd be able to marvel at just how intricately structured these four verses are, how well-written they are. You know Hebrews is generally said to have the best Greek in the New Testament, and that's the case especially in these first four verses. We'd also be able to see even more how theologically dense and rich these first four verses are, there's so much that's packed theologically speaking into these first four verses. One of the structural features that we would also notice if we were to unpack this passage in a classroom the setting is that this entire passage, structurally speaking, drives us towards the center, it drives us towards the end of verse 2 and the beginning of verse 3. There our author takes us not to the climax of revelation in the Son, nor to the work of Christ's redemption, as important as those topics really are and we'll get to them, but he takes us into the mystery of the inner life of God. Brothers and sisters this is why the revelation in the Son is the completion and the fullness of the revelation spoken by the prophets, because in the Son of God we learn what is the fullness of the glory of God. He is, as our text tells us in verse 3, the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature. Now in helping us to think of this divine Son relation, our author uses two metaphors from nature. The first is of the radiance of light and its source. Now as theologians who unpack this metaphor note, while you can distinguish the light from its source, whatever lights you're talking about, you can't separate the two. If for instance I were to shine a flashlight at you right now, you could distinguish between the rays of the light that are shining and the flashlight itself. Yet as long as the flashlight is on and it's working properly, you couldn't really separate the two, you couldn't really separate the source from the light. So, it goes with the Father and the Son. The Father and the Son remain, as our confession says, two distinct persons, but they share in the same essence and the same nature. The second image of our text is that of an imprint. If you think of the imprint of a face on a coin, which mirrors the stamp when it's pressed down upon a piece of metal thus leaving an exact representation on the face of the coin. Well just as you can distinguish between the two, the stamp that presses down on the piece of metal and leaves an imprint and the coined imprint on the coin itself, they nonetheless share the same exact imprint. So, it goes with the Father and the Son. Now of course as Calvin reminds us, any time you take metaphors from nature and you apply them to the Father-Son relationship, you can't assume the two are absolutely identical in nearly every way. Any metaphor you used to describe the inner life of God, especially a metaphor from nature, is going to break down eventually if you press it beyond its original intent. The same goes here. While that remains true, and it's important to qualify that the doctrinal point our author is making is nonetheless abundantly clear. That is that the Son of God is no less than the Father either in substance or in glory. Although each person in the Godhead can be distinguished, after all the Father is not the Son and the Son is not the Father, and the Father, Son, and Spirit remain separate persons, nonetheless together they share in the same essence, the same nature, and the same glory. Now theologically the church has confessed throughout history, based of course on the Scriptures, that when we read about the Father begetting the Son, you know we read that kind of language elsewhere in Scripture or we read in the case of our text that the Son is the light or from the source of light of the Father, that the Scriptures are teaching in all of those different metaphors a doctrine known as eternal generation. Eternal generation and this doctrine teach us, to paraphrase one theologian, that in the infinite depths of God's triune life the Father, who is life in himself, has granted somehow the Son to have life in himself. Both Father and Son are again completely equal in being, and contrary to the early church heretic Arias, there was never a time when the Son was not. Nonetheless from eternity past, before the foundations of the earth, the Son, who was equal in power and glory with the Father, has his Sonship eternally from the Father. Yet never apart from the Father. Now if all this sounds somewhat mysterious and challenging to grasp and conceptualize, well there's a simple explanation for it; it is. God is the incomprehensible one and although he graciously gives us revelatory glimpses into the infinite depths of his divine life, we do not, and we cannot know God exhaustively. We nonetheless confess what's revealed to us, and actually at the end of today's sermon we're going to do just that by confessing the Nicene Creed together. There's much in that creed, which we confess often during the Lord's Supper, that reflects and mirrors what we find in this text. When we get to our confession of that creed at the end of our sermon, you'll hear specific language that reflects this incredible doctrine of eternal generation, specifically in a phrase in the Nicene Creed, “the only begotten Son of God, begotten of his Father before all worlds. God of God, light of light, very god of very God. Begotten not made, being of one substance with the Father.” All of those rich theological statements that we find reflected in the Nicene Creed reflect what we find in this text, the inner life of God. These glorious realities that God gives us gracious revelatory glimpses into so that we can know that the one who speaks to us in his word is in fact God himself. Now when we understand the nature of the Son of God in this way, it comes as no surprise why the author of Hebrews continues in our text by predicating or attaching to the Son of God God's works of creation and God's works of providence. First, we learn in in Hebrews 1, the end of verse 2, that through the Son God created the world. The apostle Paul reflects the same kind of thing in Colossians where he writes, 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. Colossians 1:16, ESV Just as we noted a few minutes ago, every external work of the Godhead involves all three persons in that work, so to in creation. Then we learned that God's works of providence also belong to the Son. He upholds the universe, our author tells us, by the word of his power or by his powerful word. The words of Colossians 3, again he's before all things and in him in Jesus Christ all things hold together. All things friends are sustained and governed and directed towards a particular ordained end according to the eternal decrees of God in and through the Son of God. New Testament scholar F.F. Bruce writes, Jesus upholds the universe not like Atlas supporting a dead weight on his shoulders, but as one who carries all things forward on their appointed course.” Friends, all of these remarkable Christological realities that plunge us, in this text, into the inner life of God's triune lie and that they move us then outward into the external works of God in creation of providence. They explain for us why the Son of God is so much better than the prophets and why the revelation revealed in and through the Son is more complete and fuller and more definitive. It's because in the Son of God we have God himself. In Jesus Christ we look upon the face of God through faith and faith alone. In the work of this perfect sinless spotless Son of God a victory was won for us and for our salvation, that would not have been possible otherwise. This week I was reminded of a particular story from World War Two history and let me explain. On August 15, 1945, so this is the very end of the Pacific Theatre in World War Two, the Emperor of Japan, Emperor Hirohito, did two things that were unprecedented in Japanese history and culture. first as I understand it in the Japanese Shinto religious tradition, the Emperor of Japan had been considered for centuries a divine figure, a divine like monarch. One of the implications of this national theology of Japan at the time was that the Emperor's voice was rarely, if ever heard in a public setting. It was too transcendent to be heard by the masses in public. In fact, before August 15, 1945 the public had never heard the Emperor's voice over the radio waves. On that day the Emperor, a person who believed himself to be divine and was believed by the masses to be divine, broke that precedent and he addressed the nation of Japan himself not mediated through couriers or servants, but himself, over the radio waves. Here's where he did the second thing that was unprecedented in Japanese history and culture. The message that this divine monarch communicated wasn't what one might expect to hear from a supposed god, because it was a message of unconditional surrender. It was a call to the people of Japan to endure the unendurable and to lay down arms. When this purported divine monarch person who is considered transcendent above all peoples in Japan spoke, he issued a message of defeat. Friends, when our Lord Jesus the eternal Son of God in human flesh, spoke in these last days to the people of God, he issued not a message of defeat not a calling for his people to endure the unendurable but the message of victory. A message that through his person redemption has been accomplished and the forces of sin, death, and the devil have been vanquished. He did this by becoming for us the perfect mediator, the perfect prophet, priest, and king. Behold the Son as Prophet, Priest and King This leads us tour in the final point where we read third that we should behold the Son as prophet, priest, and king. So, what we learned this passage at revelation reaches its climax, it reaches culmination in the Son of God, the one who eternally proceeds from the Father. We also learn that in his work of redemption, the Son is for us and for our salvation the perfect mediator, the perfect prophet, priest, and king. Now you may know then the Old Testament these were three offices that God had set apart for his Old Testament church for Israel. There were prophets in the Old Testament people like Moses and Elijah and Isaiah who were called to speak the truth of God's will. They were vested with the authority of God himself to the people of God. They spoke God's voice, “thus saith the Lord”, they often said. Then there were priests who were called offer sacrifices on behalf of God's people to God to assuage God's wrath. They were to offer sacrifices of thanksgiving unto God. There were kings who, subject to the Lord, ruled and governed God's people according to the Law. They defended the church the Old Testament church from all of her enemies near and far. When we come to the New Testament, we learn throughout the New Testament that Jesus Christ the Son of God occupies perfectly these three offices. First according to his prophetic ministry, we learn in the New Testament and in this text that Jesus is the prophet to whom all of the prophets looked. A prophet like Moses, but the one who was better than Moses. A prophet who perfectly represents the Lord in his person and all of his work, because he is again by nature the radiance of God's glory and the exact imprint of his nature both before and after his incarnation. As on scholar say says he, “quote exercised his prophetic office in a particular way, by even causing the origination of Scripture.” In both word and deed, friends, our Lord Jesus Christ perfectly and authoritatively reveals to us in the Scriptures God's will for the church. Second then as it pertains to his priestly ministry, Jesus is the great high priest. In the words of our author here in verse three, “who made purification for sin”. He offered something better than the blood of bulls and goats that the original readers were tempted to return to. He offered a better sacrifice for sin on behalf of God's elect, in the words of our text, after he made purification for sin. What did he do? He then sat down. Well the Levitical priesthood of the Old Covenant, the Old Testament, stood daily. Our author will tell us this later in Hebrews 10, that the priests stood daily to offer sacrifices in the tabernacle and temple. This sort of endless cycle on repeat every single day and year. We learned that Jesus is the great high priest who offered a single sacrifice for sin and then sat down, indicating completion and perfection. From that high heavenly position our Lord Jesus also intercedes for his church. In the words of our catechism, “he makes continual intercession for us, praying for us in the heavenly places as our great high priest.” Then finally, as it relates to his kingly office, Jesus is the one who rules, protects, and governs his church. In one sense Jesus has always been king by virtue of being the Son, by virtue of sharing in the divine being. Or who this law says he possesses from eternity royal power over all creation that belongs to God. Ever since creation, ever since there were believers on the face of the earth, the Son has exercised his rule as king. Then it is in incarnation Jesus was revealed to the world as king, a king before whom every knee in heaven and earth and below the earth should bow. He is a king who now reigns into heavenly places and rules and defends us. Especially when we think things are chaotic and out of order on this earth, friends, we have a God who is in control, ruling and reigning through King Jesus. This is the one we behold, the Son of God, Jesus Christ who for us and for our salvation is the perfect mediator, the perfect prophet, the perfect priest, and the perfect king. Application So what should we take away from this passage then? Well three applications. 1. Do not look for further divine revelation. Providentially Pastor Jacob talked about this in last week's sermon when we studied 1st Corinthians 12. The same theological point is also addressed in our passage in Hebrews 1:2, because God has spoken in these last days through his Son there is no further revelation. Through his apostles we have been given the New Testament Scriptures to complete the Old Testament revelation and to close out God's revelation for his church. Therefore, there is no more word from the Lord that we could receive outside of this book. We no longer have apostles, or prophets, or the spiritual gifts associated with those offices because God has spoken conclusively, definitively, in these last days through his Son. Now of course that doesn't mean that the Spirit is no longer at work. Of course, the Spirit regularly illuminates the Scriptures to us every time we read and study them and encounter Jesus in them. He draws out fresh application for us in whatever life situations we face and drives us to a conviction of our sin in whatever sins we might be entangled. The spirit continually uses the ministry of the word to draw people near and far to Jesus Christ. Friends don't mistake that for me saying the Spirit is not at work because the Spirit of our Lord is very much at work, just not in the sense of speaking fresh revelation. Only the Bible is the final authority for us. Sufficient to guide us and to lead us in all righteousness and knowledge of the Lord. So that's our first point, look to the Scriptures friends, don't look beyond them. 2. The second is really an implication of the first point that is, the Scriptures are authoritative and enduringly relevant to address the pressing issues of the day. One commentator in my studies this week made the very simple, but very important, observation that if God wrote this book, if he's responsible for every word in this, then the Bible is both enduringly relevant and supremely authoritative. Friends the Scriptures are relevant to guide us as we navigate the most pressing issues of the day, whatever they are whatever they are. The Scriptures are authoritative to speak into those very same issues. If these are the words of the eternal, the timeless, the omniscient, and the only wise God, how why would we expect anything other than that when we come to the Word of God? Now that doesn't mean they give us step-by-step instructions we navigate Coronavirus or navigate racial tensions in our day. Yet they do address the fundamental reason for brokenness, and they hold before our eyes Jesus Christ and his kingdom as the only hope for the sin and misery we face this side of glory. So, yes read up on other issues of the day, other solutions to those issues, but friends don't toss aside the Bible as if it's irrelevant or non-authoritative to address the most pressing issues of the day. It very much is. 3. Marvel at the Lord who speaks. Anselm of Canterbury, about a thousand years ago, once famously remarked, “we believe that thou art a being than which nothing greater can be conceived.” Friends while we can never know exhaustively the infinite God, we've nonetheless been given true revelation of God through His Word. So as much as we come to this word, which is authoritative and relevant, to direct us this way and that. As much as we come to this word to learn how to navigate this situation or that or to know what we should believe about this situation or that come. Regularly to the word, as well, to simply marvel at the God who speaks to us in his word and to know God and his Son who stands as the only mediator between God and his elect. Let me pray. Lord God we thank you for your word. We pray that we would love your word more and more as we go about our lives and as you sanctify us by word and Spirit. Help us to be captivated more and more with who you are as we read your word and encounter you in your word. Help us to dive deeper into your word every single day we live, move, and have our being. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.

Hatsumode is the ritual first visit of the year to a Japanese Shinto or Buddhist temple. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In the third episode of Masters of Business Arts, Pico Iyer, a British-born American essayist and novelist living in Japan joins us to explore what Western concepts of AI can learn from the Japanese Shinto culture, the art of stillness, about the Dalai Lama and Leonard Cohen, about shared silence, and what ping pong has taught him about winning and losing.

Are there wedding bells in your future? Marriage is one of life’s most important decisions. While Japanese people celebrate the big day with their own unique traditions, some wedding ceremonies and receptions blend in a few fashionable aspects from western custom. Listen to find out how the bride and groom in Japan survive the grueling process that leads up to their finally becoming newlyweds!Conversation highlights:· What are the popular venues for weddings in Japan?· What types of weddings have our podcasters had the opportunity to attend?· What very important role did Ben play in Burke meeting his wife?· What options drive up the cost of a wedding in Japan?· Do Japanese people prefer traditional Japanese-style weddings or western weddings?· Why does the planning process take so long?· Why do people enjoy checking out possible locations for a wedding?· What makes the Japanese wedding such a large production?· In western cultures, guests give gifts to the newlywed couple, but in Japan, how do the guests contribute to the wedding?· Why does the actual wedding day last from very early in the morning until well past midnight?· What is so strange about the priest or minister at Japanese weddings?· Why are the priests under so much pressure?· Do couples really need to get married these days? Are there any real benefits?· Should Ben get married?· What reasons can drive foreigners to want to marry Japanese nationals?· How can getting married completely change a person’s mentality in life.Deciding whether or not to get married is tricky and difficult regardless of the culture, and being in Japan brings a whole new set of factors to consider. To begin with, Japanese weddings are a huge production that, as with most events in Japan, require a seemingly endless amount of planning. The end result is a beautiful, well-coordinated event for the guests to enjoy. If you ever have the chance to attend a wedding in Japan, or even just witness a wedding that might be taking place when you visit a Japanese Shinto shrine, it is a captivating event that should not be missed! Listen now to find out why!Website:http://podcast.voicesinjapan.comFollow us and check out our other content:https://twitter.com/voicesinjapanhttps://www.facebook.com/voicesinjapan/https://www.instagram.com/voicesinjapan/Get in touch: voicesinjapan@gmail.com

In this week's podcast, Hans Van Eyghen sits down with Professor Michael Pye to discuss the  various historical, political, and social factors that have impacted Japanese Shinto. Though Shinto is widely known as the indigenous religion of Japan, it is rarely discussed in detail and has attracted little attention from scholars. In this week's podcast,

If you've ever wanted a more inspired life with deeper meaning then do we have the Hidden School show for you. Today I'll be talking with Dan Millman, former world champion gymnast, coach, martial arts teacher, the run-away international best-selling author of Way of the Peaceful Warrior, and it's fantastic brand new conclusion, The Hidden School. And that's just what I want to to talk with him about today, about the return of the peaceful warrior, 4 key paradoxes, and what we can all learn for our lives. Inner Peaceful Warrior Self-Improvement and Self-Help Topics Include:  How many years has it been since you wrote the Way of the Peaceful Warrior (which became a Nick Nolte starring movie). How much has your life changed since writing Way of the Peaceful Warrior? Why did you write a conclusion to this saga? What does Japan have to do with anything? What does it mean that only death's counsel can bring you back to life? What's the importance of good posture and needing to die? What does Row, Row, Row your Boat have to do with anything? What's the importance of paradox, humor, and change? What can we learn from the paradox of time? What can we learn from the paradox of free will? What can we learn from the paradox of separateness (and consciousness?) What can we learn from the paradox of death? What can we learn about our inner self and illusion? What's it mean to practice enlightenment before enlightenment? What does it meant to recognize we play a character in life? How do we realize we're not really that character? What are the two levels from which we can view life? What's the difference between the conventional view and the transcendant view – and why's it so important? What can we learn from death? What's it mean to trust ourselves? What is Japanese Shinto and what can we learn from it? What's the next, and last book, that Dan Millman is working on? To Find Out More Visit: PeacefulWarrior.com Dan Millman Shares Profound Lessons on Living an Inspired Life the Final Way of the Peaceful Warrior!!! Health | Career | Spiritual | Spirituality | Buddhism | Zen | Meditation | Inspirational | Motivational | Self-Improvement | Self-Help | Inspire For More Info Visit: www.InspireNationShow.com

Evil, greed, pride, doubt, are potentials to attract evil spirits?  What is the spirits that we do want and don't want?  We believe in God and some days something is up?  Why do people act the way they do?  What is the trait that you are showing which is not benefiting you?  Are there good spirits?  Are there bad spirits?  What about heaven and hell?  What is going on these days when we are finding ourselves questioning the human existence in the face of expanding our spiritual being?  Kiyoshi Shimada, Minister of Happy Science and speaking today about the Basics of Exorcism; How to protect you and your family from evil spirits.  In the context of Japanese Shinto, an exorcist would apply to the yin-yang master; in the context of Buddhism, it would apply to the monk Esotheric Buddhism who possesses magical powers. For help and more information visit:  www.HappyScience-na.org or www.okawabooks.com/books/spirituality