Podcasts about naropa institute

Dr. Judith Simmer-Brown is Professor Emeritx of Religious Studies at Naropa University, where she has been on the faculty since 1978. She has practiced Tibetan Buddhism for almost 50 years and is a direct student of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. She serves on the steering committee of the American Academy of Religion's Contemplative Studies Group, and has published widely on Tibetan Buddhism, women in Buddhism, interreligious dialogue, and contemplative studies. In this episode, we explore the ins-and-outs of interreligious dialogue, the historic Buddhist-Christian Dialogues at the Naropa Institute, the retreats held before and after those dialogues, the dialogue of theology and devotion, public and private dialogue, ‘interreligious' and ‘interspiritual' dialogue, the development of the first course in Interreligious Dialogue at Naropa and its skills-based approach, the cultivation of good dialogues and dialoguers, as well as personal cultivation of one's spiritual life.Charis FoundationGolden Turtle SoundSupport the show

 For over 30 years, Georgette Star, MA, D.Min, has dedicated her life to empowering adults and youth to live soul-embodied, joyful, and purposeful lives. An intuitive Soul Stream Life Coach & Mentor, and Method trainer, her own deep quest for Self-Realization informs all aspects of her work. Finding joy in sharing this journey with others and a calling to contribute to the greater good inspired her to found the Life Blessing Institute (LBI). This transformational learning community is designed to guide individuals on the journey of human potential, spiritual awakening, and actualization of their soul's agenda. Through LBI, Georgette developed a variety of programs, including Maiden Spirit & Peace Warriors Youth Programs, Individual and Community Rites of Passage Celebrations and the Soul Stream Method Practitioner Training. Currently Georgette is also working on a documentary film titled The Woman's Rite. The film examines the challenges of ageism faced by women (and all genders) and explores how these limitations can be transformed through creative expression, conscious rites-of-passage and spiritual awakening. It highlights the opportunity for women to step into empowered, vibrant, and respected elderhood, offering their wisdom, creativity, light, and love to a world that deeply needs their contributions. Georgette holds a Master's degree from the Naropa Institute and a Doctorate of Ministry from the University of Creation Spirituality. Using her life experience, education and an array of natural abilities, Georgette actively pursues contributing to humankind however she can. In addition to her professional work, she cherishes being a mom, grandmother, artist, forest dweller and daughter of Mother Earth. She also finds joy in creating collaboratively with others and sharing the spiritual journey of awakening with her friends and colleagues. Website links: The Life Blessing Institute (LBI) The Woman's Rite documentary project Click here to contact Georgette if you are interested in her Soul Stream Life Map Readings and include the word “BatGap” in the message field. Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group Interview recorded October 27, 2024

In this episode, we do a retrospective on a dialogue that took place in 1974 during the first summer session of the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado. The dialogue was called “Psychology East and West” and explored a number of differences in understanding and approach to the notion of ego between so-called “Western psychology” and what were then thought of as “Eastern” spiritual traditions. The participants included the well-known spiritual teachers, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche and Ram Dass, as well as the co-founder and Vice-President of Naropa, John Baker, and the therapist, Jim Green. The dialogue was moderated by Duncan Campbell. The full dialogue can be heard on the Ram Dass — Here and Now podcast: Ep. 112, The Notion of Ego with Chogyam Trungpa RinpocheCharis FoundationGolden Turtle SoundSupport the Show.

Meet Rachel Fleischman – licensed social worker, psychotherapist, registered expressive arts therapist, workshop facilitator and speaker who over the last two decades has supported thousands of humans to deepen their creativity, feel understood, and love themselves fiercely. Through her private practice, Bliss Counseling, and a unique movement system she developed called Dance Your Bliss, Rachel works with individuals and couples and has expertise in crisis management, trust, body image, premarital and marital issues, sex therapy, depression, anxiety, life transition, and panic disorder, to name a few. Fleischman is currently developing new e-books and coursework surrounding; Sleep Health, Body-Centered Psychotherapy and Mindfulness Workshops. She has developed the Relaxed and Real model for psychotherapists. She can regularly be found leading international workshops and programs at conferences, corporate retreats, and wellness centers such as the Esalen Institute, the Omega Institute's Women and Courage Conference, Canyon Ranch, the Naropa Institute's Hakomi Conference, the Hollyhock Retreat Center, UCSF Women's Health, Rancho La Puerta Spa, and the International Dance Therapy Conference. Her sought-after mental health expertise has been featured on numerous podcasts and in magazines such as Verywell Mind, Best Life, Psychology Today, Martha Stewart, and Parade, to name a few. Rachel also aims to give back to her local community by volunteering at the San Francisco Public Libraries and leads a variety of pro-bono movement activities at organizations such as the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.   Rachel Fleischman Bliss Counseling "Your Body Speaks Its Mind" - Stanley Keleman BodyMind Psychotherapy ------ Instagram Facebook LinkedIn

Meet Rachel Fleischman – a licensed social worker, psychotherapist, registered expressive arts therapist, workshop facilitator, and speaker who, over the last two decades has supported thousands of humans to deepen their creativity, feel understood, and love themselves fiercely. Through her private practice, Bliss Counseling, and a unique movement system she developed called Dance Your Bliss, Rachel works with individuals and couples and has expertise in crisis management, trust, body image, premarital and marital issues, sex therapy, depression, anxiety, life transition, and panic disorder, to name a few. Rachel's love for supporting others began at a young age in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where she grew up experiencing complex trauma and learned about resilience and self-reliance as she raised herself. She found reprieve through dance classes and put herself through college and graduate school, where she also taught aerobics (which she thoroughly enjoyed). At the age of 24, Rachel took care of her dying father by teaching him exercises, which sparked the ideas surrounding the Dance Your Bliss classes and programs that she would later go on to develop. “As a young person, I often found myself being called upon to help others who were having difficulty coping with life situations. I had this ability to really “get” them and wanted desperately to learn more about how we process emotions, deal with adversity, and thrive,” says Fleischman. “During my 23 years practicing, I've trained with Esther Perel, the Gottmans and many other clinicians. I have studied Couples Counseling, sex therapy, CBT, and Solution-Focused Therapy. I refuse to stop learning – my clients mean the world to me!” Fleischman is currently developing new e-books and coursework surrounding perimenopause and menopause, and working with individual clients. She can regularly be found leading international workshops and programs at conferences, corporate retreats, and wellness centers such as the Esalen Institute, the Omega Institute's Women and Courage Conference, Canyon Ranch, the Naropa Institute's Hakomi Conference, the Hollyhock Retreat Center, UCSF Women's Health, Rancho La Puerta Spa, and the International Dance Therapy Conference. Her sought-after mental health expertise has been featured on numerous podcasts and in magazines such as Verywell Mind, Best Life, Psychology Today and Elephant Journal. Rachel also aims to give back to her local community by volunteering at the San Francisco Public Libraries and leads a variety of pro-bono movement activities at organizations such as the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. In her spare time Fleischman enjoys crafting and spending time in nature with her husband in and around San Francisco, California, where she currently resides.   Join us in this heartfelt episode as Rachel opens up about her personal journey and the origins of her deep passion for serving others. Discover the profound connection between movement and dance, and how it can transform your life. Rachel explores the importance of healthy vibrations for healing, breaking free from self-judgment and judgment of others, and finding self-love and acceptance through grace.   Rachel's Beginnings and story of hope: Rachel shares her early experiences and how they shaped her into the person she is today. Discover the roots of her passion for making a positive impact on others' lives. The Connection Between Movement and Dance Explore the profound connection between movement, dance, and personal growth. Learn how embracing movement can bring about profound changes in your life. Healing Through Dance and Vibration Rachel discusses the concept of healthy vibrations and their role in the healing process. Discover practical tips for incorporating healthy vibrations into your daily life. Finding Self-Love and Acceptance Through Grace Explore the concept of grace and its role in the journey toward self-love and acceptance. Rachel offers insights on how to cultivate grace in your life.     Get in touch with Rachel: https://www.blisscounseling.com https://www.instagram.com/danceyourbliss.sf/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/dancingyourbliss/   Get in touch with Jana and listen to more Podcasts: https://www.janashort.com/   Show Music ‘Hold On' by Amy Gerhartz https://www.amygerhartz.com/music.     Get the Best Holistic Life Magazine APP! One of the fastest-growing independent magazines centered around holistic living. https://www.presspadapp.com/digital-magazine/best-holistic-life-magazine Grab your gift today: https://www.janashort.com/becoming-the-next-influencers-download-offer/ Connect with Jana Short: https://www.janashort.com/contact/

Renowned Zen teacher Roshi Joan Halifax joins Banyen for a discussion of In a Moment, in a Breath. Joan Halifax, PhD, is a Buddhist teacher, anthropologist, and writer. Her books include The Human Encounter with Death (with Stanislav Grof), Being with Dying, and Standing at the Edge. She is a Founding Teacher in the Zen Peacemaker Order of Roshi Bernie Glassman and the late Sensei Jishu Holmes, and is a Soto priest and teacher. She founded The Ojai Foundation, an educational center, in 1979, and Upaya (a Buddhist study center) in Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1990. She has been on the faculties of Columbia University, the University of Miami School of Medicine, the New School for Social Research, The Naropa Institute, and the California Institute for Integral Studies. Halifax is a distinguished invited scholar of the U.S. Library of Congress, and the only woman and Buddhist on the Tony Blair Foundation's Advisory Council. Joan Halifax has worked with dying people since 1970. In 1994, she created the Project on Being with Dying as a way to train healthcare professionals in contemplative care of the dying.

Dear Listeners, This Podcast series on the Windhorse practice of Basic Attendance explores the discipline as an expression of the wisdom, compassion and resulting reciprocity that can manifest in ordinary human relationships when cultivated within a ground of openness and relational warmth. I came to the Windhorse approach after graduating from the Naropa Institute—now University—in 1980, and I had the good fortune to be around when this was being envisioned with other Naropa graduates. My attraction to this vision and practice had to do with the emphasis on a person being fundamentally sane and healthy, as well as to the importance placed on having an engaging and supportive social environment as they work with their current life challenges. It also met my need to continue working with others in a setting where I could include my practice and understanding of Contemplative Psychotherapy. My exposure to the first Windhorse Team that had formed was at a social event in the therapeutic household of the “client”, and I was struck by the mutuality of connection among all members of the Team, including the so-called “client”. There was such a felt sense of closeness and camaraderie among everyone, as well as warmth and acceptance. It felt so wholesome to be in this environment. As a result, I became involved with this approach and was fortunate to be an active member of Maitri Psychological Services (as the Windhorse organization was named then) through its duration in the 1980's. The presentations and ensuing discussions included in this Podcast represent a window into the range of experiences that can occur when a Team member and “client” are spending time together for their Basic Attendance shifts. I have always felt that the possibilities of what can arise and be included during a shift is only limited by the collective and mutual imagination of the Team member and the “client” at that time, given that the entire community where it is taking place is available as a support and inspiration for their engagement. As a result, they can engage in household activities like attending to the physical environment, food preparation, or making art, to name a few possibilities. Also, activities can occur outside of the household, which could include taking classes together, going to the gym or for long hikes. The examples shared in the Podcast quite beautifully express the invitation to be present to what is arising within oneself and the “client” in the environment. This, to me, is the ground of the Basic Attendance practice, as an experience and expression of the co-presence between the Team member and the “client”. And given the Team member's sensitivity, this can unfold into very poignant and intimate relational sharing. So, the Art of this Practice—and it is precisely that, rather than a recipe or list of techniques to apply—is a very human endeavor which can bring out the best in each person. The invitation there also is to face the full range of one's experiences—i.e. fears and joys—as this unfolds, in a relational environment that supports this. We hope you enjoy this Podcast about these intimate and potentially healing encounters. Thank you for joining us, Kathy Emery

Fredric Lehrman is the founder of Nomad University and an accomplished musician. He plays the cello and the guitar. He also studied Japanese music with Koto master Shinichi Yuize, and also raga singing with the great North Indian vocalist, Pandit Pran Nath. For nine years he was a senior student of the T'ai Chi master Cheng Man-Ch'ing, and founded several permanent schools of T'ai Chi Chuan in major U.S. cities, including a special T'ai Chi program at Naropa Institute. He has designed programs and taught jointly with many leading thinkers, among whom are Marilyn Ferguson, Jose Arguelles, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Barbara DeAngelis, Peter Russell, Rupert Sheldrake, Terence McKenna and Lynne Twist. Fredric is also the authors of several books from which I'll mention one, The Sacred Landscape. Resources:www.claudiumurgan.comwww.patreon.com/claudiumurganclaudiu@claudiumurgan.comSubscribe for more videos! youtube.com/channel/UC6RlLkzUK_LdyRSV7DE6obQ

On episode 192 I am joined by Maureen Murdock, PhD. Maureen is a psychotherapist, writing teacher and the author of seven books, including The Heroine's Journey:Woman's Quest for Wholeness, a ground-breaking book which revealed a broader understanding of the female psyche on both a personal and cultural level. Murdock is also the author of Unreliable Truth, The Heroine's Journey Workbook; Fathers' Daughters; Spinning Inward: Using Guided Imagery with Children and is the editor of an anthology of memoirs written by her writing students entitled Monday Morning Memoirs: Women in the Second Half of Life. Murdock's research on myth and memoir culminated in her book, Unreliable Truth: On Memoir and Memory. She teaches memoir writing in the UCLA Extension Writers' Program as well as privately in Santa Barbara, California. Murdock was Chair and core faculty member of the MA Counseling Psychology Program at Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara and is adjunct faculty in depth psychology at Sonoma State University. She has been a guest lecturer at The C.G. Jung Institute, UCLA, UC Santa Cruz, UC San Diego, University of British Columbia, The Naropa Institute, The Omega Institute, The Oasis Center, University of Creation Spirituality, University of Massachusetts, and others. She has been an educational consultant for a number of school districts and she co-created a program in human development for students in the Los Angeles City Schools to deal with conflict resolution and diversity issues after the uprisings in the early 1990s. In this episode you will hear: 03:30 30 years of The Heroines Journey 06:00 The Heroes Journey left something missing for women 09:30 A back injury and the separation from the feminine 12:30 why she might disconnect from the feminine 13:30 all the responsibility, no respect 16:45 thank you Disney! You can be evil or dead! 19:00 rejecting the feminine and all those who show it 24:00 ascending to the Goddess 25:30 the universe is partnering with the woman along the journey 27:30 coming face to face with the Goddess 28:30 not rising to the light too soon 31:00 the essence of the feminine 33:00 healing the wounded masculine 36:00 integrating the masculine and feminine 39:30 Mother - relationship to matter 42:00 Memoirists are contemporary myth makers 44:30 what is home and where do I belong? I hope this interview inspires your heroine's journey. Please do subscribe, leave a little review, and share it with someone you wish to inspire too. Always love Ryan Reminder! For more information on our Good Fathers programme please visit www.abty.co.uk/good-fathers Connect with Maureen Websites: https://maureenmurdock.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/maureenmurdockauthor/ IG: https://www.instagram.com/murdockmaureen/ Connect with Always Better than Yesterday Website: www.abty.co.uk Instagram: www.instagram.com/alwaysbetterthanyesterdayuk TikTok: www.tiktok.com/@abty_uk LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/abty Thank you to our friends at Elevate OM, proud supporters of the Always Better than Yesterday Interview Sessions. Visit: www.elevateom.com Please email your questions and comments to podcast@abty.co.uk

Laurie Seymour a two time international best selling Author, host of wisdom talk radio, executive international trainer and speaker is the founder and CEO of the Baca Institute. She has dedicated her life to show you how to reliably connect with your energetic creative intelligence, dissolving old patterns of struggle and self sabotage. 20 years ago Laurie is honoured to receive the stewardship of a special energy technology and has since then she has worked with over 1000 people and it take out the base with replicatable results and the system that is approachable and empathic, fully suited to the modern professional at the limits of central courage, first as a psychotherapist trainer, and then as a solutions engineer in the telecom industry. Laurie founded the Baca to honor that 25 years of internet research. She and a small group of intrepid explorers did in exploring human potential by activating new energy systems. What got Laurie started on her pathWe were talking about changing mindset. And you know, those things that go deeper than what you think and I put in my tool belt or in my pocket to try and do something. Why my mind work? Oh boy, it has evolved over decades. I was originally drawn to being a psychotherapist. Because what I was most interested in is and didn't know how to discover was what's possible for us. What's our potential what, what can we be who we really are? How can we be fully who We are and more in, show up in the world in ways that that are creative, you know that that bring that creativity into real focus and into solving the problems of the world. So I want to say so speak, but no, really. And then yeah, and psychology seemed to be at least for me the starting place for that and it was what I could find. And at some point, that was limiting me I felt like, the more we excavate, the more we stay in that role of excavating and we're not in discovery. We're not in activating what's possible for us and through a lot of different experiences working with a lot of different teachers and processes and methods and reading and study and research there Was it one one teacher who I was really drawn to it not only to work with for many, many years, but my own experience of doing the work that she was about changed everything in my life. And it it opened the the inner doors within me in ways that none of the other books I've ever done and I've done a lot in my degree was in humanistic psychology I taught at Naropa Institute and in the transpersonal psychology. This really opened me up continually over the next two decades really in my life and beyond to that, that which I hit they're longing to discover that will take them wanting to connect with and to feeling that sense of of interconnection and outer connection. My work is about raising the vibration, helping people raise their own vibration because they doing that. That's where they start to draw to them. Those things that they want. They want more profit in their business. They want better clients. They want peace of heart. They want to have more time or more time freedom to deal with a really normal and how we get that how we draw that to us is by virtue of racing one's whole frequency. That was what led me into starting to research around quantum physics and the quantum universe. That's why I call my process and it is a very specialized process of the quantum connector connection process.Listen here to the rest of What Laurie has to say.

Welcome to a new edition of the Famous Interviews with Joe Dimino series .. On this episode, we talk with Editor, Publisher, Owner & Author of HIGH: Confessions of a Cannabis Addict Leonard Buschel .. Originally from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, these days he lives in Los Angeles, California & studied Psychology at Naropa Institute .. Amonst many other things, Leonard offers insight into the world of addiction and what it takes to enter recovery. He can talk about the miracle and beauty of sobriety and will encourage those who need help to seek it. We got into this and much more .. Dig it .. Click to listen.Thanks for tuning into another Famous Interview with Joe Dimino .. where we cover the world of art, literature and music around the globe ..  Most music comes from Kevin McLeod of Incompetech.com .. If you want to hear more interviews, go to Famous Interviews with Joe Dimino on the iTunes store, visit the YouTube Neon Jazz Channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/neonjazzkc, and for everything Joe Dimino related go to www.joedimino.com When you are there, you can donate to the Neon Jazz cause via PayPal https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=ERA4C4TTVKLR4 or through Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/neonjazzkc - Until next time .. enjoy the music my friends ..

In this fourth episode (actually our first recorded episode), we interview Tessa Bielecki, former Mother Abbess of the Spiritual Life Institute and a Carmelite hermit in Tucson, Arizona. Tessa talks with us about her Polish Catholic background, founding a Carmelite reform movement, and four Carmelite wilderness monasteries. She also discusses her life today as a “urban hermit,” the impact of Fr. William McNamara, the relationship of “Holiness and Vitality,” life-affirming Christianity, the influence of J.R.R. Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings on the Spiritual Life Institute, contemplation as “personal passionate presence,” Teresa of Avila and Carmelite spirituality, interreligious dialogue (particularly related to the historic Buddhist-Christian dialogue at the Naropa Institute in the 1980s), and interspirituality today. Tessa Bielecki is a Carmelite Christian hermit and a pioneer in interreligious dialogue. Co-founder and former Mother Abbess of the Spiritual Life Institute (a Carmelite reform institution), she founded four eremitical monasteries in North America and Ireland. Later, after leaving the Spiritual Life Institute, she founded the Desert Foundation (with Father David Denny), exploring connections between the Abrahamic faiths. Today, Tessa lives in Tucson, Arizona, where she considers herself an “urban hermit.”To learn more about Tessa, or to donate to her 'urban hermitage,' go to: sandandsky.orgLinks: Charis FoundationGolden Turtle SoundSupport the show

Author and Psychotherapist Mark Epstein, M.D. returns to the Metta Hour Podcast for Episode 182.Today's podcast is brought to you by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/mettaA longtime friend and colleague, Mark and Sharon first met in 1974 at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, CO. Mark is a psychiatrist in private practice in New York City and a longtime Buddhist practitioner. He is the author of several books that explore the interface of Buddhism and psychotherapy, including Going to Pieces without Falling Apart and his 2022 release, The Zen of Therapy: Uncovering a Hidden Kindness in Life. In this conversation, Mark and Sharon discuss:• Their backstory meeting in 1974 in Boulder, CO• Mark's new book, The Zen of Therapy• The Buddha's origin story through Mark's therapeutic lens• How COVID is impacting Mental Health• Exploring COVID as a collective trauma• Mark's insights while on a meditation retreat• How to create a healthy holding environment for ourselves• The importance of kindness in therapy• The limitations of kindness• How to find a good therapist The episode closes with Mark leading a short guided meditation practice. To learn more about Mark's work, you can visit his website. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Join our conversation with Dr. Michael Rectenwald, Ph.D., former full Professor at NYU. Dr. Rectenwald authored last December's (2021) Imprimis piece called "The Great Reset" published by Hillsdale College. Michael takes us through what it was like teaching at NYU (which is in New York). He was there for over a decade. But the wokeness and PC stuff began , slowly, to make him feel like he was under the thumb of a totalitarian culture crushing free thought. He began to realize it took more and more courage just to believe his own beliefs instead of the beliefs that he was supposed to believe. This came to a head in 2016, the Fall. That semester, he was punished for his beliefs, for his commitment to academic excellence, which requires Free Speech. He was removed, without adequate cause, from the classroom 4 weeks into the semester. This mistreatment at the hands of the woke Leftists who run the campus spurred a conversion in every way. In his words: "Let me just say this," he said, describing that crazy semester, "in September I was a Marxist. By November, I voted for Trump." Part of the fuller story of his conversion was spiritual and philosophical (metaphysical). He went from being a metaphysical materialist (as Marxists are), or rather, functionally or methodologically one, to be more precise--he described himself as an agnostic--to a Christian believer. Part of this journey involved the healing of his son's stage 4 cancer. This stuff we would have liked to get into more but it occurred at the very end, and we weren't able to follow this in any more detail due to time constraints. We discuss grade inflation, his time at the Naropa Institute in Boulder under Allen Ginsberg (yes, the Allen Ginsberg) (I asked if they were a bunch of Republicans. He said, uh, no). (Shocker). We discuss his graduate training and what conspiracy theories are , and whether a conspiracy theory involving human actors can adequately explain the concentration and character, the phenomenology of totalitarian forces that seem to be the data calling out for explanation. The Republican Professor is a pro-understanding-conspiracy-theories , pro-conversion-from-Marxism, pro-Free-Speech and pro-academic-excellence, pro-understanding-what-is-the-great-reset? podcast. Therefore, welcome Michael Rectenwald !

She saw him as a free spirit who was never going to get married. She didn't know how to let go of him because maybe there would never be a wedding and a dance. How one mother and son completely transformed their relationship with a ceremony in the middle of a lake.    Links: HealStory Podcast   Music by Terry Hughes   Rate This Podcast   On an Android Device?   Also check out these episodes: Why Weddings Make Us Crazy   Inviting Grief to the Wedding   There Must Be Something Wrong   Full Transcript   Astro: I've personally never heard of, of a mother and son, or even a father and a son, one-on-one ritual to mend and heal any unconscious issues that they may have had. I just hadn't heard of it. I think it's awesome.   So much of life is based on expectations. We anticipate our traditions to be there. The Father Daughter or Mother Son dance at the wedding can be a way of saying I love you and I'm moving on now. But what happens when there's no wedding?   This is Shame Piñata. I'm Colleen Thomas. Welcome to Shame Piñata, where we talk about creating rites of passage for real-life transitions.   It's season 3 already - I'm not even sure how that happened. I'm so happy to have you with us as we continue exploring the wide variety of rituals and ceremonies we can build to address life's challenges. My hope is that as you navigate what life brings you, you might consider using ritual as a tool to honor yourself for something, or release something you no longer need, or honor in a relationship that's changed and grown over time. Today we will be exploring this last one: what it can look like to honor a relationship that's changed and grown over time.    I'm going to invite you into a conversation I had with my friend Astro and his mom Jeanne about a ritual they created together. It started when Astro noticed that his mom seemed to be getting a little triggered whenever he had a serious relationship. There seemed to be some feelings coming up that felt a little codependent or enmeshed. Now, Astro and his mom are really close, so he was able to just go to Jeanne and talk with her about what he was noticing and together they realized that Jeanne might be grieving the loss of her son as she watched him interacting as a grown man with a partner. I invite you to listen in on their story, the delightful way they relate, and how they intuitively turned to ritual to work through the tensions he'd noticed. One quick note - Astro's given name is Patrick, and you'll hear Jeanne refer to him by that name throughout the interview.    Colleen: Give me a sense of what your relationships like between the two of you.   Jeanne: [LAUGHS]    Astro: Hmmm.   Jeanne: I think it's fantastic.    Astro: Yeah, it's pretty good.    Jeanne: But I'll let you speak for yourself.    Astro: You go first, then I'll go.   Jeanne: Well, I'm aware that… what do I need to say? He's just been a fantastic young man to journey with since he was an infant.   Astro: I'm not so young anymore…   Jeanne: Huh?   Astro: I'm not so young anymore.   Jeanne: Well, no, you're not young anymore, but you're full of wisdom and it's just delightful to see how you are operating in life and… So… I happen to be a spiritual director and have done counseling and psychotherapy stuff and all that. So it's not, it's not what do I need to say? So I could go with the flow a lot easier, maybe than some parents.   Colleen: Got it.    Jeanne: …and that my job was simply to know that he's a gift to the universe and my job was to unwrap him.   Colleen: That's beautiful.   Astro: Yes, that's nicely said.    Jeanne: And so… then there was some times I found out that my wrapping was too tight.   Astro: We kind of realized that in kind of rehashing the story, that we had probably the same outcomes, but we had come to the ritual from different places which is really interesting, but that'll come up later.    Colleen: And what was going on in your relationship at the time that you had the ritual that led you to the ritual?   Astro: So I was at school at Naropa Institute at the University of Creation Spirituality and I was kind of learning initiation and working in ritual and the value of that for rites of passage. And I had just started to like, kind of recognize some dynamics that I'd never seen before, in the dynamic of our story, in our life, in our you know... So when my partner was interacting with my mom and I, there were just some things I was noticing that I hadn't seen in my mom before. So then I just kind of brought up my mom and I was like, “You know, is there something going on?” And she, you know, to her credit, like, it took a little time because these things are kind of unconscious motivations. But it came up and I think she recognized that - this is my memory of it at that time - was that she recognized that there was some stuff and through the work that I had done, ritual work, I was like, “Well, hey, let's dive in and let's figure something out just to address that stuff.”    Jeanne: And then, of course, I think I was… I was unconscious. I mean, I wasn't aware. So his bringing that up, made me… enabled me to look at it, and realizing that he's a free spirit, he's a seven in the Enneagram and they're… they don't usually make commitments. And so I figured that he'd probably have many partners, his life and maybe not a long-term committed. But I also was aware of that if there is something that's still tying an umbilical cord of me to Patrick and not setting him free, that perhaps a ritual would be helpful in my letting go, what I wasn't fully conscious of.   Astro: What I would, what I was noticing those unconscious things, and I think mom kind of just said it a little bit was just this idea of needing to let go and that's just that's, I think, a natural rite of passage in the story of parents and kids. And that happens through different stages throughout the life and one of those stages is when they are of an age where they, if they so choose to have a kind of a partner and then leave and create a family and life of their own. And I think, because Mom saw me as such a free spirit and world traveler and this kind of person that maybe wasn't going to have a traditional rite of passage, which she would be more used to in her tradition… and she grew up with, you know, much more traditional religious ceremony, AKA marriage, right? So since I probably wasn't going to get married, I think she was feeling a loss of  the opportunity to have clarity of my transition from this family into my own. Does that make sense?   Jeanne: Yes. Because as I say to him, one of the transitions are the ritual is at a wedding festivity, where oftentimes the bride dances with the father, and there's a letting go… it's a… it's letting go of that bond in celebration of a new relationship. So it's… I didn't realize how meaningful it is for mothers to dance with their sons, because there again is the closeness, the journey, and letting go. So I didn't see that that was going to happen and didn't necessarily constantly have a sense of we that needed to be replaced or or held. It was really, if there is still ties, what is the traditional way in which those ties are released?   Astro: Right. Yeah. To summarize, as you stated, we had both recognized there was a need for letting go.   Jeanne: Yeah.    Colleen: Right. Right. And I think it's amazing that you both had the consciousness… and that you're both on the same page with that. You're both open to that.   Astro: Yeah, it took some time. But yeah, we got there.   [MUSIC]   So they knew what the problem was and they chose to come up with something fun to deal with it. How cool is that, especially between a mother and son? I didn't hear any pointing fingers or blaming. When I hear this story, I see two people coming together to walk around a problem as a team. And I see two people who have seen the power and adaptability of ceremony to move them through an event.    Colleen: So, take me through the planning process when you're planning the ritual.    Astro: So we live on this beautiful lake and this is… this is already kind of a ceremonial place for us like… it's very spiritual and profound place for our family. We've been… our family's been here for a couple generations, at least Mom's side. So…   Jeanne: Oh, on the lake? Yeah. I'd started out in a basket as a baby on Seneca Lake and went other places and came back.   Astro: Seneca Lake in the state of New York, in the finger lakes. It's a really special place.   Jeanne: It is.    Astro: So we knew this would be the ritual spot, the lake. And it was like a beautiful summer time and we just hopped in a small fishing boat and we went out to the middle of the lake.   Jeanne: And Patrick had been a tennis player so he had a lot of trophies and I was trying to figure out where to put these trophies. So when he talked about it'd be nice if we had some object or something to release, I thought - ha, ha!   Astro: That's so funny because I feel like I I had the same idea at that same time. She thinks it was her idea to do that.   [TALKING OVER EACH OTHER]    Jeanne: But it was your idea. Anyways, it was a mutual idea. Here's the synchronicity between the two of us.    Astro: It was mutual, whoever was there first.   Jeanne: So we went through… we went through the trophies deciding which ones were…   Astro: …the ugliest.    Jeanne: Right. The ugliest or didn't have… necessarily have the…   Astro: …we found like two second place ones or something like that.   Jeanne: Right. We kept the first place and the ones that really stood out and then decided, okay, these really are just going to take up dust and so, but they are something that was part of my watching him and his being in that sport. And so we decided I'm not sure how many… we…probably at least three…   Astro: We took four…   Jeanne: …three or four we took out with us in the boat. And then we decided, “Well we're in the boat, how would we work this? Well how about we pick one up and then we talk about starting early on in life.” And I don't remember what we said, but it was segments of our life and celebrate…   Astro: I think it was pretty much you doing it like you just kind of took it and you held it and you were present with it and just sort of spoke to like my like… being like a baby and a toddler and what that was like for you and you know…    Jeanne: Yeah. Probably so.   Astro: And I remember like, some… lot of tears like there was emotion. And I felt like I was kind of holding space.   Jeanne: I didn't remember the tears, it was so long ago there. But I thought, you know, it was great to be letting go and letting the memories be cherished and off into the waters. So…   Astro: I'm sure we started with some intentional prayer and breathing.   Jeanne: I don't know about the breathing at that point.    Astro: Well, something centering.   Jeanne: But we were… Sure.   Astro: It was totally calm, like, the lake's pretty big. It's almost two miles across. We live… we were literally in the middle of the lake. Like we took a time… a while to get out there in a small fishing boat and so we were intentional and…   Jeanne: It was a sacred moment.    Astro: …and it's like 600 feet deep at that point…   Jeanne: …so we knew they'd never come back. [LAUGHS]   Astro: [LAUGHS] Yeah, unless they floated! But we got the heavier ones, like the ones with the marble base. Not like the wooden ones…    [LAUGHING]   Astro: That'd be funny.   Colleen: Yeah, I always wonder what that means when I make an offering and it comes back. I'm always like, “Hmmm…”   Astro: Yeah, there's a whole nother meaning. Oh, maybe you're not supposed to let go of me. Maybe we're supposed to be enmeshed the rest of our lives.    Jeanne: There's a lot of stuff in this lake… people buried… put their ashes in there…   Astro: Yeah, we've had friends who've put their ashes…   Jeanne: …ashes in the lake. I mean, had a ceremonial ritual with him in the boat. So… and that was before. Yeah, that was before this… our having the ritual. So that wasn't the first time we'd gone out of the boat to recall life and to celebrate life, and to let it go.   Colleen: And yet, this was a different, this was a different kind of letting go. This is letting go of a “past life”, of somebody who's still alive who's transitioning and letting go of the past relationship. It was kind of a rebirthing of your relationship.   Astro: Totally, totally. And I think that's kind of what it felt like to me is she's announcing,...she's like, to me it's like she's saying, you know, “This trophy is Patrick as a toddler” and letting it go. It's like kind of like a death. And the same thing with like, whatever the next trophy represented and like the adolescence, and letting go of that. And, you know, so that was kind of like a death and a rebirth. When all that was let go, it was definitely a rebirth it felt like and, and you know what we can get into and what to me it felt like a genuine shift, a genuine transformation in our relationship.   Jeanne: Which was nice to have that occur. And you know, asking to be sharing this with you then we did a little talking to recall just what did we recall? This was about 18-20 years ago. And so it had for me, I was surprised that it had such an impact on Patrick.   Colleen: I'm curious what felt different to you after the ceremony, Astro.   Astro: I mean, one of my main motivations, as I said before, was to, like have a pretty copacetic relationship in the family with my partner at the time. And I don't know, I just noticed, a like, sort of this kind of sharpness that I had discovered, like I thought I'd seen in mom when my partner came in, or just certain situations arose that were bringing up this unconscious sort of triggers that were gone, like completely gone. Like she was at ease and I didn't see any of that, that sharpness. That edge had seemed to, like dissipate. It was almost like we had like a sort of, like an unspoken contract, like a secret contract that like, between us that that energy was just dissolved. And it was completely dealt with and didn't exist anymore. And it… to a big extent, and I think our relationship became less around the dependencies and co-dependencies around childrens and parents and it became more about peers and spiritual friends and coworkers on planet Earth. And I think, we're we never lose the fact that we're mother and son, but it became… it was just another phase in us being more, you know, mutual in our lives together as opposed to the dynamic of like, “This is your identity and this is my identity and this is how we relate.” And now there seemed to be much more freedom,and openness and respect. Like I don't know, a lot of people who live live with their parents as regular as I have since I came back, like I do a lot of world traveling. Those years, I wasn't living at home, and then the last few years, I spent a lot of time with my family, with my parents, and we get along like, like gangbusters, we're like friends. You know, some people can't live can't spend more than three days with their parents, you know, without all these codependent dynamics like blowing up in their face. And we literally like… we enjoy each other's company, we have fun together, you know.    Jeanne: Right.   Astro: I've personally never heard of, of a mother and son, or even a father and a son, one-on-one ritual to mend and heal any unconscious issues that they may have had. I just hadn't heard of it. I think it's awesome and I'm sure people have but I don't know.   Colleen: I haven't heard of it either. And the whole first season of the podcast was focused on weddings because I thought it was something that people would be very familiar with the concept of a wedding and talked a lot about how to do a wedding on your own terms and make your own, make it very unique to what you need as a couple, or as more than a couple of it's more than two people that are that are uniting. There was a big theme about unconscious, you know, things coming up mothers of the bride and the groom, you know, “freaking out”, you know, or “bridezillas” or whatever… And all of that, because of not taking the time to, or not having space in our teaching and our learning to allow space for the feelings which are being changed… you know, the reaction to the change of the relationship.   Astro: Totally. Yeah, yeah, yeah.  It's huge. Well, and this is kind of a spin off of that, I think, the marriage theme.   Jeanne: My seeing it not happening, because he's a free spirit and if there was ever a ceremony, it'd be quite different, not knowing it. So just realizing that gee that's not going to probably happen. And how…   Astro: So this was our dance.   Jeanne: This is our dance. This is our dance.   Astro: Letting go.    Jeanne: I've had my dance. You can do whatever you want. [LAUGHS]   Colleen: Oh, my goodness. Thank you so much for telling that story.   Jeanne: I have no idea how you're going to put this together in a podcast.    Astro: Oh, she's a professional.   Jeanne: She's a professional. Thank you, Colleen.   And thank you for joining us today for this beautiful story. I love it because it's a clear and simple example of noticing a disconnect within a relationship, acknowledging it, and finding a way to come together again. How much easier could life be if we could openly acknowledge when we're not feeling comfortable about something? If we could say things like, “I'm noticing I'm a little sad that you're getting married,” or “I'm kind of freaked out you're having a baby because I'm afraid I'll never see you again. How can we work with this? How can we stay connected?” It's all about taking care of ourselves, being human, and asking for what we need. Then, finding a fun ceremony to build together!   Jeanne Judson is a world traveler with a Masters in Education. She's an elder, spiritual director, Enneagram instructor, Reiki Master and lover of life. Astro is a conscious activist producing music and media to promote healthy evolution personally, socially, and environmentally. After returning from the protests at Standing Rock he started co-producing a podcast called HealStory aimed at ancestral healing through personal storytelling. You can learn more at www.healstory.com or listen wherever you get your podcasts. And if you would like to support his work you can do so at www.patreon.com/healstory.    Our music is by Terry Hughes. You can follow us on IG and Twitter at shamepinata. You can reach us through the contact page at our website, shamepinata.com. And you can subscribe to the podcast on Radio Public, Apple Podcasts, or your favorite player. I'm Colleen Thomas. Thanks for listening.

"Let yourself be broken. Let yourself suffer. Cling to Christ through it."- Tessa Bielecki Season 4, Episode 6 of Messy Jesus Business podcast, hosted by Sister Julia Walsh. LISTEN HERE: IN THIS EPISODE: In this episode of Messy Jesus Business, Sister Julia Walsh talks with Tessa Bielecki about pain and the healing process: how they forge transformation, and how suffering can help us to know union with God. Tessa explains this concept through the lens of a past trauma, and says she didn't lose her faith at that time, nor did she expect Jesus to come riding in on a horse, like a knight, to save her. "My experience was, that's not possible because Jesus and I are clinging to one another on the cross through this...we're united in this suffering. I am a part of his suffering; he is strengthening me in mine. It's one crucifixion. It's one resurrection." Tessa and Sister Julia also look at healthy asceticism, and how we're called to honor the goodness of all God creates for us. "We're training like athletes. Or we're training like dancers. It's a discipline, it's not a punishment," Tessa explains. Sister Julia and Tessa also examine interspiritual dialogue and why it's important for contemplatives to be in relationship with people from other faith traditions. Lastly, they explore the creative process of making order of the chaos. ABOUT THE GUEST: Tessa Bielecki was born in Norwich, Connecticut on September 16, 1944. From early childhood she loved the diverse peoples and cultures around our planet and studied Russian and French at Trinity College in Washington D.C., preparing for a career in international relations. Her dream took a more spiritual turn when she met Fr. William McNamara in 1965 and with him co-founded the Spiritual Life Institute. With a brave band of fellow-monks, she helped create a monastic community and four retreat centers over four decades: Nada Hermitage in Sedona, Arizona in the 1960s (lost to land developers in 1981), Nova Nada Hermitage in Kemptville, Nova Scotia, Canada in the 1970s (lost to logging development in 1998), Nada Carmelite Hermitage in Crestone, Colorado in the 1980s, and Holy Hill Hermitage in Skreen, County Sligo, Ireland in the 1990s. After serving as Mother Abbess of these centers and traveling between them for almost 40 years, Tessa left monastic life in 2003. In 2005, with friend and colleague, Fr. David Denny, she created The Desert Foundation, an informal circle of friends exploring the spirit of the desert, its landscape and soulscape, with a special focus on peace and reconciliation among the Abrahamic traditions: Jews, Christians, and Muslims. With Fr. Dave she was an adjunct professor at Colorado College for almost fifteen years, teaching courses on Fire and Light: A History of Christian Mysticism and Sand and Sky: Desert Spirituality from the Middle East to the American Southwest. Tessa is a seasoned retreat leader and the author of numerous articles and several  major works: Teresa of Avila: Mystical Writings, Holy Daring, Ecstasy and Common Sense, Season of Glad Songs: A Christmas Anthology, Desert Voices: The Edge Effect, and Sounds True audio learning courses Passion for God and Wild at Heart: Radical Teachings of the Christian Mystics. She is currently working on a memoir. Fulfilling her dream of more peaceful international relations but from a more spiritual perspective, Tessa has years of experience with interspiritual dialogue, most notably with Buddhists throughout the 1980s at Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado. She has led pilgrimages to Spain, Italy, Israel, Palestine, and Jordan, and visited Russia, Mexico, Germany, Denmark and The Netherlands, where she participated in symposiums called Women for Peace and Art Meets Science and Spirituality in a Changing Economy. She had the privilege of speaking three times at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland and was part of the Lindisfarne Fellowship during its...

In this episode, Dr. Jenny Wolgemuth interviews the QR SIG's 2021 Outstanding Dissertation Award winner Dr. Marie Vea. Dr. Vea is the Assistant Dean for Student Services and Staff Development at the University of Vermont. Dr. Vea's dissertation is titled Sense of Place and Ways of Knowing: The Landscape of Experience for Black, Indigenous and People of Color in Natural Resources, Environmental Education and Placed-based Learning. The follow text presents a transcript of the recording. ---Jenny  0:25  Hello, everyone and welcome to qualitative conversations a podcast series hosted by the qualitative research special interest group of the American Educational Research Association. I'm Jennifer Wolgemuth, the current chair of the qualitative research special interest group outstanding dissertation award committee. I am very excited to be joined today by Dr. Maria Vea, who is the recipient of the 2021 outstanding dissertation Award for her dissertation titled, Sense of Place and Ways of Knowing: The Landscape of Experience for Black, Indigenous and People of Color in Natural Resources, Environmental Education and Placed-based Learning. Dr. Vea is an assistant dean for student services and staff development at the University of Vermont in the School of environment natural resources, where she has worked and studied for over 20 years. Her areas of research expertise and experience include green jobs and internships, social justice, and engaged learning. Thank you for joining me today, Dr. Vea. I'm really thrilled to learn more about you and your work. So to get us going, I was thinking our audience would appreciate learning more about your dissertation work. Can you talk about your dissertation, maybe about its scope, and its methodological focus.Marie  1:54  Thank you, Jenny. And thank you also for the opportunity to talk with you more and to for the award, I was really honored to stand with so many wonderful researchers, and also to bring some light to some of the work that I and my co researchers and colleagues have been doing. And as you mentioned, so the title of the dissertation speaks a lot to what the content and scope is. So sense of place, and ways of knowing. So where we are in place, not just physically but also metaphorically and figuratively, and ways of knowing epistemologies, how we arrive at the things that we believe we know and are important to us and make meaning of experience. But that's specifically what is experienced for black, indigenous and people of color bipoc folks in the field that I spend the most of my time and career in. So those are places related to natural resources, environmental education, and place based learning. So I've worked in the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources for 17 years, and have worked with bipoc folks coming through those curriculum in the environment, and have found witnessed the challenges that a lot of the students, alumni and colleagues have within environmental learning and working spaces. So the dissertation really focuses on what has been called academic imperialism and epistemic injustice, how ways of knowing and experiences of this population of folks are invisible alized, diminished, erased from the larger environmental narratives. And oftentimes, what I experienced is that when we ask questions about why aren't people of color interested, or in the environmental fields, it's from a perspective of no lacking something, or it's not interesting enough, it's from a deficits, perspective. And this dissertation focuses on the strengths based perspective because, like, with underrepresented folks of all identities, we're here, we've been here and we continue to be here. And why is that? How do we sustain how do we survive? So the dissertation is a strengths based perspective, with co-researchers that are nine alumni of the Rubenstein school. And we came together to share stories and images and reflections in an environment that really was inspired by indigenous research methodologies, methodologies and methods and came out understanding having a better understanding of our individual ways of knowing and our collective Ways of Knowing that help us to survive and thrive in these learning and working spaces. A big part of the journey qualitative research. So coming together with people that I had long time relationship with, and standing shoulder to shoulder and strength to strength with them, acknowledging and honoring their experience and wisdom, and uplifting, that they have as much wisdom and expertise of their experience as anybody that might have a credential behind their name. So the other piece that I'll just add in terms of scope, and I'm talking to primarily I hope, folks in education in higher education and environmental education, and in some part, telling them what has happened and how we can make a change. But really, I want to talk to the folks of color that are wondering, how can I make find my space in place in the field of education in research in the environment? And how do I do that, that is in integrity with who I am, where I come from my ancestors, and with a spirit of joy in the face of challenges, especially in the last couple of years. So, so all of that is, is part of the scope of this particular work.Unknown Speaker  6:26  Beautiful, I'd love to hear your talk. And and that really comes through so clearly in reading your work. One of the things that I appreciated about it as a methodologist is that the the commitment and the ethic and the epistemology, your epistemological position, seem to drive your methodology that the methodology emerged through the process of the inquiry, as opposed to what we so often see, which is the methodology was chosen and decided in advance. So I would be sort of interested to hear your thoughts on that, particularly in relation to your decision to take a participatory approach to do this as a collaborative work. Can you talk about why you involved your participants, as co researchers, and then more broadly, about the methodological decision making that you made this work?Unknown Speaker  7:28  Thanks, Jenny, it's, it's interesting and great that you should say that the methodology didn't drive the work was the the the work, the capital W work that drove the methodology. And if, you know, I was a career counselor for a number of years, and I'm still kind of a career counselor when I advise students. And oftentimes, I think the aspiration for all of us is that, that I can show up to my full as my full self wherever I am. And I'm working with students for the last 20 plus years and specifically with students that are interested in the environment for the last 17 building relationship, telling stories creating environments where people can explore and fail and be awkward and you know, share and be vulnerable is part of what I think really makes the community where work really vital. And so that when I was exploring dissertation work and doctoral work, from the very beginning, I wanted it to be creative. I wanted to I wanted it to keep me engaged, and have it be fun. I don't know that you can use the word fun in research I tried. And, and also have it be you can only tell stories, best the stories that you know, well. And the stories I knew well. We're working with students, with students of color, specifically, as they came through four years of development and in education, and then after they graduated. So when I thought about what I wanted to research and what what I wanted to spend a lot of time and heart on. It was with the students and alumni, actually, and these co researchers were alumni from the years 2005 to 2018. I kept in touch with them all of those years, dinners and chats and walks and adventures and really had gotten to see them through many years of change and, and identity work. So my I had several proposals for dissertation before it actually landed on this one. That's probably the case with A lot of people, but um, but out of relationship and love, I so wanted to tell the story of these folks that came through a lot of experience, and we're making changes in the world that I so admired. And I wanted to do it in a way where it felt like we were family coming together over the course of a few months. And certainly over the course of the year that I was writing this up. So um, so that drove the methodology, being in relationship, telling stories, being accountable to each other, creating environments where we could ask hard questions of ourselves, and of each other, and honoring the wisdom that they all brought. And it came together really beautifully. Because we loved being with each other. We love telling stories. And over the course of the two to three months that we conducted the research of talking and sharing stories, we saw each other through many changes and the methodology of a visual relational narrative inquiry, using images and stories. And using larger narratives as, as a means of making meaning just felt really natural. That's how we conducted our relationship, even before we could call it a dissertation research. So that's how we came to the methodology. And I have to, I have to give a shout out to my influences, Kelly Clark Keefe and the Rubenstein school. The the many authors, Robin kimmerer, and Gregory kahit. De and so many people that were part of the story and seen and unseen ways. It's a huge network. And I think that's part of a qualitative research is for me, is that it's not just when I sit down and crunch data, but it's all of my experience that bears meaning to what I'm trying to make sense of at the time.Unknown Speaker  12:13  I love that response I've been involved in pulled into not unwillingly some grant writing, and to do grant writing, you need to tell people what you're going to do in advance. And it's difficult to for me to, to do that we're going to do this in advance, but also hold that space for the emergent methodology in the emergent design and make everyone or try to make everyone on the grant team comfortable with that idea that, that in a really good qualitative research project like yours, the methodology does emerge with the work as opposed to often the other way around. So beautiful example of it. Thank you.QR SIG AD  12:58  The qualitative research special interest group was established in 1987 to create a space within the American Educational Research Association. For the discussion of ethical, philosophical and methodological issues in qualitative research. We invite you to consider joining the qualitative research SIG today are members of a era, the annual fee for joining qualitative research special interest group for regular non graduate student members is $10. And the annual fee for graduate students is $5. As members of the QR SIG, you will gain access to a network of fellow qualitative scholars, as well as our many activities ranging from mentoring opportunities to our podcast series to update to news related to recent qualitative publications and jobs, please visit the American Educational Research Association website at www dot att era dotnet to join the qualitative research sake today.Unknown Speaker  13:52  I'm really curious about you have a strike through in your title that that caught my eye immediately. There are some words that aren't sticking through and then there are words that are stricken through and in particular, the words that are stricken through our natural resources, environmental education and place based learning. Can you talk about why strike through there and what what you wanted to communicate? And how other people have reacted to those strike? throughs?Unknown Speaker  14:22  Yeah, yeah. Um, so those terms on the in the field of environmental education, those are the most popular terms to describe anybody that is interested in the environment. And those are the names of the programs that are really popular related to that. So there's a familiarity of that. Oh, okay. So we're going to talk about these fields. And those all three of those terms have a colonialist and imperialist history to it, and it extractive history to it. So natural resources is extraction from the natural world where that the land is the source of goods and services. Environmental Education, writ large is connecting people to the land. And it was coined at a time where it felt really novel, to call it environmental education where environmental education had been happening for millennia, anybody who was living on the land was doing environmental education, and then place based education as, as a pedagogy. I had always had questions about what place whose place? How deep, are you going to ask those questions about history of place and connect and relationship to place. So I wanted to trouble all of that, to bring your eye to bring a reader's eye to those terms, and what those terms meant to them, and then putting a line right through them to say, you know, we're not, we're going to trouble this a lot. And I'm hoping to add hope to, you know, just pull the rug out from under some folks a little bit. But also demonstrate that we are going to go to some places where, you know, when you see something crossed out, it kind of gives you a little bit of a shock. And I find in my work that that little instability is actually that tension can actually be a really great site for learning if you're open to it. So that's the invitation.Unknown Speaker  16:39  I love it. I might have to connect with you after this podcast, absolutely. Questions and even some resources. So you're a fabulous source. So I'm just going to ask you about what inspired you to do the dissertation? And maybe that's still a valid question, or a good question to be asking, given everything you've shared so far, far, I'd also be interested in hearing beyond your career and your professional interest, if there's anything personal that really drove you to doing this dissertation.Unknown Speaker  17:21  Sure. Um, so I've actually been thinking, I don't know how far back we want to go. But I have been thinking it's I did, um, my graduate work a Master's of education at the University of Buffalo, in, in higher ed. And out coming out of that, I knew that I wanted to do a doctorate at some point. And, you know, of course, I'm the kind of person that just sort of follows my nose and flies by the seat of my pants. So back then back in the 90s, when I graduated, like, oh, international education, that sounded like a good doctorate, and then I hold on to that for a little bit, and then let that go. And so that the the wanting to study more and study more deeply had always been there, especially if you work in higher education, it's, it's in the water, in some ways, it's kind of an expectation. And after my master's degree, I'd worked at a couple of different institutions, or during my master's degree, I've worked at a couple of institutions. So one of them was Naropa Institute, now Naropa University. And it's the only Buddhist inspired institution in the country. And so imagine, my very first day on the job, I was in tea ceremony for six hours. So that's education. That's incredible. You can get a bachelor's degree in transcendental meditation and these disciplines that coming out of higher ed, I didn't know you could study these things. So that was one experience. And then, for four years after graduate work, I worked at the Savannah College of Art and Design. And while I can't claim to be an artist, the way that these students are artists, it really underscored for me how sharing knowledge can happen in so many different ways. And that getting lost in a medium. When students would tell me they were up for four days straight putting their exhibition together, that kind of experience. I envied, you know, to be so steeped in what you loved. Doing and doing it in an experiential way, not just reading and not just with your head, but with your entire body in many ways. I'm finding just the questions that you asked me Jen and finding that those are those are really profound influences on what I how I wanted to manage my my doctoral work. And then in 20,000, in 2010, when I finally had time to take some graduate work, I took a class with Dr. Corinne Gladney on qualitative research and data analysis. And poetry could be data, what? poetic transcription, drama, really all of these things, images, paintings could be data and analyzes data. So that really got me going. And things percolate for me. So all of these streams of artistic and arts based kind of methods and looking at data and graduate work is beyond just doing the scientific method data and collecting data, and then analyzing it and putting it into five chapters of a dissertation. I got the sense that I could do something much different. And so I did formally pursue the doctoral work and found people that were a bit left of conventional to talk with and, and also being situated in a school of Environment and Natural Resources, the nature connection, there are so many beautiful metaphors, and synchronicities, and, and learnings from that area of my work. It all kind of came together. So I think I might have lost the thread of what of your question, Jenny, but the journey, but there were multiple, multiple journeys, that because there's a time constraints on completing a dissertation, I needed to bring it all together, and brought it all together somehow, in questions about my own experience, in relationship with other people of color, relationship to land and sense of place. And I'm really grateful for the folks that pointed the way in terms of what qualitative research could be, and what I loved, I love the quotes from thin clendenen, that...if you're, if you're not asking more questions, after your research, you're doing it wrong. And that you fall in love with the people you are working with along the way and with the work. And I can sincerely say that this is this was a work of joy and love. It motivated me through the work. And it also compelled me to finish it in a way that honored and respected the contributions of my co researchers and everybody that was a part of, of this adventure. So all of that all of my experiences, all of the adventures and all the detours come up in this dissertation.Unknown Speaker  23:04  I love it. There's there's so much in higher education. That that encourages segmentation and encourages only bringing in a piece of yourself or a piece of your life or a particular storyline to your research. And for some people, that's fine, the segmentation works. What I like about you is that that there's a wholeness, even as you said, the story you're telling is partial or even the story you're telling has multiple lines, and there are multiple ways you could story are coming to the dissertation. There's a sense of fullness and wholeness. And you're bringing in so many experiences and so many values and so many emotions into the work and for you, it sounds like it wouldn't be satisfying. And we certainly picked up on that as a committee as we read it. Had you not done that. So I'm grateful for your work as an exemplar.Unknown Speaker  24:03  Thanks. And if I just add one thing, I just want to name that I had the privilege of doing this as part of it, it was it was a benefit to me as as a staff person at a university. So I mean, I do want to acknowledge that if it weren't for even some of the systemic privileges that I have in this space. I wouldn't I don't know that I would have been able to travel about and, and and move in circles with this. So I mean, there are tensions with that to that, you know, the creativity that that is part of this and the magnitude of of the connections might not have happened if I was compelled to complete it in five years because I needed to find a job afterward. So I think there are those other questions I have about just a system of doctoral work where you got to get it done and you and then you got to go on to the next thing. I think that's that can hamper some people.Unknown Speaker  25:05  No doubt. So following that, what advice or suggestions then would you share with graduate students who are writing a dissertation? like yours or otherwise?Unknown Speaker  25:20  Yeah. I was thinking about this question last night. And my head went immediately to Oh, bullet points and all of these things and you know, straight strategies and tips and people. And and then I remember that last summer, so june of 2020, I taught a course, to graduate students called epistemological plurality, or multiple ways of knowing. And, and I had 10, masters students masters in the leadership for sustainability at University of Vermont, and then 10 doctoral students from our college of education and social services. And because I was deep into writing my dissertation, I was all about relationality and authentic dissertation. And really, honoring that this body, our individual bodies are the site of knowledge and data and research as well. So I had no idea how I was going to conduct the class with 20 graduate students with Masters and PhD level students. But at the center of it was that each of them are crucial sites of knowledge and crucial sites of experience. So over the course of those six weeks, they were their primary teacher and learner in that experience, I, I shared my thoughts, I shared resources, I gave them prompting questions, but it was really up to them to engage their own learning, where there were no boundaries, there were there were expectations that they would engage with each other and engage with their work, but no particular deadlines to produce anything. And when you take off those, the if you when you offer that freedom, and to express their their exploration, and their their questions and learning in ways that showed up, like music, and drawing, and bookmaking and gardening, oh my gosh, the energy that comes out of that the synergies that come out of that. So my suggestion to graduate students would be to where you can find the the spaces that really strengthen your own internal muscles, engaging the work that you want to do. When you really honor that you do know what you need to do. And there are coaches along the way, but you you're driving the bus and find the Find the language that works best for you. If music is your language, find that if drawing is your language, find that poetry and images are my language. Those are the suggestions that I would make to graduate students. You know, a couple of the practical things. There's, you know, graduate writing centers, and other graduate students that can can inspire and also motivate if I didn't have our Graduate Writing Center as a space where I needed to really focus on my computer and write, I don't I think I might still be writing. So that dissertation, but um, but those are some of the things was there another part of the question about suggestions for reading was thatUnknown Speaker  29:11  Yeah, absolutely. I would be interested in for people who might be specifically interested in your focus area, your content area, as well as your methodological approach. What recommendations might you give to them for readings that really inspired you and your work?Unknown Speaker  29:31  Sure, um so you know, the default I'm looking at my my list of notes and the the people that I will name all have doctor in front of them. Before I get to that list of folks. There are there were there were so many people and and more than human folks that were resources for me. So you know, I want to acknowledge The land I want to acknowledge the, the elders indigenous and and others that graciously gave their time to me I want to I want to acknowledge the other other people that are devoted to these questions, but not in any educational or programmatic sense. And I am going to cite one article. And it's called how to cite like a badass tech feminist scholar of color. And the point of this is unsettling existing research practices by centering indigenous Asian and black feminist perspectives. And as resources I would encourage graduate students or anybody that wants to kind of go off trail for a little bit, is to look for the sources that have been historically erased or diminished. They're not going to show up in peer reviewed journals. They're not going to show up on the reading list of the majority of your professors. It requires a little bit more work and some deeper questions, but it makes the journey so much richer. So having said that, and I think the other programs that I look to look to are the masters of leadership for sustainability at UVM has a group of affiliates that span so many different disciplines and practices. They are inspiring and how they move in the world and ask these questions. Dr. Carolyn Finney, Gregory kahit de and Robin wall kimmerer. Lenny Strobel, who is a Filipino scholar in California and helped me connect to my own Filipino heritage. I mentioned Corinne Gladney, and Kelly Clark Keefe. And the books that I had on my desk all the time, where research is ceremony by Dr. Shawn Wilson decolonizing methodologies by Dr. Linda Smith, I see that on a lot of graduate student desks, and then the authentic dissertation by four arrows or Don Trent Jacobs, those really were inspiring. And it held me up when I thought that am I doing this right? Should I be doing this at all? Is anybody going to pay any attention? They really kept me on track.Unknown Speaker  32:39  Fabulous, I'm so glad this is being recorded. Otherwise, I'd be madly scribbling. So right now, I have many more videos. Oh, yeah. Well, you send them maybe we can attach them to the, to the podcast. So right now you are currently an assistant dean at the University of Vermont. Can you talk about your career path a little bit and your decision to get a PhD and maybe offer any tips to those who are seeking both academic and administrative careers in higher education?Marie  33:28  It's interesting, because I'm just thinking through what what my what my career path was, I shared a little bit about it. And I really, if I were to really encapsulate what my journey was, I just followed the the questions that I loved and the people that I loved. And that happened to land me in higher education. It happened to land me at places like Savannah College of Art and Design and the University of Vermont and, and the Rubenstein School of environment natural resources. I think the experiences that were most helpful it were learning how to get to know people, part of my graduate education at the University of Buffalo, which doesn't exist as a program anymore, is understanding higher ed administration. And there was also a component of that where we learned how to be counselors. And we understood or at least explored the psychology and different methods of understanding how people make meaning and move in the world. And I think for anybody that's pursuing a career career where you're working with people. And when you're working with minds, especially 18 to 27 year old, and I don't even want to bound that in a particular age group. being interested in people, and being interested in how people behave, and what's important to them individually and collectively, has been really important to me in my, in my work and in my career and how I interact with folks. So I think if I were to lay each of my jobs beside each other, that focus on people place in purpose has been the through line across all of those from the from the time that I was an admissions counselor as a graduate student on up now where I work with student services and advising and working with staff on how to staff development in terms of professional development and seeking strategies and opportunities to, to, to, to work better. In some ways, I feel like I want to open a bottle of wine and talk more collectively and in relationship with other people about what that what career means, what work means what it means to work in higher education. And I think higher education is changing so much now, that the path into higher education, I'm not quite sure the traditional ways are getting the degree and applying for the job and understanding the mechanics and the politics of higher education. But I think, and I'm going completely off script with what was my notes? I think, what, what the moment that we have right now is really asking ourselves, what is the value of learning? And is it learning at a university? Or is it learning in some other way that I can contribute to my community contribute to the challenges that face us, and those challenges are huge, their environmental, and their social, and from my perspective, people at the edges, people of marginalized identities are bearing the brunt of a lot of these changes right now. So I'm in this moment, I'm, I'm less interested in career in higher education, and more interested in a pursuit in life that actually will contribute to life and living. If that's how your education, that's great, if that's some other venue, go for it. And I think the possibilities, we are yet to be discovered.Unknown Speaker  37:52  I love that I'm going a little off script to I have the privilege and the honor to have met a doctoral student who I'm working with right now, who is a career current career counselor at a university and getting their doctoral degree. And they are very interested in the ways in which the university does or does not function as a compassionate or as a caring climate. And so, a lot of the things you're saying or resonating with me about it may not just be that learning can happen differently, or that higher education may not be the only path the most joyful path to learning. But that higher education in and of itself, needs to shift needs to make some shifts needs to do some deep reflection about the kinds of relationships that it currently makes possible. And the ones that it can and should and nurture and the ways in which that nurturing can happen.Unknown Speaker  39:01  Mm hmm. Yes. So and you know, that I, I talked with students about internal locus of control, that's a student affairs can kind of term and in heartwood is that the metaphor that I use where the the heartwood is the thing that actually keeps a tree, upright and upright doesn't necessarily mean stuck straight, but at least having that foundation within oneself that you know, that when you bend in the wind or in certain forces, that you're going to come back up in some measure. And I, you know, I'll say, you know, to kind of bring it full circle is the, when it was clear to me that qualitative research could provide the flexibility and the grounding and the integrity that I needed to ask the questions and make the Explorations that I wanted to It also demonstrated to me that if there are a number of us within the system of higher education, exploring these lines of thought, and conducting methodologies that are within integrity and relationship, that we might actually shift to the experience of higher education for a lot of people, whether we're explicit about it or not, exactly, you know, whether we're, yes, I like to use the word subversion, subvert the status quo and subvert the systems that aren't serving. Well. So nice.Unknown Speaker  40:38  Well the last thing I think people listening to this podcast would be really interested to hear is, what do you what are you engaging and thinking with now? What is your work look like now? And how can people get access to it?Marie  40:55  It's, I'm laughing, because when I was writing my dissertation, the last, you know, few years, I'd say, Well, I can't do that. Because I'm doing this dissertation. Like, I'll get to that after I'm done. And everybody was sort of, Okay, well, let's make sure Marie has time and space to do this. And then when I was done, like, okay, now that you finished, can you do this, this, this and this, and all things that I was really excited about. But ironically, I, I'm feeling like, Oh, where did all of my time go that I said, I would have after I finished writing. But so what I'm doing is them. Because the dissertation, the work of that I'm still in relationship with all of those core researchers, we keep in touch. And that work is so foundational integral and consistent with what I do at University of Vermont. Right now, in real time, where I'm working with the Rubenstein school, in asking questions about how to be a more inclusive place. How to look at the curriculum and make changes to the curriculum, how do we change processes for undergrad and graduate students so that they do feel more supported as they pursue their degrees. So there's that work and doing similar work with organizations that are environmentally related, like fish and wildlife, and our Vermont agency of natural resources. So there's that I'm getting more involved with the Masters for leadership and sustainability here at UVM, that I mentioned earlier. And that's a really liberatory radical, love centered graduate program. So anybody listening, please look at that. And you'll see a lot of what I'm talking about here. Talking with the CO researchers, because qualitative research, I think, in its best, in the best of times, has ripple effects, so that the CO researchers have taken the experience that we had a couple of years ago, and are finding themselves talking about it or learning from it even now, in their different contexts. So I'm curious about those ripple effects of that work. So I'm gonna convene those co researchers over tea and find out what's up with their lives. Leadership practices, and really interested in leadership practices, and facilitation, facilitating, learning and working spaces that are decolonizing, anti racist,and joyful. And then the last thing I'll say that it is immediate. I've been involved with three organizations over the last few years that I'd really love to spend more time with. And I attend an elders gathering each year, where elders from across the globe, talk about their wisdom, share their wisdom, so I'll be doing that this weekend. There's a center for Bobby lon studies based in California that is about Filipino indigenous spirituality. So I'll be spending more time with that. And people of the global majority in the outdoors Environment and Natural Resources is also a national organization that I'd like to spend more time getting to know. And then on the lighter side of things, playing on the water, tending to my garden, picking lots of berries, because it's that time of year. So and having wonderful conversations, I hope with with you, Jenny, again, and with anyone else who's listening to this podcast, I don't have a website. I need to create one. But please feel free anyone to reach out to me. I'm happy to share my dissertation and thoughts. I have conducted a few workshops and, and video videos that you can find on YouTube that I haven't consolidated into one place. But happy to share that too if you reach out to me, and then reaching out to me that isn't in integrity with building relationships. So I love to talk with people that are interested with this.Unknown Speaker  45:23  Fabulous Do you if someone were interested in reaching out to you, how would they do that? Marie  45:29  Yes, so you can email me at marie.vea@uvm.eduJenny  45:38  Thank you so much for your time today, Maria. It's been a joy and a pleasure. And I strongly encourage all of our listeners to engage your work because it was certainly transformative for me, as I am sure it will be for many others. Marie  45:59  Thank you so much, Jenny and I sincerely hope we'll talk again soon.

City Lights celebrates the final book by the late Beat Generation legend Michael McClure. Anne Waldman, Eileen Myles, and Garrett Caples read from and discuss the work of the late poet in this book launch for "Mule Kick Blues: And Last Poems" published by City Lights. This event was originally broadcast live via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis. Anne Waldman co-founded the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado, where she still teaches. Her poetry collections include Iovis I, Iovis II, Fast Speaking Woman, Helping the Dreamer, Kill or Cure, and Trickster Feminism. She is a recipient of the Shelley Memorial Award. Eileen Myles is an acclaimed poet and writer who has published over twenty works of fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and libretto. Their prizes and awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Warhol/Creative Capital grant, an award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a poetry award from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. Garrett Caples is a poet and freelance writer who lives in San Francisco and is an editor for City Lights, where he curates the Spotlight Poetry Series. He is the author of three full-length poetry collections and a book of essays. He is the co-editor of The Collected Poems of Philip Lamantia (California, 2013), Particulars of Place (Omnidawn, 2015) by Richard O. Moore, Incidents of Travel in Poetry: New and Selected Poems by Frank Lima (City Lights, 2016), and Arcana: A Stephen Jonas Reader (City Lights, 2019) He has a Ph.D. in English from UC Berkeley. Sponsored by the City Lights Foundation.

Opening at the Strand Bookstore, in New York City, Una realizes how popular Trungpa Rinpoche continues to be. It gives her the impetus to tell her story. Traveling back to age two, when her memories in this life begin, Una and her mother visit her father in Puerto Rico, travel to New York, and end up in California, living in a 1955 Chevy. Una's mother finds Trungpa Rinpoche again and the two end up at Padma Jong, one of his new dharma centers in Mendocino County. When Trungpa Rinpoche forms Naropa Institute, Una and her mother travel to Boulder, Colorado for the first time, to sit at his feet and hear what he has to say.

Episode #008After graduating high school Oley Smith enrolled at Educating Hands School of Massage in Miami Florida where he began his love affair with the structure and function of the human body. He found that the study of the microsystem of the body was a vehicle for understanding the macrosystem of the universe, and upon completion of his massage therapy training he set out to learn more.He studied the history of art and culture of Western civilization at the Florida State International University in Florence, Italy, traditional Eastern arts at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado, modern society at the New School for Social Research in New York City, and biological science at Southern Oregon University in Ashland, Oregon in order to better understand the human condition before finally enrolling at the Oregon College of Oriental Medicine in Portland, Oregon.Oley had the opportunity to practice in several different fields during his clinical internship. He was able to work alongside western medical doctors at the Richmond Center for Family Medicine, treat addiction, detoxification, and withdrawal at the Washington County Correctional Facility, and assist the elderly at the Hollywood Senior Center.In 2005 he graduated from the Oregon College of Oriental Medicine with a Master's degree in Chinese Medicine and is a NCCAOM certified Diplomate of Oriental Medicine with a focus in Chinese Herbology and Acupuncture. After graduation from OCOM, Oley had the opportunity to travel to Nanjing, China and participate in a clinical internship at the Nanjing International University of Traditional Chinese Medicine where he was able to work in a Chinese hospital alongside the famous doctor “Flying Needle” Wang Ning Sheng. During this time in China Oley became certified by the World Health Organization in the field of Traditional Chinese Medicine.Oley has continued his study of Chinese Medicine within the Classical lineage of the Jade Purity School of Chinese Medicine and the Liu family lineage of Qi Gong. During his study within the Liu Family lineage of Qi Gong Oley has been certified to teach several forms of Qi Gong and offers several Weekend Qi Gong Intensives throughout the year.Reach Oley at: www.OpenHeartAcupuncture.comEmail: openheartacupuncture@gmail.comSupport the show (https://paypal.me/EpicPodcast?locale.x=en_US)

Episode #009After graduating high school Oley Smith enrolled at Educating Hands School of Massage in Miami Florida where he began his love affair with the structure and function of the human body. He found that the study of the microsystem of the body was a vehicle for understanding the macrosystem of the universe, and upon completion of his massage therapy training he set out to learn more.He studied the history of art and culture of Western civilization at the Florida State International University in Florence, Italy, traditional Eastern arts at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado, modern society at the New School for Social Research in New York City, and biological science at Southern Oregon University in Ashland, Oregon in order to better understand the human condition before finally enrolling at the Oregon College of Oriental Medicine in Portland, Oregon.Oley had the opportunity to practice in several different fields during his clinical internship. He was able to work alongside western medical doctors at the Richmond Center for Family Medicine, treat addiction, detoxification, and withdrawal at the Washington County Correctional Facility, and assist the elderly at the Hollywood Senior Center.In 2005 he graduated from the Oregon College of Oriental Medicine with a Master's degree in Chinese Medicine and is a NCCAOM certified Diplomate of Oriental Medicine with a focus in Chinese Herbology and Acupuncture. After graduation from OCOM, Oley had the opportunity to travel to Nanjing, China and participate in a clinical internship at the Nanjing International University of Traditional Chinese Medicine where he was able to work in a Chinese hospital alongside the famous doctor “Flying Needle” Wang Ning Sheng. During this time in China Oley became certified by the World Health Organization in the field of Traditional Chinese Medicine.Oley has continued his study of Chinese Medicine within the Classical lineage of the Jade Purity School of Chinese Medicine and the Liu family lineage of Qi Gong. During his study within the Liu Family lineage of Qi Gong Oley has been certified to teach several forms of Qi Gong and offers several Weekend Qi Gong Intensives throughout the year.Reach Oley at: www.OpenHeartAcupuncture.comEmail: openheartacupuncture@gmail.comYou can also listen on your favorite podcast directory. We are listed on:Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher & more.Support the show (https://paypal.me/EpicPodcast?locale.x=en_US)

Gail is a powerful, inspirational, and entertaining speaker, author, performer, and facilitator who is totally blind. Independence, strength, and resiliency are words that describe Gail. Her unstoppable soaring spirit has led Gail to sing the leading roles in “La Boheme” and “La Traviata” in graduate school, build her own Habitat for Humanity home, crown Ms. Colorado Senior America 2013, win fourth runner-up in the national Ms. Senior America Pageant, and publish her memoir “Soaring into Greatness: a Blind Woman’s Vision to Live her Dreams and Fly.”Since the pandemic, Gail has spoken to virtual audiences in Florida, Pennsylvania, Canada, Colorado, California, Washington, and Melbourne, Australia. Her blogs cover everything from “How to get over a funk” to “Do you see what I see” (found on social media, YouTube, and her website) has electrified audiences to live Unstoppable, Unforgettable, and Unbelievable lives.Before the pandemic, Gail has spoken to a wide variety of audiences, including faculty, students, and parents at the Florida School for the Deaf and blind in Florida; the Colorado and North Dakota Lions State Conventions; the Indiana School for the Blind and Visually Impaired’s Senior Awards dinner; the National Ms. Senior America Pageant in New Jersey; and the No Barriers Symposium for people with disabilities in California; among others.Gail has a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Music--William Woods University; a Master of Music Degree in Vocal Performance--Pittsburg State University; and a Master of Arts Degree in Transpersonal Counseling and Psychology--the Naropa Institute. She is certified as a Reiki Master and a Gestalt and EMDR psychotherapist.Gail has experienced firsthand what it is like to Cope with and overcome a disability walkthrough societal, personal, and career discriminations and how to endure mental and physical atrocities. Gail’s blindness enables her to see with her inner vision, providing a unique and transforming perspective. Gail’s heart desires that her presentations--humorous and musical--will provide hope to others, let them know they aren’t alone, and encourage everyone to persevere. Gail has learned that we must choose to align ourselves with our passions, focus our mind’s attitude on positivity, and take action allowing us to harness our adversities and break through our barriers, creating a life of greatness.(720) 984-8082. Email: gail@SoaringIntoGreatness.com  Discover Morehttps://soaringintogreatness.com/https://www.facebook.com/gail.hamilton.9231https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2ETmkavYKd75Gz9NKBgPhwSupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/The_Josh_Bolton_Show)

Warning: Explicit Conversations About Politics, Culture, & Sexuality Was it a COVID-19 vaccine side effect? Or did he throw his back out—and where could he have thrown it? We don't know, but for the past few days, we tried to heal Capt'n Max's excruciating pain via an array of “pain-killers”—from easy yet debilitating opioids to the controversial but healthier healing power of sexual pleasure. Feeling the pain? Just say YES to some kind of (COVID-safe and consensual) sex! And yes, thank Goddess, Max is feeling much better now. Praise be to the power and glory of pleasure healing. Amen and AWOMEN. It does a body good. We have done many shows about the combination of consensual pain and pleasure that is often involved in spanking, as well as other forms of impact play and BDSM. This show focuses more on unwelcome pain (from injury, sickness or a bad reaction to a vaccine) and how to treat it with sexual pleasure healing. Take the Pain Train to Track Pleasure on the F.D.R. Speakeasy streamliner, where we dine on an array of tasty topics, as well as Gideon's homemade hamantaschen, aka “Pussy Cookies,” a delicious appetizer for our after-show throwback, Purim Rising 2013 (in solidarity with Eve Ensler's One Billion Rising), a dazzling, pornstar-studded, orgiastic masquerade that suddenly spiraled into violence unseen before or after in Bonoboville (except that illegal LAPD raid). Fortunately—before anyone could be killed or hurt badly—we defused the conflict in a Bonobo Way. Why oh why can't America follow the Bonobo Way of peace through pleasure, we wonder as we condemn the recent Biden Bombings. We also laugh (more in fear than fun) at CPAC (now CPAQ) and the Cult of the Golden tRump Love Doll, being worshipped like an idol by a crazy convocation of hypocritical Bible-thumpers. I acknowledge my “ableist” infraction against the “crazy community” in calling the CPAQanon'ers “crazy,” but I can't think of a better adjective (besides sleazy) for these Gross Oligarchy P*mps (GOP). We hammer the final coffin nails into “Mean Old Uncle Rush,” now being *showered* with commentary, including a tweet from one of MY idols, Ellen Barkin. And did I mention sex? When a listener asks about polyamory, we praise this growing movement of natural bonoboësque love. Unfortunately, polyamorous opportunities are limited in the Coronapocalypse, but all is possible in the Erotic Theater of the Mind. Also: What's the critical difference between so-called “cancel culture” and censorship, and what's it got to do with “The People,” aka “the Mob” versus Big Tech, CEOs, celebrities and politicians, aka “Da Rich”? Listen… Speaking of pain, we send well wishes to “Most Bonobo Celebrity” SUZY award winner, Ashley Judd, whose terrible fall and rescue is a tale of pain, healing and gratitude. As our Pain Train pulls into the Pleasure Station, I share one last true story of false love, real lust, pain, pleasure and comedy with “Johnny Peyote Seed” at Naropa Institute. The moral of the story is: if your boyfriend pulls you down the stairs by your hair (ouch!)— no matter how *romantic* he is and even if you were cheating on him with your Tantric yoga teacher—get OUT! Read more and check out the hot pix and videos: https://drsusanblock.com/fdr-pain Need to talk PRIVATELY about something you can't talk about with anyone else? You can talk with us… Call the Therapists Without Borders of the Dr. Susan Block Institute anytime: 213.291.9497. For more information, visit https://drsusanblockinstitute.com/phone-sex-therapy  We're here for YOU.

Fredric Lehrman is the founder of Nomad University and an accomplished musician. Fredric is also the authors of several books from which I'll mention one, The Sacred Landscape.Fredric Lehrman is the founder of Nomad University and an accomplished musician. He plays the cello and the guitar. He also studied Japanese music with Koto master Shinichi Yuize, and also raga singing with the great North Indian vocalist, Pandit Pran Nath. For nine years he was a senior student of the T'ai Chi master Cheng Man-Ch'ing, and founded several permanent schools of T'ai Chi Chuan in major U.S. cities, including a special T'ai Chi program at Naropa Institute. Fredric has designed programs and taught jointly with many leading thinkers, among whom are Marilyn Ferguson, Jose Arguelles, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Barbara DeAngelis, Peter Russell, Rupert Sheldrake, Terence McKenna and Lynne Twist. Fredric is also the authors of several books from which I'll mention one, The Sacred Landscape. http://www.nomaduniversity.com/Resources:www.ClaudiuMurgan.comhttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6RlLkzUK_LdyRSV7DE6obQ?view_as=subscriber

Where does creativity live in the brain, and why does it matter? We talk to Rex Jung, a clinical professor of neurosurgery at the University of New Mexico, a research scientist at the Mind Research Network, and a practicing clinical neuropsychologist in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Jung talks about how standard measurements of creativity correlate with the structure of the brain, and how the brain can “rewire” itself to take on challenging or unfamiliar tasks. This is especially important in our early years, but still effective as we grow older. TRANSCRIPT: Intro: 0:02 Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade the podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida, the museum is named after James Robert Cade, who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them, we’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace. Richard Miles: 0:40 Where does creativity live in the brain and why does it matter? Welcome to Radio Cade. I’m your host Richard Miles today, I’m talking to Rex Jung, a clinical professor of neurosurgery at the University of New Mexico, a research scientist at the Mind Research Network and a practicing clinical neuropsychologist in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Dr. Jung studies, both brain disease and what the brain does well, a field of research known as positive neuroscience. Welcome to Radio Cade , Rex . Rex Jung: 1:09 Thanks for having me. Richard Miles: 1:10 So you have done a lot of fascinating research and a lot of very interesting areas, including traumatic brain injury, lupus, schizophrenia, intelligence, and creativity. So Rex, we can either make this the first of 18 episodes on your work, or we can pick one. So I say, let’s talk about creativity if that’s okay with you. Rex Jung: 1:27 Sounds good. Richard Miles: 1:29 So I took a look at some of your recent research on creativity. And one thing that jumped out to me as a layman, I don’t have any special expertise in the background was your use of tests to determine baseline levels of creativity. I noticed that you mentioned something called the creative achievement questionnaire, and you also use something called a musical creativity questionnaire. So we can start with what your working definition of creativity is, which I assume these things measure these tests measure, and then tell us, how were those tests developed? How do you know they’re accurate? And then how do they differ from other tests that have been around for instance, to test on divergent thinking? Rex Jung: 2:07 So at the onset, I should say that as a neuropsychologist, I’m very keenly aware of test reliability and validity. And the tests in creative cognition are universally somewhat crappy. That’s not a technical term, but it is a term that kind of captures the fact that we’ve only been trying to capture this construct in the last 50, 70 years, and only really aggressively trying to study this in the last 10 or 15. So we inherited measures that came to us from the past and the creative achievement questionnaire, as you mentioned, first is perhaps one of the better of these that it just measures your achievements in 10 different domains. It was a test created by Dr. Carson at Harvard, I believe and it really quantifies or attempts to quantify creative cognition across things from most generally in the sciences and the arts more specifically in things like inventions versus culinary arts. So it really quantifies things across those domains to answer a different part of your question. The definition is not one of mine of creativity, but one inherited from Dr. Stein in the 1950s who defined creativity as the production of something novel and useful. And that dichotomy is really interesting looking at novelty on the one hand utility on the other. And there arises from that brain mechanisms that could tap novelty versus utility. And finally you’re mentioned of divergent thinking is one of the measures of novelty generation that has been used since the 1950s. And that is okay, but not the only measure I’m hopeful as we move forward in this field, that we can develop better metrics and measures of creative cognition. Richard Miles: 4:06 Well, that helps a lot Rex and creativity on one hand, it’s very popular in that people like to talk about creativity in terms of musicians and artists and what makes them tick. But it seems like there are also a lot of fairly common misconceptions about how creativity actually works in the brain like, Oh, well, creative people, they’re using their right brain and it’s uncreative people using their left brain and that sort of stuff. How definitively does the research show that those conceptions misconceptions are either serious or inaccurate or flat out wrong? The way it works in the brain for most people sort of a black box, right? They just think something happens in there . Some of us are creative, some are not. What does the research show in terms of how it actually is working neurologically? Rex Jung: 4:49 I’ll correct a misconception that just arose in your description of that. Some of us are creative and some of us are not. I think, in my research and did my hypothesizing about creativity. It is clear to me and research our research and other research supports this, that creativity is a type of problem solving. And so everyone has to have that at some level. It’s either more or less of it. And if creativity is a type of problem solving for very low incident problems, it is valuable in the fact that we are able to think outside the box and come up with something novel and useful, that would address problem. That is less prevalent in our day-to-day life. I like to think about creativity as being somewhat dichotomous, but overlapping with a construct of intelligence where it’s also a type of problem solving, but it’s problem solving for things that happen on a more regular basis, as opposed to once in a hundred years with a hundred year flood, for example, what am I going to do? My house is going to be underwater. I need to figure out something really novel and useful to get out of this particular. So there are a number of what we call neuro mythologies about creativity. And you mentioned one of them that creativity resides in the right brain or right hemisphere. This arises from work with neurosurgeon theory, I believe, and a neuroscientist who looked at patients that had epilepsy and they separate the corpus callosum, which is the central connecting structures between the left and right hemisphere. And they discovered that the left and right brains function somewhat differently. The left is more logical and linear and reading and math tend to be localized in that have a hemisphere. And then the right hemisphere is more synthetic and adaptive and some artistic capabilities might reside more over there. So that is where this neural mythology of left brain right brain or right brain locus of creativity emerged from our research has found that, and others have found that it takes nearly your whole brain to be effectively creative. And it doesn’t reside in one hemisphere or one lobe of the brain, but it’s an integration of different parts of the brain that are critical to creative success. Another myth is that you have to be extremely intelligent to be creative. A genius, Einstein and Newton, Picasso, and Michael Jordan are particular examples of genius in their particular domains. But as I tried to dispel the myth that you somewhat articulated earlier, everyone has creative capacity. It’s, it’s a matter of more or less than how you use it, what domain you use it, but creativity in my conceptualization is a critical problem solving capacity. Another myth is that you have to be kind of crazy to be creative, that there has to be some sort of neuro pathology in order to express creativity. And , and we have every number of examples of the mad genius from Vincent van Gogh to John Nash, who won the Nobel prize in economics. The movie A Beautiful Mind was formed after there is an equal number and greater number of the averse that no hint of neuropathology is associated with the creativity of Michelangelo or Edison. So these neuro myths prevail because we continue to view creativity as somehow elusive and a capacity that is given to us from the gods when actually it is a critical component of everyday thinking. Richard Miles: 8:26 So a lot of progress has been made generally in the field of neuroscience, particularly since the development of the functional MRI. What in particular strikes you say from the last couple of years in the field of creativity in neuroscience, that you’re excited about, that points to deeper or higher levels of understanding of how creativity operates in the brain, this sort of stuff that hasn’t made it yet into the popularized science articles. Rex Jung: 8:49 I’m most excited, perhaps about this studies of interplay between intelligence and creativity. There have been issues in neuro-psychology and one coming out in the journal of intelligence, which explore the interplay or overlap between intelligence and creativity, because my hypothesis is centered around these both being problem solving capacities. It’s important to understand where there’s overlap and where there is different . So I’m most excited about neuropsychological and neuroimaging studies, which look at brain networks that underlie intelligent problem solving as opposed to, or in addition to brain networks that are involved in creative problem solving. And I think that will really give us some insight into whether these problem solving capacities are rather similar. If one is hierarchically located above the other, like intelligence is very important and creativity comes from intelligence, or if they’re rather disparate or different from each other. I think that is exciting research. Richard Miles: 9:52 I’m guessing that a lot of people are looking at research or your type of research that you’re doing and seeing, does this have useful implication for, for instance, educators in particular at the preschool and primary school levels, or what are your preliminary conclusions or findings in terms of, are there ways that kids learn that perhaps should be changed with an eye towards enhancing their ability to learn more creatively or be more creative? Rex Jung: 10:17 I do have some preliminary ideas about this. It is very hard to translate neuroscientific research to actual life, but I think that there are some preliminary indications that there are things that we might consider doing differently. One thing that I usually recommend is adequate time for downtime that lets your brain meander or cogitate or think about ideas in a very non-linear way. And so the best example I have for this is for my own life where I think one of the most valuable classes for me in elementary school was recess. And so recess, what is it just play or is there something else going on? And I think there’s something very important going on where people are taking the knowledge that they’ve learned in the classroom in their life and being more playful with it and more nonlinear with it. And so that downtime, I think is incredibly important. I know caring stories from the students and teachers, our pre COVID educational paradigm was centered around a lot of homework and a lot of knowledge acquisition, which is an important aspect of creativity and intelligence and learning, but not the only one. There has to be time to put ideas together in novel and useful ways that requires a different approach and requires a more relaxed approach than is provided by just drilling towards knowledge, acquisition and testing. Richard Miles: 11:52 So may be an example of actually where popular consumption gets it , right. When you think about these stories of the Eureka, you know, Archimedes in the bathtub where after a period of relaxation, or like you said, the mind wandering and meandering, they hit upon, or the circuits come together and they have this insight, but obviously based on knowledge, they already possessed, right? Most of the people have these insights are happen to be experts in the field. Rex Jung: 12:13 Yeah, you have to have some thing in your brain to put together in a novel and useful way. So there is a knowledge acquisition part that is critically important to gather the raw materials necessary to be creative. But then Archimedes is perhaps the best example of sitting in the bathtub and figuring out how you would measure the amount of gold and a crown and water dispersion and Eureka. I have it where you have figured out a way to measure something in a very non-intuitive way. And so that downtime, and oftentimes people describe this arising from taking a bath or a long walk or run or doing something that is very non-cognitive where ideas are jumbling around and merging in unique ways and even sleep where they can come up with an idea that otherwise would have been elusive. Richard Miles: 13:02 So one problem I face is that my wife has all of her creative ideas, right I’m about to go to sleep. And she wants to tell me about them. And then we’ve learned how to solve that problem. I say, no, tell me in the morning, because I can’t deal with your creative idea right now. Rex Jung: 13:15 It’s interesting because she is telling you those ideas right before she falls asleep. When her mind is in a very relaxed state, when the day’s tasks are behind her, frankly, a perfect time to explore those. But perhaps she should explore those on her own because there’s no one size fits all. Richard Miles: 13:35 Yeah. The unfair thing is she can tell me the idea and fall asleep and I solved the problem in my head and I can’t fall asleep. Rex Jung: 13:40 Yeah. You’ll take up that idea and really start working it and then not be able to go to sleep. So, and that’s an important thing to consider too, is that there are different creative styles and some people really want to offload if you will, those creative ideas before she falls asleep, but then other people really want to work them and form them and look at them from different angles. And that’s a creative process too, is to really be deliberative about that creative process. And there’s a major theories that talk about spontaneous versus more deliberate creativity. And it sounds like you and your wife are matched well and that you have complimentary styles, but she should perhaps write those down and then you can start working on them in the morning. Richard Miles: 14:26 Well , I was going to say that most of my creative thoughts used to happen when I’d go running and an idea would pop in my head, but it just occurred to me that for the last year or so, I listened to podcasts instead while I run and I actually don’t have as many creative ideas. Right. Cause my mind is distracted listening to the story or two people talk. Rex Jung: 14:42 It’s working on information. Yeah. And on your internal process. Richard Miles: 14:47 So Rex , one thing I think you can probably say about Americans in general is that there’s this tremendous thirst for anything related to self-improvement and self-health so in the realm of creativity, sometimes h ere versions of this, particularly people my age mid to late fifties, I know you can rewire your brain. You can teach yourself new things, you stave off dementia and so on. And again, I’m not asking you to speculate too much, but is there anything in your findings that provide ammunition for those who say, Hey, we can all rewire our brains, become Picasso, or is it more i n the direction of, sorry about a year or two old and s et i n your age. So just keep playing golf and watching reruns. Is there any way for those later in life, let’s say m iddle-aged and beyond, do they still have a significant ability to increase their level of creativity? Rex Jung: 15:32 Yeah. So I think neither of those things are true in their extreme. You can neither massively rewire your brain to be something that it has not developed to be over decades, nor is it hopeless on the other side of the spectrum. But I think some middle ground is probably appropriate. I mean, we know that the brain is incredibly plastic when we are infants and learning things and acquiring new information and forming neural networks that underlie language, visual process as motor processing that decreases over the lifespan and it decreases in known way is the capacity to change your brain by changing your mind. And while you can modulate your brain function through concerted effort, that becomes harder over time. So if you are making a decision to make a major change in your life in your fifties and you and I sound like we’re the same age, although you’re quite a bit less gray than I, I would say it’s going to take a bit more effort and a concerted effort to do that. And that while the fantasy or hype about neuro-plasticity would imply that we can completely change our brain by doing this different thing. That’s probably more a factor of one to 3% change in terms of cognitive capacity. So I would encourage people at any age. And I think as our brains change in our fifties and up there is more of an opportunity to make more disparate connections than we would when we were younger. And we had many more tasks in front of us. You were talking about listening to podcasts on your runs and yeah, that changes your run from a free-wheeling kind of associative process to a knowledge acquisition process. And it’s going to be significantly harder to do that creative thing when you are consuming the creative product of other people and learning. So it’s important to do both learning and creative expression simultaneously, but that has to be balanced. And in older people like you and me , I think that’s really critical to set aside time to do nothing or do less or not acquire knowledge anymore . But extrapolate that be my best advice. Richard Miles: 17:50 I’ve read a couple of good articles in the popular press . I’m sure you’ve probably seen them too. Hypothesizing the connection between boredom and creativity and particularly in young kids, right? When your bored is where you think of perhaps a fantasy game, or you tell a story to yourself or make up a story because you just want occupy your mind. But if your mind is occupied, as you said, with a TV show or a video game or whatnot, you’re probably less likely to find the need to create something in your own head . Rex Jung: 18:16 Yeah. Boredom is kind of the bane of our modern existence. People talk about it as a bad thing, but it actually is an important aspect of our lives that force us, or invite us to use our brains in ways that can transcend our current experience. We can imagine. I mean, I can go anywhere in my mind’s eye from countries that I visited in the past to traveling to different planets in the galaxy. I can imagine just about anything and boredom invites us to use our imaginative ability to create different realities and create different ideas that might not have existed before. Richard Miles: 18:57 So I guess I have to be careful how far I take this example because then of course people go, well, I’m not gonna listen to your podcast because then you’re going to distract me from thinking great thoughts . So we’ve got to keep this within reason. Rex Jung: 19:08 Well, it’s a both thing. Like I said, I listened to the podcast to acquire knowledge, but then find some recess time to do your own thing and to put those ideas that you’ve acquired together in novel and useful ways. And I think that is the correct balance as far as the literature would suggest. Richard Miles: 19:25 So Rex, I like to ask all my guests a little bit about themselves and their background. And you’re originally from Boulder, Colorado, your mother was a technical writer. Your dad was a hospital administrator. So first question, what was it like to grow up in Boulder? I’ve only been once or maybe twice. And what was your first clue that you’d be spending your career studying the brain? Rex Jung: 19:43 Well, that’s a big question, but I loved growing up in Boulder. Boulder was a fantastic rich environment of very diverse kind of experiences from Buddhism and the Naropa Institute high-tech centers of engineering and NCAR is their National Center for Atmospheric Research. I mean just a real smorgasbord, if you will, of opportunities to see different ways that one might want to spend one’s intellectual life. Unfortunately, I chose as my undergraduate degree. Well , I don’t know if it’s unfortunate. It’s hard to say I’d studied finance business and got a degree and went into the business world and was not super happy about the intellectual opportunities for me in the world that I had chosen. So I quit that job started volunteering for Special Olympics with friends of mine, and really became interested in bringing structure and function in brains that work well and brains that work differently and really started to pursue the path of, well , you know, what’s going on in these brains and what is happening to create an individual who is intellectually disabled, but has incredible artistic capabilities. And I’m not talking about the art that your children produce that you put up on the refrigerator, but Alonzo Clemons, who is an autistic savant, creating just massively, technically detailed representations of animals that will sell for thousands and thousands of dollars. These brains are fascinating in their variability. And I wanted to go into studies and a career that looked at that. And that’s kind of what brought me here all these many years later, Richard Miles: 21:29 Growing up in Colorado, where you outdoorsy, were you a ski bum? Did you do a lot of hiking or how has that sort of influenced you? Rex Jung: 21:35 I wasn’t in anything bum, but I really enjoy camping and going out on my own and camping on the continental divide in Colorado and did a lot of that. So a lot of time to think I would bring, I have this somewhat embarrassing book , uh , memory of bringing Dante’s Inferno to read while I was camping on the continental divide. And then this lightning storm almost killed me and I thought I was going to go straight to hell. So , uh , I mean really a lot of time to be by myself, to look at the stars to revel in natural beauty of Colorado. I skied, I hiked, I ran , I did all of the things, but I wasn’t a bum of any of those. I wasn’t an expert in really any of those, but I just really loved growing up in Colorado and a very fun memories. Now that I’ve brought to New Mexico, a lot of natural beauty here, fewer people, I’m an outdoors guy, I guess, at my root . Richard Miles: 22:31 Yeah. One thing we always tell foreign friends for visitors, you really have not experienced the United States unless you’ve had a chance to drive out West long distances for long periods of time. And then you really appreciate the profound nature of our country in terms of physical beauty and so on. Rex Jung: 22:46 I totally agree. And most people who visit us from foreign countries spend time in LA or New York, or maybe Florida at Disney World, but there’s a vast opportunity to explore something on a more meandering route through the middle parts of the country. And the West is certainly got a big place in my heart. Richard Miles: 23:04 So Rex final question that will allow you to be a little bit philosophical here, a lot philosophical if you’d like, but being a pioneer researcher sounds really cool to most people, but by definition people in your field or people like you are studying things that haven’t been studied very much and reaching conclusions that may seriously undermine conventional wisdom. So you’re at the age, as you said, where you start getting asked for advice by younger researchers or students or so on, and who may be in the process of picking a career or picking a field, what do you say about that subject or that potential obstacle? That there are a lot of fields now, which they’re going to probably encounter particularly research fields and kind of resistance or criticism of some sort. How do you prepare them for that? That it’s not just all pulling down awards and citations and accolades. Some of it can be serious resistance or criticism. Rex Jung: 23:53 It’s a very good point. And I can’t say that my journey has been peaches and cream throughout the way. I mean, I was told by my graduate advisor, I was studying intelligence at the time that that would destroy my career. I should stop that immediately and pick something more conventional. Otherwise I would not be a successful researcher. I’m glad I didn’t take that advice. It’s good advice. There’s two paths that I’ve seen in being a successful researcher. One is a very deliberate and somewhat obsessive path of just hammering out the details of a concept that has been discovered previously. This is called normal science. And I think a lot of good work comes out of that. And it depends on your personality style. If you’re a very conscientious and somewhat agreeable person, you will do very well in writing grant. After grant, after grant, that gets rejected until the one gets accepted and you can do very good work in that area, but you have to be extremely conscientious and extremely agreeable because it is a field that rewards conformity. There’s another path. And I think it’s the path that I’ve chosen. I may be deluding myself, but it is a path where you really identify what you feel passionate about and what you feel excited about studying. And these are more paradigm shifting ideas or revolutionary ideas from the Thomas Kuhn nomenclature. And it can be very rewarding, but it’s a less successful path. You will always have to fight against opposition and granting and funding agencies that are not willing to take risks. But if you have excitement and passionate about your work and less conscientiousness and agreeable is frankly, you can succeed. And I think I’ve had some measure of success in my career that has been rather unconventional. You should always have in your back pocket studying something conventionally . And you talked about my studies in traumatic brain injury and lupus and schizophrenia, but there should be some passionate involvement with these issues that allow you to go back and forth between your true passion and something that keeps you funded. So I think those are the two major paths for researchers. Neither of them are right or wrong. Both of them involve incredible amounts of work, but one involves something that you really get excited to wake up every day and do. And the other involves being extremely persistent over long periods of time. Richard Miles: 26:29 So your secret is to be unpleasant and annoying. Rex Jung: 26:34 I’m sticking with that. Your words, not mine. Richard Miles: 26:37 I’m sorry. I , I, that was a cheap shot. No, I was going to say Rex. So the way you described it, we interview a lot inventors and entrepreneurs on the show. And when we ask them, like, why did you stick with this idea or this business? And a lot of times they say a version of, you know, if I didn’t believe in it, it would be too hard at a certain point in their journey. They could objectively say or have said to them, this isn’t worth it. And so the number of said across different types of fields that, you know, it’s just resilience. It’s the ability to just hang in there and keep going is what explains my success. Now they’re all a bunch of other factors, obviously that contribute, but at that’s refusal to give up, but not be delusional about it, right? Rex Jung: 27:16 I started to have a trickle of success. And then I had a stream of success. And then I had a flood of success by identifying this area that hadn’t been explored before creative neuroscience and really starting to work the problem. And I felt really passionate about it and no NIH funding out there for that. There’s very little NSF funding. I found the Templeton Foundation, which was willing to fund this crazy idea that I had, and it yielded dozens of publications and other grants. And now a new generation is taking the mantle and really starting to explore the limits of creativity, neuroscience. And I couldn’t be more pleased with my stubbornness. Richard Miles: 27:57 Well, and it really points to the importance of seed funding, right? Again, you see similar parallels in the business world. If one person can manage to make significant progress, then they themselves might not reap all the rewards or the riches, but they have taken the knowledge or taken the research to another level so that other people can then capitalize on that. We had one of our inventors say, you know, the most important thing about a patent is not that you’re going to be able to cash in the patent and get rich, but you have added to the body of knowledge. So you’ve made things in a sense, easier for people coming after you because you’ve solved a piece of the puzzle and they can now use your research to maybe go on and carry that down the road. And once they put it like that, I go, yeah , that makes total sense. Because most researchers who get patents, don’t get rich. Rex Jung: 28:44 I have a patent, I’m not rich. Richard Miles: 28:46 There you go. But yet they know that they have solidly advanced their field of knowledge and that other people can use this in a constructive way, may use in a constructive way. Rex Jung: 28:54 It couldn’t be better said you really are carving out an idea space that you know, that you can’t solve yourself. And that will rely on others to take up the mantle . And I’m very happy in this field and both intelligence and creativity, that a number of people will become excited about this area of research and find it to be productive in terms of their grant applications and scholarly activity. And it’s enormously rewarding to know that I and other people was a part in starting this process. Richard Miles: 29:27 Well, Rex , it’s a great note to end on. And as I said, this is actually just part one of an 18 part series in the lifetimes of Rex Jung, really enjoyed having on the show. I hope we can have you back at some point, I learned a lot and I hope this was fun for you. Rex Jung: 29:39 It was great. Thank you for the opportunity. I really enjoy talking to you in this audience is particularly important with entrepreneurs and idea generators. I think it’s a perfect opportunity. Thanks. Richard Miles: 29:50 Thank you. Outro: 29:52 Radio Cade is produced by the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention located in Gainesville Florida. Richard Miles is the podcast host and Ellie Thom coordinates inventor interviews, podcasts are recorded at Heartwood Soundstage and edited and mixed by Bob McPeak. The radio Cade theme song was produced and performed by Tracy Collins and features violinist Jacob Lawson.

Brian Davis playing pandeiro. Drums and gear direct from Brazil. GoSamba.net Bio:Brian Lavern Davis was raised in Portland, Oregon, and his musical studies have taken him to India, Japan, New York, Puerto Rico, Turkey, Jamaica, and Brazil. His teachers include Jorge Alabe, Obo Addy, Yacub Addy, Jose Ricardo Santos; Ballet Folklorico do Bahia, Colin Walcott, Michael Spiro, Ailton Nunes, Keith Terry, Los Muñequitos de Mantanzas, Bruno Moraes (Mocidade Indepente de Padre Miguel), Jorge Martins (Maracatu Estrella Brilante de Recife), Marcos Suzano, and Nana Vasconcelos. He has served on the faculties of Jefferson Performing Arts High school, Portland State, and Vancouver School of Arts & Academics, and conducted residencies at The Naropa Institute, Reed College, Lewis & Clark College, Portland State, and many others. Brian is an original touring and recording member of Pink Martini (13 CD's, 1 DVD, numerous world tours), is the founder and director of the Brazilian styled music and dance ensemble “The Lions of Batucada”, and formed and directs the 127 member “Ainsworth Jr. Escola” - a Portland youth samba bateria (2004 - present). He has toured and/or recorded with jazz legend Herbie Hancock, Kalapana, Upepo, Obo Addy, Dub Squad, Nu Shooz, McKinley, Dan Reed Network, and the show “BataKetu” among many others. He has performed with a variety of symphonies across the US, Canada, and Europe – including the Boston Pops, The San Francisco Symphony, The National Symphony at the Kennedy Center, The BBC Orchestra at Royal Albert Hall, The Los Angeles Philharmonic at Hollywood Bowl, and the Oregon Symphony – at venues ranging from Carnegie Hall to LA's Disney Concert Hall.Brian served as the conductor for the nationwide Oregon Big Beat event (2010/2011).His group The Lions of Batucada has shared the stage with David Byrne, Sean Lennon, and Fundo de Quintal, among many others. The Lions have collaborated with The Oregon Symphony, The Los Angeles Philharmonic, Obo Addy, and rock legends Aerosmith, among others. They are featured on recordings with Pink Martini and the Von Traps.He has worked extensively with numerous dance companies in the US, including Do Jump Theater, Oslund; Company, and Linda K. Johnson. When not touring with Pink Martini, Brian teaches body percussion and samba throughout the Pacific NW as part of the Young Audiences or OR; WA program, teaches each Summer at the California Brazil Camp (2005 –present), and conducts samba workshops for a variety of baterias, schools, and music stores across the US, Taiwan, China, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand.Recently inducted into the Hollywood Bowl of fame with Pink Martini, he has contributed articles to DRUM magazine (July 2013), and was featured in an interview/focus piece in Drumhead Magazine (issue # 29, September/October 2011).Brian is proudly endorsed by LP Music.Links:Pink Martinihttp://pinkmartini.com/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDSV39zQpxgLions of Batucadahttps://www.facebook.com/groups/42066218108http://www.lionsofbatucada.com/Sambasingapura:https://www.instagram.com/sambacingapura/ Brian Davis and Bruno Moraes

In this episode, Scott talks with Leonard Buschel, the Editor/Publisher/Owner at Addiction/Recovery Ebulletin, the Director at REEL Recovery Film Festival, and the Founder & CEO at Writers In Treatment. He also produces a series online called Chasing the News Stone Cold Sober, which is about staying sober during a pandemic. Leonard studied Psychology and Metaphysics at the Naropa Institute. Join us as he discusses his former addictions to alcohol, cocaine, MDMA, and marijuana. View YouTube video Here  https://youtu.be/bIJwFsE6nBQ Leonard Buschel's LinksFacebook Personal  https://pos.li/2h7qc5Facebook Addiction/Recovery Ebulletin  https://pos.li/2h7qaq Website Addiction/Recovery Ebulletin  https://pos.li/2h7qchFacebook Reel Recovery Film Festival  https://pos.li/2h7qb5Website Reel Recovery Film Festival  https://pos.li/2h7qct Scott H Silverman's Happy Hour (Podcast) LinksFacebook Page  https://pos.li/2ff6naInstagram  https://pos.li/2ff6ncTwitter  https://pos.li/2ff6nbLinkedIn  https://pos.li/2ff6ndWebsite/Podbean Page  https://pos.li/2ff6neEmail, Scott  Scott@yourcrisiscoach.comEmail, Michael  michael@inacitylikeyours.com  Scott H Silverman's LinksCell Number 619-993-2738Facebook  https://pos.li/2ff6nyInstagram  https://pos.li/2ff6nzTwitter  https://pos.li/2ff6nxLinkedIn  https://pos.li/2ff6o0 Book, Tell Me No, I Dare You: A Guide for Living a Heroic Life  https://pos.li/2ff6nfWebsite Your Crisis Coach  http://pos.li/2gg62e Website Non-Profit  https://pos.li/2ff6od Podcast Interview  https://pos.li/2ff6ocWebsite Non-Profit  https://pos.li/2ff6odYoutube  https://pos.li/2ff6ofYoutube  https://pos.li/2ff6oe  Michael Glenn Moore's LinksPersonal Facebook  https://pos.li/2ff6ohPersonal Instagram  https://pos.li/2ff6ogEmail  michaelgmoore333@gmail.com In A City Like Yours (Podcast)Facebook Group  https://pos.li/2ff6niFacebook Page  https://pos.li/2ff6nhInstagram  https://pos.li/2ff6njTwitter  https://pos.li/2ff6nkLinkedIn  https://pos.li/2ff6nlWebsite  http://pos.li/2ff6nmWebsite/Podbean Page  https://pos.li/2ff6nnEmail  michael@inacitylikeyours.com     

Dharma Talk by Myo On Susan Hagler on Sunday, September […]

A nationally known speaker and consultant on leadership and mastery, he has spent more than three decades researching, developing, and teaching the practical application of Somatics (the unity of language, action, and meaning) to business leaders and executive managers. Richard is the author of seven books, including In Search of the Warrior Spirit, The Anatomy of Change, Holding the Center, and Aikido and the New Warrior. His articles have appeared in Esquire, East West Journal, The Whole Earth Review, and numerous other publications. In October 2000, a Wall Street Journal cover story featured the ground-breaking leadership program developed by Richard for the United States Marine Corps. He also has been featured in Fast Company and U.S. News & World Report. His PhD dissertation in Psychology was made into the book The Mind/Body Interface. A sixth degree black belt in the martial art of Aikido, he holds ranks in Judo, Jujitsu, and Capoeira. Richard has taught at the University of Chicago, Harvard University, Sonoma State University, Esalen Institute, Lone Mountain College, Naropa Institute, and the University of Munich. Additionally, he has been named one of the top 50 coaches. Having worked with tens of thousands of people over the last 30 years including corporate executives, Olympic and professional athletes, managers, political leaders, and inner-city gangs, Richard's client list includes U.S. Marines, U.S. Army Green Berets, U.S. Navy SEALS, AT&T, DMV, Microsoft, Sportsmind, Capital One, Barnes & Noble, and Hewlett-Packard

S1E7 John Hodian: Meditations on Naghash and New Classical Music. Composer and musician John Hodian joins the podcast to discuss his career, newest recording, The Naghash Ensemble Live Volume 1 and Armenian Medieval mystical poet & priest Mkrtich Naghash.  Featured Music John Hodian and Bet Williams (The Epiphany Project)- "Ararat {Arto's Song}" (Hin Dagh, 2008, Epiphany Records) The Naghash Ensemble- "Meditations on Greed and Poverty" (The Naghash Ensemble Live, Volume 1, Epiphany Records, 2020) John Hodian Biography John Hodian is a composer, conductor, and pianist who has worked in a wide variety of idioms—from classical to jazz, rock to rap, and traditional to avant-garde theater. Hodian's music conveys emotions ranging from profound melancholy to bold exuberance. His hauntingly beautiful melodies, intricate rhythms and soulful intensity reflect both his Armenian roots and his formal classical training, as well as his years spent as a cutting edge jazz improviser. Hodian received Masters degrees in composition and conducting at The Philadelphia College for the Performing Arts. John also spent several summers at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado where he studied piano and improvisation with Art Lande, Ralph Towner as well as literature and poetry with Allen Ginsburg and William Burroughs. While teaching composition and music theory at the University of the Arts, John was conductor of the Philadelphia New Music Ensemble and associate conductor of The Philadelphia Youth Orchestra.  John went on to found the first fully digital music studio in Philadelphia where he began his career in film and television scoring. Over the past 15 years he has scored over 250 documentary films and won the New York Emmy Award for "Best Music for a Documentary". John's music has been heard in numerous feature films,   dance pieces, chamber music ensembles, stage dramas, music-theater pieces and over 300 documentaries. His music-theater piece, “Sweet Theresiendstadt”, produced by En Garde Arts and Theater Archa, played for a year in Prague before touring to Warsaw and Berlin. In addition to being selected as resident composer for the Sundance Theater Institute, John has collaborated with leading theater figures such as Anne Bogart and Israel Horowitz. John was a two time winner of the New Dramatist Frederick Lowe award for music theater.

What Makes IntMed a Good Neighbor...Dr. Romero, D.O.M., is a Florida Licensed Doctor of Oriental Medicine, nationally certified as a Diplomat of Oriental Medicine by the National Commission for the Certification of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (NCCAOM). She is also trained in Neuro-Acupuncture from the Neuro-Acupuncture Institute in Santa Fe, NM. She holds a bachelors degree in comtemplative psychology and expressive arts in therapy from the Naropa Institute in Boulder, CO. Post graduate studies include, Spa Therapy from the Aveda Institute, Acupoint Injection Therapy, Homeopathy, Homotoxicology, Energy Psychology, German New Medicine and Bio Regulatory Medicine. She is an educator in both Acupoint Injection Therapy as well as Infant Circadian Rhythm Massage.Dr. Romero’s passion is working with neurological diseases, traumatic brain injury, autoimmune diseases and cancer. She is the founder of the Galen Institute a non for profit organization funding, educating and supporting research in holistic medicine.“It is my greatest joy to continuously support the body’s natural vitality to heal.”- Dr. RomeroTo learn more about IntMed, go to: http://intmednaples.com/IntMed1282 Illinois DriveNaples, Florida 34103239-444-8459Support the show (https://goodneighborpodcast.com)

Catherine Ingram joins Tahnee on the podcast today. Catherine Ingram is an international dharma teacher and former journalist specialising in empathy and activism. Catherine is the author of several books including; In the Footsteps of Gandhi, Passionate Presence, A Crack in Everything, and the long-form essay “Facing Extinction.” Catherine has published over 100 articles and interviews throughout the 1980s and early 1990s with leading thinkers and activists of our time. Catherine and Tahnee take a deep dive today, sharing a beautiful conversation around the philosophical landscape of activism, empathy, Buddhism, dharma practice, mindfulness and sensitivity. Tahnee and Catherine explore: The mindfulness industry and how it is often misguided. The 1970's Dharma movement. Catherine's experience of Buddhist meditation and philosophy. The nature and burden of sensitivity - "if you're not at least a little bit sad, you're not paying attention" - Catherine Ingram The relationship between grief and love. Activism, empathy and compassion. The themes of Catherine's essay; Facing Extinction. The Resilient Byron project.   Who is Catherine Ingram? Catherine Ingram is an international dharma teacher with communities in the U.S., Europe, and Australia. Since 1992 Catherine has led Dharma Dialogues, which are public events that encourage the intelligent use of awareness within one’s personal life and in one’s community. Catherine leads numerous silent retreats each year in conjunction with Dharma Dialogues. Catherine is president of Living Dharma, an educational non-profit organisation founded in 1995. Catherine has been the subject of numerous print, television, and radio interviews and is included in several anthologies about teachers in the West. A former journalist specialising in issues of consciousness and activism, Catherine is the author of two books of nonfiction, which are published in numerous languages: In the Footsteps of Gandhi: Conversations with Spiritual/Social Activists (Parallax Press, 1990) and Passionate Presence: Seven Qualities of Awakened Awareness (Penguin Putnam, 2003); and one novel, A Crack in Everything (Diamond Books, 2006). In February 2019, Catherine published the long-form essay “Facing Extinction” as a free link, an essay she updates every month as new data emerges about the crises we face. Over a fifteen-year period beginning in 1982, Catherine published approximately 100 articles on empathic activism and served on the editorial staffs of New Age Journal, East West Journal, and Yoga Journal. For four years Catherine also wrote the Life Advice column for Alternatives Magazine based in Oregon. Since 1976, Catherine has helped organise and direct institutions dedicated to meditation and self-inquiry and, more recently, human and animal rights. Catherine is a co-founder of Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts (1976). Catherine also co-founded the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO) in The Hague, Netherlands (1991) and is a member of the Committee of 100 for Tibet. For six years (1988-1994), Catherine served as a board director for The Burma Project, dedicated to raising international awareness about the struggle for democracy in Burma. Catherine is currently serving on the board of Global Animal Foundation, which works on behalf of the world’s animals.   Resources:Catherine's Website Catherine Facing Extinction Essay In The Deep Podcast Coronavirus: Courage and Calm PodcastCatherine's Books The Resilient Byron Project   Q: How Can I Support The SuperFeast Podcast?   A: Tell all your friends and family and share online! We’d also love it if you could subscribe and review this podcast on iTunes. Or  check us out on Stitcher :)! Plus  we're on Spotify!   Check Out The Transcript Here:   Tahnee: (00:01) Hi everybody and welcome to the SuperFeast podcast. Today I'm really excited to have Catherine Ingram here. She's the author of several books. Footsteps to Gandhi, Passionate Presence, A Crack in Everything and this incredible essay called Facing Extinction that you can find online. We'll link to it in the show notes. Catherine's an amazing former journalist as well so she's spoken to so many wonderful people and it seems to be this real emphasis on compassion and humanity and activism and empathy. And I know she's published over 100 articles and interviews throughout the '80s and '90s. I don't know if those are all available online, Catherine, but maybe people can have a little dig. Since '92, Catherine has been leading international retreats and public sessions known as Dharma Dialogues. I've been fortunate to go to some of those in Lennox and in Byron Bay. They're just really beautiful ways to check in and connect to this deeper meaning and purpose of life and our own inner compass toward well being. Our passions and all those kinds of things. She's also served on the board of numerous human rights organisations, as a board member of Global Animal and also is part of a newly founded organisation called Resilient Byron, which I'm excited to talk to her about today.   Tahnee: (01:19) Catherine, so busy. I know you're going to be doing some Dharma Dialogues online digitally, which is really exciting as well. Thanks so much for being here today. We're really excited.   Catherine Ingram: (01:32) Thank you for inviting me.   Tahnee: (01:33) So we've been touching on a lot of big themes lately on the podcast, which I think this time obviously takes us all deeper into ourselves for sure. I know that a lot of your work has focused on these big themes. Has that been something that you've been interested in forever or were you more drawn into these things over time? Can you give us a little sense of how Catherine becomes Catherine?   Catherine Ingram: (02:01) Well I fell into the study of Buddhist meditation from a pretty young age. I started doing retreats, attending retreats in 1974 and it became basically my world. I helped found a big centre in Massachusetts called Insight Meditation Society, which is one of the famous mindfulness centres in the world. But at the time, we were just this ragtag band of hippies. It was a very small scene in those days. Really small. We all knew each other, everywhere. I know a lot of the very famous mindfulness teachers, the older ones. They're old friends. I was in that study and in that practise and in that organisation for 17 years until about '91. Along the way, I became interested in how does a mindful life or an empathic life or a life based on loving kindness, how does it show up for anybody else? It's all well and good that we're all having a fine time but how does it matter in the world?   Catherine Ingram: (03:11) That became a focus for me in journalism. I decided to become a journalist in order to have access to what I considered the people who could be my teachers, my mentors in that new field of study, that is activism with a consciousness or empathic base. I thought to myself, why would any of those people want to talk with me or hang out with me? And I thought, well they would if I were a journalist and if I could publish their words. So I became a journalist, I kind of backed into it with a side motivation, which was, I wanted access [inaudible 00:03:50] I wanted to study with.. And that's what it gave me. So for the next 12 years, I focused entirely on that. I published, as you mentioned, many, many articles in the days... It was pre-Internet [inaudible 00:04:05] available, a few of them we did manage to scan and put online. I did that for all those years writing for print magazines and then I began having sessions myself, having meditative, initially dialogue-based meditation sessions. In other words, part of it would be silent but also it would be a dialogue format to keep people on a certain frequency, and in conjunction with silent retreats that I led all over the world. Well not in Russia. Not in Africa.   Tahnee: (04:52) Not in every single country on the planet.   Catherine Ingram: (04:56) Not every country. Not even every continent but I did that and still do, although we're in lockdown at the moment. Yeah, I've been focused on these matters, the confluence of activism and empathic action that has a dedication to the greater good. It's always been important to me. I remember long ago, I heard a Tibetan teacher talk about the two wings of the bird. One is wisdom and one is compassion and that it can fall off... I'm sorry, no, that got... That's how a bird flies. But I've heard other teachers talk about wisdom and compassion being like two different types of temperament and I've always thought, how can there be wisdom without compassion? It doesn't make sense. How can there be any kind of wisdom that doesn't include compassion? Since I was quite young in my career, I've always wanted the understanding that your awareness includes and is expansive. I'm a bit allergic to systems of thought and philosophy that are very self motivated. Self improvement, self wellbeing.   Tahnee: (06:33) You must love Instagram. Just kidding.   Catherine Ingram: (06:36) I don't use Instagram and I'm also [inaudible 00:06:38] social media in general, though I'm forced to a little tiny bit because we have to-   Tahnee: (06:44) Necessarily evil unfortunately.   Catherine Ingram: (06:46) Exactly, yeah. That's why I don't have an Instagram account.   Tahnee: (06:51) Could I just quickly... I just want to grab on that because this is honestly my biggest bugbear with how even mindfulness and all of these things have been taken and turned into almost competitions or ways of making yourself better than somebody else.   Catherine Ingram: (07:07) It's so co-opted and it's gotten corporate. I mean the Buddha would roll over in his grave if he had one. Yeah, it's really devolved over the years, I have to say. It's kind of tagged onto everything you can think of. It's very, very different than what I knew it to be back in the day. I studied with a lot of the older Asian teachers who've all since died. It was a very monastic scene back in those days but now it's a very different animal. I have to say though, there are other ways of understanding presence and how to use your attention and in those ways of understanding and of deep immersion, it would be anathema to your spirit to co-opt that understanding and use it for any kind of mercenary production. I think that there are ways to understand a dharmic life and to live a dharmic life and, as I say, use your mind and your heart in ways that in at least the original Buddhist teachings and language, it would be totally commensurate with all of that.   Tahnee: (08:53) So I mean, how do you get to Buddhism? I mean, I don't know exactly how old you are but I assume it wasn't readily available to study Buddhist practice. No.   Catherine Ingram: (09:09) Very obscure in those days. What happened though was this Tibetan teacher named Trungpa Rinpoche came along and he had been living in the UK. He was an exile from Tibet. He'd been living in the UK and he was a very hip... He was young and he was extremely hip and very interested in Western culture and in Western arts and all kinds of arts and he founded something called Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado in 1974 and he gathered there, all of the biggest named teachers of the day. Now they were still obscure and they had relatively small scenes, each one individually, like Ram Dass and all these people. Even though eventually that became a much larger scene, it wasn't at the time, and some of the big name Buddhist teachers who were unknown, totally unknown in those days, they were invited. He managed through his scene, his students, to get hold of all these people and gather them in this one spot to found this Buddhist university called Naropa Institute and I heard about it and I went. I decided to attend and I was 22 years old and I was in Europe. I was actually going to India, I thought. I was in Europe travelling around on my way to India.   Catherine Ingram: (10:38) I didn't know what I was doing exactly. I wanted to go find a teacher in India but I heard about Naropa and I thought, all these teachers are going to be right there in one place in my own country. I should go there. It's a long, long story. That story alone of being there that summer, in the midst of all of that. Like imagine, I used to-   Tahnee: (11:00) Be wild.   Catherine Ingram: (11:02) I use this way of describing it. Imagine like a Burning Man but that was only about Dharma and only about philosophy and only about these deeper arts. That's what it felt like for a whole entire summer. 10 weeks. That was a real turning point because there I met my whole community and I fell into a particular strain of the... There were so many different types of teachings there. They weren't all Buddhist. There were just a few of the Buddhists. There was [inaudible 00:11:34], the Tibetan Buddhists, the Zen Buddhist and then this tiny little scene led by Joseph Goldstein. He had a class, a tiny, little, dinky class called the essential Buddhism. Hardly anyone came but I walked into his class and I just felt at home. He was my teacher and also later on, my boyfriend. So that's how I began Buddhist practise. I became incredibly immersed in those teachings, especially I heard the first noble truth, the truth of suffering, the truth of the unsatisfactoriness of existence and I just thought, sign me up. I get it. Anyway, that was my world for a long time. I basically just went from retreat to retreat. I was one of the managers of the retreats. I helped found the centre, as I said, that we did in 1976.   Catherine Ingram: (12:44) I went to Asia. I finally did go to Asia after that first attempt. I went overland from Italy to India in a time when you could still do that and I was gone for... We were all over Southeast Asia studying in different temples with different of our teachers. I did that for a year. I went back many, many times to India. I went to India 10 times over the next 20 years. It was a whole... What to say, you could write a book on just that. Or I could, I guess.   Tahnee: (13:24) Well I think that's the dream. I know in this area. There's so many young people looking for that authentic, and I'm using air quotes but the authentic experience, which I mean really that generation of yours was, there were so many socio political and cultural reasons that those experiences were able to be had.   Catherine Ingram: (13:47) We were in a moment in history where our music was all about that. It was a whole, it was a zeitgeist that was happening among the counter culture but it wasn't as huge as people think. Certainly not the dharma slice of it but what was called the psychedelic generation, it wasn't as ubiquitous as people think but it was powerful and we all knew each other and hung out with each other. It was a really great, great time and then I fell into having my own sessions, as I said, and that's been really wonderfully rich. Just the intimacy of that and sharing a dharma life with people and having those kinds of conversations, I feel so privileged because I feel like I have of what you might call deathbed conversations but they're not on the deathbed, although sometimes. It's basically... Well the name of my podcast channel is In The Deep.   Tahnee: (14:57) You go there.   Catherine Ingram: (15:01) It just feels like you can stay on a certain channel of a shared frequency that is in the deep. I find that's, for me, the most satisfying kinds of conversation.   Tahnee: (15:19) Have you found it hard to integrate... Again, I'm using air quotes, a real life with that kind of desire for that deep connection? I've heard you speak in Dharma Dialogue that your family were not... They were quite conservative, I think, if I'm remembering correctly. Have you found it difficult to connect back to your lineage and to the real world? Because you do inhabit this space that is not... There's a dearth of this kind of communication in our culture. People don't want deep. They want instant news and 24 hour Fox.   Catherine Ingram: (15:57) That is why I always sought out the quieter places, the quieter minds, you could say. Those kinds of conversations and the power of sangha, of the dharmic community. I've always gravitated to that kind of crowd. In the work that I do, by definition, that's the kind of conversation... What I do is called Dharma Dialogues and so I have certainly my fair share of that kind of interaction and I spend a lot of time alone in quiet. I live a very retreat-like life. When I do have conversation, it tends to be about the deeper matters. It's not that we always have to be philosophical or anything. I mean, I'm happy to talk about the latest drama that we all might be watching. I enjoy that tremendously but because I don't have a lot of chit chat possibility in my life really, because I live alone, and my work is about this in the deep conversation, the conversations I do have tended to be in the nature such as the one we are having now, about what matters and what are the priorities and how does one live? What structure of life in your creative expression do you want to offer? That's been a very fortunate component.   Catherine Ingram: (17:50) Regarding my family and of course other people in our lives that we may not be on the same page with, I've learned over the many years to just find points of connection that we do connect on. They can be very ordinary things and that's fine. I love ordinary also. I frame it and I spoke about it in my book Passionate Presence, as finding the language of the heart that you can intuit, you can sense, especially if you're quiet inside, you can sense the language that someone might be able to hear and you try to stay on those topics. Just as you do instinctively, as we all do instinctively when, say, we're with a child and whether it's a five year old child or a 10 year old child, you adjust your language a bit, or someone who you sense is highly intelligent but is speaking... English is their second language and they're not super fluent in it so you adjust. Instinctively you adjust how you're speaking so that they'll understand all your words.   Catherine Ingram: (19:15) It's like that. You just have a radar that is sensing. The whole purpose of the conversation is to meet in the heart. It's not to just impose your great opinions.   Tahnee: (19:35) That really makes me think because so many people are like, they need to change, the world needs to change and so often, it's us, sadly that needs to change.   Catherine Ingram: (19:48) [inaudible 00:19:48] though, that way.   Tahnee: (19:52) I mean I think about my own family and I remember reading a Ram Dass book and he was talking about coming home from India to see his father and he had to stand side by side with his father and all he wanted to do was tell him all these truths and what he learned and his dad just needed him to stand there and help him make a pie or whatever and he said, "All I could do was just love him," and in that his dad softened and changed and they found commonality. I think so often we come to each other with our agenda.   Catherine Ingram: (20:23) Yeah, Ram Dass used to tell another story, which was that a woman wrote to him and said, "I'm about to go home for Christmas and I don't get along with my family that well and I know that they judge me about what I'm doing and they think I'm weird." Anyway, I don't know what he said to her but anyway, she went off to her family holiday and when she got back she wrote Ram Dass a letter and said, "My family hates me when I'm a Buddhist but they love me while I'm a Buddha."   Tahnee: (20:52) That's so beautiful. Isn't that the truth? I remember hearing you speak that you've almost stepped away from Buddhism and that whole scene in a way because it was that identification with... Maybe I'm misunderstanding what I-   Catherine Ingram: (21:10) No, I did step away from it completely. I'm so happy for that training and for those years and for the wonderful friendships. It was a whole evolutionary phase of my life but I wouldn't at all call myself a Buddhist. I don't have any kind of... There was a guy in the States, his name was Abbie Hoffman, he was a great activist back in my era. He died a long time ago. Kind of young when he died but he was a very famous radical activist in the '60s and he had a great line, "All of the isms are wasms," which I really related to. I don't have any isms that I'm adhering to. I have come to realise that Gandhi, the story of his... I'm sorry. His autobiography is called The Story Of My Experiments with Truth, and I feel that I've just been making my own experiments with truth and I don't claim as true with a capital T. I would say it's my experiments with truth, my experiments of what has made sense to me, what works, what has been consistently true for me in my experimentation about what is...   Catherine Ingram: (22:29) Like we've been saying, what is the way through? What is the dharmic line, thread of harmony through this rocky road called life? That's been, for me, I have been exposed to so many kinds of teachings, beautiful teachings over the years. Whether in literature, I love great literature... I mean, you can have profound experiences just by reading some of the great works of literature, and movies too. Movies have shaped my consciousness.   Tahnee: (23:09) Art, right? It's every... Humans have created that to tell stories since-   Catherine Ingram: (23:15) That's right.   Tahnee: (23:17) Yes, there's the vortex of, some of it is commercial and corporate and manipulative but I think so much of it is truth. Like you say, little 't' truths. Someone trying to capture what's true for them through their art form.   Catherine Ingram: (23:33) Yeah and what's so beautiful about all of that, and music, my goodness, music... What's so amazing about that is that's like our humanity is so... It's so sensitive and so universal in each of us. I mean it is why music translates to everybody, pretty much, that sometimes someone comes along and just in their own innocent, true expression, taps a chord that just reverberates through not only their own time but down through the ages. I'm always listening for those chords, however I can find them, whether in dharma circles and great works of philosophy and teachings from all different traditions but also in all these art forms and also just in-   Tahnee: (24:39) Life.   Catherine Ingram: (24:39) No, I mean in watching animals. You mentioned that I'm part now of a group called Global Animal, which is actually an animal rights organisation. I have been involved with human rights a lot in the past. Now I've switched over to the animals. The other animals, I should say. We are animals as well. Anyway, I'm just continually blown away by the tenderness and the emotional intelligence of animals, especially mammals, of course. It's all of these ways, all of these portals of wisdom that come across the transom of your mind that some minds just are looking for those, have incredible receptors for those, have neurological receptors for those kinds of channels and those kinds of bits of information and I think one can, in a sense, train the awareness to look for those.   Tahnee: (25:51) That was going to be my question because I mean, I feel like I... I sometimes try and nut this out in my head and I don't get very far. I remember as a child being very sensitive and open and then kind of going through a science phase and a cynical phase, I suppose, in my early 20s and I feel like I've come full circle back to this very sensitive place but I have, I think, now the capacity to handle it. In reading your essay especially, the one on facing extinction, I speak to so many people about this in my community and it's this sense of, it's too much and I can't carry it. The sensitivity I have, it's a burden instead of a gift. I've found, for me, refuge in stillness and quiet and all the things you were talking about. Aloneness. Nature for me is a huge part of it and why I choose to live here and I've heard you say the same about moving to Lennox. Is there ways you've seen people grow into their sensitivity and their perceptiveness/ because I think these people, they're so required right now. Those empaths and those people that feel it all. I don't know how to help them. It's like, you just have to keep going.   Catherine Ingram: (27:20) Yeah, it's a conundrum. It's a great question. It's not one I have a clear answer on in that the sensitivity comes with the deepening and widening awareness. It's a challenge because the more sensitive you are, the more subject to feeling the sorrows of the world and of the people you love and you as a young mother-   Tahnee: (27:49) Many feelings.   Catherine Ingram: (27:53) Yeah. The problem is, you kind of can't help it. You can't really help it if you're someone who feels very, very deeply and you notice things and you have natural empathy. Now I think people do shut down. They harden their hearts. They put blinkers on. They're essentially armoured because they're frightened and feeling too deeply is just too painful for them but I don't see any way around if you're paying attention, if the awareness is widening, which in a way it does on its own but like I said, you can sort of direct it, train it more to look for wisdom wherever you can find it and that includes ways to let go and to try to be strong. If that's how you're built then sorrow comes with it. Just as I sometimes say, if you're not at least a little bit sad, you're not paying attention. All of these happiness programs, they just make my skin crawl. Be happy and real happy and happy happy.   Tahnee: (29:23) Uhg! And they've coerced Buddhist, the dharma teachings. I mean, I'm on social media, unfortunately in some ways and I see this stuff and I just think... I mean, one of my teachers calls it the bandwidth. We want to be able to feel a spectrum of things and just to expect that it's just happy and sunshine, rainbows, lollipops all the time is-   Catherine Ingram: (29:50) Yeah, I often say, have said for 30 years that we live on a spectrum of feelings and on one end is deep suffering and sorrow and sadness and depression and all kinds of things and at the other is incredible joy. We live on that spectrum. And that to shut down one end also shuts down the other. So some people want to play it safe and go right into the middle, don't feel too much on either side. You shut down any... Like basically grief is connected to love. That's why we grieve is because we love, like I said in my essay. So if you're going to give up, if you're so afraid of grieving, then you really can't invest in your love. You're going to be at risk. So that's what we've got here as human creatures. I think in this time, where the world has stopped, even though it's starting to move about a bit more, but I think a lot of people have reset their priorities and have understood perhaps in ways they never understood. But for many of us who've been looking at these things and feeling into them, we've understood them more deeply. That this life that we are so privileged to be living, it really never had any guarantees. We kind of drifted into an illusion in our rich cultures of just, you know, kind of having a party. I mean just going along.   Catherine Ingram: (31:33) Just get what you want. Go where you want. Study what you want. Go here. Flit there. So we've just been having a grand old time and now we're confronted with our entire way of life has not only changed for now but it's changed and probably it's going to stay changed. It's going to get more and more challenging. I believe we're headed into a cascade of crises. The coronavirus crisis is going to perhaps be the kickstart. But we've got all the big ones waiting. The worse ones are waiting in the wings. They're cooking away in the background. We haven't been talking about them as much during this one. But they're going along. They're going a pace. Unlike this one, which might have some mitigation to it, I don't think those other ones do. So I think what we're facing is a lot more letting go and a lot more needing to find empathy and understanding and getting way closer to the ground in terms of how we live simply. I don't know if you've noticed this but I have... I've just not been spending money on pretty much anything except food and paying the utilities-   Tahnee: (33:05) Yeah the things you have to pay.   Catherine Ingram: (33:08) [inaudible 00:33:08] monthly charges and I'm grateful to be able to do that. I've seen, gosh, even though it's kind of stripped down, those are really essential things. Food and having the water come on when you turn it on.   Tahnee: (33:26) Basic necessities. Yeah well it's definitely... I mean again a theme I'm really witnessing is a move toward... So we've just put in a chicken coop, which we started before all this happened but it didn't get finished until the middle of all of this. I contacted a breeder for the chickens. I was looking for a heritage breeder. He said, "The pandemic hit and I've sold out." He said, "I've sold every chicken I have until October." He's like, "Everyone's gone self-sufficient." I was like, "Well wow, that's crazy." I've noticed all of these permaculture people are offering courses on sustainable backyard gardens and farming. I'm like, "That's so great that people are starting." If that's one of the, I guess, impacts of this on a micro level, that people start to think-   Catherine Ingram: (34:17) It's a great benefit because things are still kind of holding together. We're not in massive drought or fires or some [inaudible 00:34:26] war thing happening over resources. We're basically just told to stay in our homes. The skies are blue and the waters are clear. The earth is actually breathing a great sigh of relief in having us stopped. So it is a perfect time to learn those kind of basic life-   Tahnee: (34:47) Life skills.   Catherine Ingram: (34:49) [inaudible 00:34:49] yeah.   Tahnee: (34:50) That's something... I mean I copied a quote out of your essay, which was, "On the last day of the world, I would want to plant a tree." I nearly cried when I read that. I'm nearly crying now because I think that's something, when people feel the overwhelm and the kind of impact of what is going on on a more macro level, they just become numb. Business as usual I suppose carries on. I think it's... To think that even if the world was coming to an end, we would still make an offering that we would not live to see come to fruition I think is-   Catherine Ingram: (35:28) But just to be clear that wasn't my quote. I quoted that.   Tahnee: (35:30) No sorry. It was Merwin. But you quoted it and I mean, all the quotes you chose for that were really beautiful. But that one, I just really... Because I think I've definitely... I studied environmental science for a year and a half at university.   Catherine Ingram: (35:46) [inaudible 00:35:46].   Tahnee: (35:46) I really struggled with... You were either angry and like trying to cut off from the world and go off the grid and disappear or you were kind of apathetic and well, "It's all going to happen anyway. Humans are a virus. They should all be killed." It was like, there didn't feel like much of a middle ground but I fel like everyone was really... And even then there was the women that were like, "All the men should die. The patriarchy's the problem." Like, "None of this really resonates with me."   Catherine Ingram: (36:17) It's kind of like displaced... It's displaced grief.   Tahnee: (36:21) Yeah. When I think about the stages, right? Denial, anger, bargaining, depression... But then I also was recently reading that they've added another stage. Because it used to end at acceptance. Now they've added transformation into meaning. I thought... Into insight. I was like, that's so perfect because I feel like over two decades that's been my experience. I'm sure you've seen that.   Catherine Ingram: (36:44) Yeah definitely, yes. I know, I love that quote as well from Merwin and it's exactly that. You live, like my teacher [inaudible 00:36:57] once said, "Death is when the next breath doesn't come." So basically it's simple as that. You've living until then and how are you living here? How are you showing up? It still has meaning as long as we're here. It has meaning even after we're gone as well but while we're here we're part of the meaning of it. And so what do you do with your energy, your time, your attention? Your activity? Your service? So yeah, of course. I mean we've got so many beautiful examples through history of people who were in just terrible dire circumstances and who carried on and did it in grace, in beauty. So that's... I think that's the play on the board. In a way then that you're off the hook in terms of, you don't have to manipulate and try to change how it goes. Because it's going to go... This is a big juggernaut now. I mean, the thing I think people don't understand fully is that although we have changed the natural expressions of our world, we've changed them for the worse in that it's killing life, it doesn't follow necessarily that we can change them back.   Catherine Ingram: (38:31) I don't see the will in terms of the powerful players doing that anyway. But even if they would, I certainly am not convinced that if every single person woke up tomorrow and that was their full dedication for the rest of their lives, that it would save us, frankly. Because we have put things into play now that are on their own. That the warming is actually now on its own trajectory. So there may be some sort of technology that, I don't know, cools it or-   Tahnee: (39:06) That was something else I copied from your... Because I mean I guess, being of the age where a lot of my peers are really involved in conspiracy theories and the... Like it's so easy to be in that place of like, we're all pawns in a... But I mean you said something around Elon Musk is just like that nerdy guy who... And I've said this to my partner multiple times, like Bill Gates, they're just these people that they think that what they're doing is right because they don't have the self-reflect... You know they just don't have perspective to see. And you said something like, "Their intelligence is one dimensional." To paraphrase you.   Catherine Ingram: (39:51) [crosstalk 00:39:51] excellent. They do have amazing intelligence. It's just disconnected a lot from the Earth systems and from the natural systems. But it's not to say that they aren't well intended. I think they actually are well intended. They just get it from their own paradigm.   Tahnee: (40:09) Exactly and what they think is best is maybe not what we think is best. But I mean to call someone evil, I think it's a tricky line to walk. And I see that, that technology will save us and I've seen some eco-activists talk to that as well. I don't know, I just feel sinking in my gut when I read that sort of stuff because it doesn't-   Catherine Ingram: (40:33) It's just more manipulation with nature. It's just more of what got us into this mess actually. All these different green technologies and it all just feels so misguided. It's just more of the same. We have hubris, you know? This sort of, what Derrick Jensen calls the myth of human supremacy. Instead of understanding it, we've got to just cut back everything. We've got to stop. That's probably not going to save us either.   Tahnee: (41:02) And civilizations have fallen so many times through history through their own arrogance and their own excessive... And you look at nature and the plagues of locusts and they eat everything and they all die. That's the way it goes.   Catherine Ingram: (41:21) Locust plague going on right now. 160 million people are on the verge of starvation. Estimates that it's going to be double that in-   Tahnee: (41:28) Well I've been reading all this stuff. The ninth article on a page sometimes, or even you have to go a few pages deep but it's like, the food supply is gone for a lot of places. That's something I struggle with so much because I see it here and we do live in this place that's so rich in food and abundance and nature. I am privileged to go to the beach every day. I buy from a farmer's market. There are people in countries in the world right now that are really struggling and suffering and not even in... Like I know America's having a tough time but... I know India's going through it. I know Iran. I know parts of Africa are having a really tough time. It's like, how do we even help? What do we do?   Catherine Ingram: (42:12) I know. The chickens are coming home to roost in terms of what we've been doing here. We've got to really... We're going to need a lot more courage in ourselves. We've been so spoiled. It's not our own fault because we came into the spoils of our cultures. We've been reared up in this kind of abundance and calm and safety and all these things that we've just taken for granted. But now we're in a different phase. I think we're going to have to really get to that quiet sanctuary in ourselves a lot and find there a growing sense of courage and a growing acceptance and setting aside our own hubris about how long a life we should have and how much we should have and all of those things. It's hard. And yet that's... We can either accept or fight the reality. Those are our options.   Tahnee: (43:28) I guess I've heard you speak a lot about the... There's something I love about when you lead meditation and the animal nature of us. I think if we can... Because that's one of the things I think that has created so much of the drama is like we've separated ourselves so much from the fact that we are animals. We do have rhythms that flow with nature. We have needs like animals. We communicate with animals. I'm reading this great book called the Tao of Equus right now. She's talking about how horses, we've dominated them and used them for so long but now they're moving into this space of like, taking us back to connecting with ourselves and nature and just this idea that, especially through women and the wisdom held by, I guess that more feminine energy but I think everyone has the Yin and the Yang, that's definitely something I feel to be true, but like yeah, I can really feel that this is a time of... If you think about the elders and keeping the culture on track and present and like that's, I think, such a requirement of this time.   Tahnee: (44:36) You look at all the leadership, it's all men. It's all men of a certain kind of privilege and a certain type of personality type, thinking of some narcissistic leaders off the top of my head right now. I think it's that older wise woman thing that we need. I don't know if you know Helena, who's a local to this area, she might be involved in Resilient Byron with you?   Catherine Ingram: (44:58) No.   Tahnee: (45:01) Okay well she was one of the women that I first spoke to these things about. She's a bit older. She was one of the women to start the community farmer's markets here and everything. This idea of local features, you know, like that we have to look for leadership and strength and resilience in our own communities. And then build on that. To me, that's something I'm really craving and hoping becomes more prominent. I know you're working with Resilient Byron. Is it mostly people that are out of their childbearing years or is it a mix of people?   Catherine Ingram: (45:34) A mix. We don't have a huge steering group at the moment but it's definitely a mix of ages for sure yeah. I think I'm the oldest in fact.   Tahnee: (45:46) How do you feel like age has then, I guess, brought you... Is there like a... I read this great story the other day in a book called If Women Rose Rooted. She said it's this combination of like wrath and gentleness as you get older.   Catherine Ingram: (46:04) Yes. I definitely feel that actually inside myself. I feel what's happened for me, one of the great things is you just get a lot more authentic when you get older, women. Because I think for many women, we fell into needing to be pleasers. We kind of like to please a lot. Sometimes we compromised what we really felt and what we really thought and what we wanted to do and all of those things. Because somebody else needed us to be some other way. So that's something one grows out of, which is a happy-   Tahnee: (46:44) [crosstalk 00:46:44].   Catherine Ingram: (46:48) You just get a lot more clear about... You get more savage about your time I must say. You are less inclined to spend time on nonsense or to indulge certain mind streams that you know are just going to end up in a dark alley. It has all kind of benefits along with some great disadvantages that come along. But again, it does have some beautiful silver linings.   Tahnee: (47:23) Was it like a difficult... Because I mean when did you move? Because you've been in The States most of your life, right?   Catherine Ingram: (47:29) Yeah.   Tahnee: (47:30) And then you moved out here when?   Catherine Ingram: (47:31) About [inaudible 00:47:33] half years ago.   Tahnee: (47:35) And so, was that a big shift for you, culturally and professionally and yeah?   Catherine Ingram: (47:40) That was a big shift. Massive, massive shift. To do it at the age I was as well. But I had felt for a very long time I wanted to get out of America. And that alone wouldn't have pulled me out but it was a combination of wanting to get out of there and also falling in love with this part of the world, Australia. And also New Zealand. I love New Zealand as well.   Tahnee: (48:02) Me too. Yeah.   Catherine Ingram: (48:04) So you kind of get both when you come in as a resident of Australia. So I just have been so grateful to be living here. Just I feel so lucky. And everybody in the states, all the people I talk with so often, everybody says, "Oh God you're so lucky." Except that one isn't living... We're living always in a context of "Yes I'm here and I'm lucky but my friends, my oldest friends and my whole family are over there." So my heart is over there as well. Not entirely. But I mean I often feel like, it feels something like it must have felt in Germany if you were a Jew and you were getting out but all your family was still there. You're never really entirely free in that regard. Now I'm [inaudible 00:49:05] and I hold things in as big a space as I can as I view them, but these feelings of course arise with a great frequency. And yeah, but I am very happy to be in this particular place. This is a paradise in any context, you know? And especially now.   Tahnee: (49:31) I know we've been really, I guess not struggling with guilt but we've been really conscious of that feeling of like, "Well, our lives haven't been deeply impacted by this." It's obviously, I guess, I feel like I'm more focused now and I'm prioritising things more. I feel like my inner journey through this has been really powerful but in terms of what my outward life looks like, I don't obviously do as many external things. But I'm still at the beach every day. I'm still going to the farmer's markets at a social distance. It's like, I'm still kind of doing a lot of the things, and yeah, it's a tricky one to imagine. Like in some ways I think having the bush fires was a really good thing for Australian's to realise.   Catherine Ingram: (50:23) I do too.   Tahnee: (50:23) Yeah like that there actually is going to be an impact. Because it's so easy when it's over there to kind of forget about it or to take-   Catherine Ingram: (50:33) Yeah well it was also somehow helpful in that we were already sort of crisis ready.   Tahnee: (50:41) Orientated. Turning toward crisis.   Catherine Ingram: (50:45) We've already gotten our crisis muscles well exercised. I mean I know people could argue and say, "Yeah well we're in crisis fatigue." But I actually think there was some benefit in terms of of a way that, first of all, that whole sense of, "Okay what's important? What matters? If my house catches fire, what is it in it that I needed even? My photographs maybe or whatever. My computer possibly." But you know, and of course then you think, one of my girlfriends, this is a little bit telling a tale out of the school but, one of my girlfriends in LA owns a Picasso. And so one time, LA gets a lot of fires. And so one time she was telling me that during one of the recent fires she had actually, she had grabbed of course her dogs and the bunny rabbit and she was trying to figure out how to get the fish. She gets everything kind of ready to get loaded into the car and then it turns out they didn't need to go. And I said, "What about the Picasso?" And she said, "I didn't even think about the Picasso." I thought, "That's so cool. The bunny rabbit made it in there before the Picasso." It's like, that's really cool.   Tahnee: (52:07) It sounds like she's got her head on straight yeah.   Catherine Ingram: (52:09) Exactly. I think a lot of us would make those choices actually. The living thing. So yeah, I think we had, through the fires, come to those kinds of recognitions. What actually does one need in a life? We're so happy because we went through all that drought, we got a big lesson in water. In water rationing and we got a huge lesson in don't take any of this for granted. So yeah, these are going to be the lessons coming forth, I do believe.   Tahnee: (52:46) It's interesting what you're... Because you said something else in the essay around... It was around Auschwitz and the people that survived were the ones that had had struggles already in their lives. I think that's something... That resilience that we build through meeting life's challenges and learning from them. I think when you look at how far our civilization has to fall compared to others, it might be that there is parts of humanity that survive because of what they've been through.   Catherine Ingram: (53:21) Already existing local resilience, doing without, living on very little, helping [inaudible 00:53:27] community. Yes. I think they're in a far better circumstance to get through this than we are because we're so dependent on a very complicated system. And we're not used to a certain kind of community sharing, which is very much what we want to start focusing on with this group.   Tahnee: (53:48) So in terms of what you are looking to create, I suppose, could you just give us the elevator pitch or some kind of sense of what the ideal outcome of this organisation would be?   Catherine Ingram: (54:01) Resilient Byron, well there's one part of it is resilient and the other part is regenerative. But I'm more interested in the resilient. I actually think we're going straight into crises one after the next. So in that conversation, it's been about starting a framework of neighbourhood units of resilience basically so that people would start focusing on their own neighbourhoods. Whatever that means to you. Whether it's your street or your particular area. And start sharing resources. We've got the Facebook page, which is serving as a kind of clearing house at the moment for just information and for people to find out about things like during the coronavirus crisis. Like where to get things you need, food or help in various ways. We're going to start having more conversations about food security, community gardens, security security. Like just how to stay safe. What about housing for people who may... Either don't have housing currently or may need it at some point.   Catherine Ingram: (55:17) So there's lots of, I mean it's really in the formative stages but we're just basically looking at lots of different ways that we're going to organise to perhaps be a system in this region that is de-linked from the national sort of federal system. I don't mean that we're going to do a political coup but rather that we're going to have a lot of local resources we're relying on. Those can be also shared with nearby like [inaudible 00:55:51] and up where you are.   Tahnee: (55:54) [inaudible 00:55:54].   Catherine Ingram: (55:58) It could be an entire Northern Rivers sort of eco-community that is helping each other.   Tahnee: (56:08) That's so exciting to me because I mean I think I can see how that becomes something that can roll out. I have a friend in Melbourne and I know, on her street, she's has food and she grows things and her neighbours do and they all trade eggs and vegetables. And just that little bit of connection with the people on your street and that's such a... It has such a profound impact on your wellbeing. That was one of the solutions you offered up in the essay was community and I think-   Catherine Ingram: (56:36) It's number one yeah. It's the number one-   Tahnee: (56:38) And what we've really done is separate ourselves. I remember living in the city and if you like smiled at somebody... I was lucky to be raised in the country where you knew everybody, which had pros and cons. Because you knew everybody. I remember being really naughty as a teenager and like the local policeman was my mum's mate and I was like, "Hey." He was like, "Oh dear." Anyway. But yeah, I think it's really, this kind of getting to know the people that we live beside every day. Just getting a sense of, well, "Yeah they're the people we lean on." Our cul-de-sac through this time has been my saving grace. I have babysitters and I have friends for my children and I have people to share stories with. It's just been... Yeah it's been such a beautiful experience.   Catherine Ingram: (57:32) That's wonderful. That's really it. That's wonderful. That's what humans have relied on through all of human history until quite recently was, you lived with your tribe. And of course as civilization so called erupted, still people lived with their tribes in a different way. They lived mostly with family or rural communities or if you lived in a city it wasn't a huge city. There weren't huge cities really.   Tahnee: (58:04) Well and even people stayed in their boroughs, you know? They didn't leave their neighbourhoods. Very infrequently. Yeah.   Catherine Ingram: (58:13) You'd still live within a tribe within the city. So yeah, we've gotten far from that but we can... That is one thing I think we can bring back. Well dear I should go because-   Tahnee: (58:25) Yes I was going to say, thank you so much. It's actually nearly 11:11 so that's perfect. I just wanted to say that was such a great note to end on. And also because that's something you do with the Dharma Dialogues. I always got so much... I haven't been to them in a while because you weren't doing them and then this has happened but just being around people who are able to articulate their human experience and then just the sharing and I think that's, for me, been such a balm. And also obviously your wisdom and insight. So I know you've got two weekends per month coming up. Is it through June and July that you'll be doing that?   Catherine Ingram: (59:03) I'm actually going to do it indefinitely. I'm going to start-   Tahnee: (59:05) Oh wonderful.   Catherine Ingram: (59:07) Since we're locked down I'm just going to start doing online-   Tahnee: (59:09) Great so they'll be replacing, in a way the Lennox events?   Catherine Ingram: (59:13) Yeah.   Tahnee: (59:13) Okay. Fantastic. Okay well that's super exciting. Okay so those'll go up on your website soon so we can link to them and if anyone... Is it just through sign up to your email kind of thing and you'll be notified?   Catherine Ingram: (59:25) Yeah.   Tahnee: (59:26) Awesome. Well thank you so much for your time. I know-   Catherine Ingram: (59:29) Thank you so much for inviting me. That was lovely.   Tahnee: (59:31) Yeah it's been really beautiful to speak with you. I'll also link to your books as well because Passionate Presence is the only one I've read but I really enjoyed it. Yeah, I really just appreciate everything you're offering because it helps people like me navigate their lives. So much love. All right Catherine well I'll hopefully see you in the flesh again one day soon. Enjoy the rest of your day.   Catherine Ingram: (59:55) And you. Bye dear.   Tahnee: (59:57) Bye hun.   Catherine Ingram: (59:57) Bye.

Dear Friends, Maitri Space Awareness practice, as described in this Podcast, has played a very significant role in my personal and professional life and development. I was first introduced to this view and practice at the (then) Naropa Institute in the summer of 1977. The class was taught by Marvin Casper who—as indicated in the Podcast—was instrumental in the early therapeutic development and application of the work with these practices and in the subsequent development of such practices as a key element in the training of Contemplative psychotherapists. This was my introduction to meditation and Space Awareness practice… Before this, I was a Social Worker and Therapist for many years and was curious about the dialogue between Eastern and Western Psychology. So, this class provided a seminal glimpse for me into this dialogue. These practices are taught initially experientially, meaning that the theoretical framework of each aspect of these teachings isn’t brought into the discussion until after one has had the experience.  I very much appreciate the integrity of this approach as a way to have the learning be less theoretical and conceptual and more coming from an inner felt sense of the practice. My first experience of the rooms was to have a definite bodily sense of the difference between these five psychological and personality types. For example, there was a sense of embodying the quality of equanimity that wasn’t just an insight. These qualities are cultivated by the color, posture and certain elements of each room.  The result was that I had a glimpse into the relative nature of these psychological qualities and also how changeable they are and can be. Thus, it created a feeling of permeability with any given narrative or style that I or a client might identify with. After this class, I did continue on for graduate studies at the Naropa Institute for a degree in East/West Psychology. And in that context I had the opportunity to deepen my study and practice of meditation and Maitri Space Awareness further in the form of a 90-day retreat. This all became the bedrock for my understanding of the Contemplative approach to therapy and also for Therapeutic Communities.  And it is this understanding that my fellow Windhorse clinicians and I explore in our discussion. Thank you for listening, Kathy Emery

Exploring economic injustice and the harmful paradigm of individualism in American culture with Dr. Harvey Cox. Cox was a Hollis Research Professor of Divinity at Harvard, where he began teaching in 1965, both at HDS and in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. An American Baptist minister, he was the Protestant chaplain at Temple University and the director of religious activities at Oberlin College; an ecumenical fraternal worker in Berlin; and a professor at Andover Newton Theological School. His research and teaching interests focus on the interaction of religion, culture, and politics. Among the issues he explores are urbanization, theological developments in world Christianity, Jewish-Christian relations, and current spiritual movements in the global setting (particularly Pentecostalism). He has been a visiting professor at Brandeis University, Seminario Bautista de Mexico, the Naropa Institute, and the University of Michigan. He is the author of bestselling books The Market as God and the Secular City. Harvey Cox was a Harvard doctoral student in the early 1960s when his friend the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. called and asked him to help create a Boston branch of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the influential Civil Rights organization that King helped found in 1957. Starting in 1962 and for the next few years, Cox recruited people for Southern Civil Rights marches, rallies, and demonstrations, where nonviolent protesters often were repeatedly attacked by police and local authorities, and was invited to be the keynote speaker at an annual SCLC event. Cox took part in several protests, including two marches from Selma to Montgomery, Ala. The two remained friends until King was assassinated in 1968. Learn more about his time with King at https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2015/01/my-memories-of-dr-king/

"Lean in. It doesn't have to be a lot, just start to lean in and life will reveal itself." Rachel Euser is a Global Producer with a credit list in 30 countries spanning every continent. She has enjoyed a successful career as producer and director in television, music, documentary film and live events including multiple Olympic Games. Always open to adventure and growth, Rachel shares stories from the road and thoughts on how production is great training ground for both motherhood and being a therapist or coach.In this interview she shares that she is at the beginning of a major life pivot, going back to school at Naropa Institute for a Masters in Psychology while continuing to work in production and focus on being a great mom for her toddler.   

Join Tim Ray as he interviews Aura Walker. Aura Walker MA, CHt: Los Angeles Hypnotherapist, Vocational Counselor, Therapeutic Facilitator, Group Leader and Motivational Speaker.? 1999, After completing her graduate school classes, Aura developed her own consulting business in Minneapolis. Co-founded Expressive Arts Services, Ltd. or EASL, with Melina Weir, former president of the Minnesota Art Therapy Association, and fellow alumnus of the Naropa Institute (they met in graduate school.) Together they pioneered custom designed group workshops with therapy-based goals throughout Twin Cities agencies. Workshops were held at schools, retirement homes, battered women shelters, local government agencies, other nonprofit organizations, and for-profit corporations. Aura still designs morale raising, mental health education, parenting classes, and revenue-boosting workshops for organizations in Los Angeles. http://aurawalkerhypnotherapy.com/

Pat Flynn interviews Professor Michael Rectenwald of New York University, who has recently been making headlines for speaking out against the radical, postmodernist views infesting academia--views that he himself once held(!)--and the subsequent attacks he's faced, both personal and professional, for doing so. This interview should be interesting for anybody who's ever wondered about the history of postmodern philosophy--how it started, and how it eventually evolved into many of the radical and intolerant ideas that academia, and our world, are confronted with today. ... About Michael Rectenwald Michael Rectenwald, Ph.D., is a professor of Liberal Studies at New York University, where he teaches writing and cultural history. He received a B.A. in English from the University of Pittsburgh, an M.A. from Case Western Reserve University of Pittsburgh, an M.A. from Case Western Reserve University, and a Ph.D. in Literary and Cultural Studies from Carnegie Mellon University. At age twenty, Michael was an apprentice poet to Allen Ginsberg at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, at Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado. ... Show Notes and Related Resources Springtime for Snowflakes I highly recommend reading Professor Rectenwald's new book, Sprintime for Snowflakes: https://amzn.to/2RiBLwW

Dorje Kirsten's path as an astrologer and meditator began when he went to the Naropa Institute in 1992. There he was immersed in the unique world wisdom tradition training blending with psychological studies and poetics that only that university has to offer. While at the Naropa Institute he met his teacher Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche. To deepen his understanding of mind he went to live at Rinpoche's retreat center, Rigdzin Ling, in 1995. He stayed there for 11 years engaging in deep retreats and became a ritual arts master and shrine keep of the Nyingma tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. In 2006 he moved to Arcata California and began practicing the art of Astrology and Feng Shui as a method of helping others align with their own inner wisdom. In 2013 he became a certified Tea Master under the auspices of the International Tea Masters Association. He also carries a 800 year old Shinto buddhist tradition of single brush stroke sumi-e serpent paintings that are both works of art and talismans to honor nature spirits. His astrological writings can be found at Heartastrology.com. Currently he lives in Arcata California, where he gives consultations in Astrology, Feng Shui and runs his tea company, Planet Teas.

www.HeardNOTSeen.com With Rebekah Freedom. Visit www.RebekahFreedom.com to contact Rebekah. Rebekah on Elephant Journal / Rebekah on SoundCloud / Rebekah Freedom facebook page / Rebekah on Instagram / Schedule with Rebekah Explicit Topics This episode is just 3-days before her self-committed “no talky, no contact” period until the 9th. What to do? What happens to you happens for you. It’s the “shoe in the dryer stage.” Naropa Institute. Somatic Therapy. Harville Hendrix Ph.D. Getting the Love You Want: A Guide for Couples. Access Consciousness Bar Therapy. Reading from Breakup Rehab - Let Go and Forgive. Book your free consultation with Rebekah Freedom now: Schedule Now More of Rebekah on Alternative Health Tools podcast: Addiction Counseling Transform Now - AHT046 Breakup Rehab Start Over Stronger - AHT047 Choosing Love – AHT048

Working Class Audio Session #119 with Tucker Martine!!! Tucker Martine is a record producer, musician and composer and the son of singer and songwriter Layng Martine, Jr.,  Tucker grew up in Nashville, Tennessee where he played in bands and tinkered with recording devices before moving to Boulder, Colorado after graduating from high school. In Colorado, Martine was a DJ at a public radio station KGNU. He would frequently play two or more records at once on the air to experiment with creating new sounds. Martine also took courses at the Naropa Institute where he studied sound collage and befriended Harry Smith - the ethnomusicologist, artist and Kabbalist - who made a large impression on Martine. 1993, Martine moved to Seattle, Washington where he began to combine his skills and interests. He joined Wayne Horvitz's chamber group The 4 Plus 1 Ensemble where Martine's instrument was a series of looping and sound manipulating devices which were fed by the groups otherwise acoustic instruments. Martine received a Grammy nomination in 2007 in the "best engineered album" category for the Floratone album with Bill Frisell on Blue Note. He has also released several albums of his field recordings. As a composer and musician Martine has released 2 albums under the recording pseudonym Mount Analog and a 3rd one is on the way. Additionally, Microsoft called upon Martine's creativity when they asked him to help compose the startup and branding sounds for Microsoft's new operating system Vista. Today Martine lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife, singer songwriter Laura Veirs and continues to make records in his own studio, Flora Recording & Playback. Tucker has worked with artists such as The Decemberists, R.E.M., My Morning Jacket, Modest Mouse, Beth Orton, Neko Case, Mudhoney, Bill Frisell, Sufjan Stevens, Spoon, Grandaddy, Mavis Staples, Iron And Wine, The Jayhawks, Karl Blau, Edward Sharpe And The Magnetic Zeros, Blind Pilot, Camera Obscura, Stephen Malkmus, k.d. lang, She and Him, M Ward, Case/lang/veirs, Jesse Sykes and Laura Veirs.

www.AlternativeHealthTools.com This is a continuation of the 3-part series with Rebekah starting with episode 46 Addiction Counseling Transform Now AHT046: http://www.alternativehealthtools.com/addiction-counseling/ . Rebekah Freedom wrote Breakup Rehab - Start Over Stronger for individuals who know that conventional advice isn't enough to help them heal after their breakup. Breakup Rehab is for the lonely, the weary, the hopeless romantics, and the hopeful lovers. This book is for the divorced, divorcing, thinking of divorce, for the broken up, the breaking up, and after the break up. It has clear steps to guide you to healing after losing the love you so hoped you could hold onto. There ain't no shame in your pain, but after a breakup it sure feels like it. And the phrases, "Get over it", "Un-friend", and "Find someone new" don't help. Enter Breakup Rehab. This book is for people who are sick of the same old advice, who want to truly heal after a breakup and not just repeat old patterns, and who want to know what love is; who are singing, “I want you to show me.” This book cleverly takes the traditional twelve steps and customizes them to the breaking-up process. It is candid, direct, and at times humorous. This book isn't for people who want to spend the next few years of their life pining after their ex and who just want more of the same. Reading this book will result in real change, growth, and clarity. Buckle up. You are about to go on a journey. Destination: Breakup Rehab. Quotes (unlinked quotes are Rebekah's) Addiction is something that impacts all of us. Addiction is anything you do that prevents you from feeling your feelings. Love has a learning curve. We need to have a little mercy for ourselves. What fires together wires together. The seasons of the relationship. Disposable relationships. Dissociation and splitting. Alcoholics Anonymous 12 Steps. Stop the using and start the relating. Gabrielle Bernstein Become The Happiest Person You Know. Breakup Rehab - Start Over Stronger 12 Steps. You are not your comings and goings. You are the thing witnessing your comings and goings. Jealousy is not wanting another person to have what they have. But envy is thinking I'll never have that. BOTH take you out of integrity. Some relationships have an expiration date. Feel your feelings. Maintain your integrity. Tony Robbins - Relationship is where you show-up to give. Start Over Stronger and Share True Connection. No one mourns the passing of their single life. Love looks good on you and there's always two choices - Love or fear. So choose Love. Next up? Teaching people how to Choose Love. Links, books mentioned The Onion: Brain-Dead Teen, Only Capable Of Rolling Eyes And Texting, To Be Euthanized. Alcoholics Anonymous 12 Steps. Gabrielle Bernstein's book Spirit Junkie: A Radical Road to Self-Love and Miracles. Gabrielle Bernstein's Spirit Junkie Masterclass. The Course In Miracles. Wayne Dyer. Naropa Institute. Deepak Chopra Center. The Urban Dictionary. Neil Diamond's They're Coming to America. Breakup Rehab - Start Over Stronger. Wellness Tip (being resourced) Love has a learning curve. We need to have a little mercy for ourselves. Contact information Rebekah Freedom Author, Columnist, Speaker Rebekah Freedom's website Rebekah Freedom on Facebook Breakup Rehab - Start Over Stronger The Break-Down on How to Manage your Breakup Using podsafe music from http://ccmixter.org/ Loveshadow - Almost Given Up Nethis - Steady Speck - Greensleeves (whatever mix) DISCLAIMER The information contained in these podcasts and on this website is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease or health condition. Please consult a qualified healthcare professional to diagnose your health condition and prevent self diagnosis. We do not dispense medical advice or prescribe or diagnose illness. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration or the American Medical Association have not evaluated, approved, or disapproved the material contained in these podcasts or on this website or its related material. No specific claims are made in relation to any health conditions or the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of the devices contained in this website.    

www.AlternativeHealthTools.com This is a continuation of the 3-part series with Rebekah starting with episode 46 Addiction Counseling Transform Now AHT046: http://www.alternativehealthtools.com/addiction-counseling/ . Rebekah Freedom wrote Breakup Rehab - Start Over Stronger for individuals who know that conventional advice isn't enough to help them heal after their breakup. Breakup Rehab is for the lonely, the weary, the hopeless romantics, and the hopeful lovers. This book is for the divorced, divorcing, thinking of divorce, for the broken up, the breaking up, and after the break up. It has clear steps to guide you to healing after losing the love you so hoped you could hold onto. There ain’t no shame in your pain, but after a breakup it sure feels like it. And the phrases, "Get over it", "Un-friend", and "Find someone new" don’t help. Enter Breakup Rehab. This book is for people who are sick of the same old advice, who want to truly heal after a breakup and not just repeat old patterns, and who want to know what love is; who are singing, “I want you to show me.” This book cleverly takes the traditional twelve steps and customizes them to the breaking-up process. It is candid, direct, and at times humorous. This book isn’t for people who want to spend the next few years of their life pining after their ex and who just want more of the same. Reading this book will result in real change, growth, and clarity. Buckle up. You are about to go on a journey. Destination: Breakup Rehab. Quotes (unlinked quotes are Rebekah’s) Addiction is something that impacts all of us. Addiction is anything you do that prevents you from feeling your feelings. Love has a learning curve. We need to have a little mercy for ourselves. What fires together wires together. The seasons of the relationship. Disposable relationships. Dissociation and splitting. Alcoholics Anonymous 12 Steps. Stop the using and start the relating. Gabrielle Bernstein Become The Happiest Person You Know. Breakup Rehab - Start Over Stronger 12 Steps. You are not your comings and goings. You are the thing witnessing your comings and goings. Jealousy is not wanting another person to have what they have. But envy is thinking I’ll never have that. BOTH take you out of integrity. Some relationships have an expiration date. Feel your feelings. Maintain your integrity. Tony Robbins - Relationship is where you show-up to give. Start Over Stronger and Share True Connection. No one mourns the passing of their single life. Love looks good on you and there’s always two choices - Love or fear. So choose Love. Next up? Teaching people how to Choose Love. Links, books mentioned The Onion: Brain-Dead Teen, Only Capable Of Rolling Eyes And Texting, To Be Euthanized. Alcoholics Anonymous 12 Steps. Gabrielle Bernstein's book Spirit Junkie: A Radical Road to Self-Love and Miracles. Gabrielle Bernstein's Spirit Junkie Masterclass. The Course In Miracles. Wayne Dyer. Naropa Institute. Deepak Chopra Center. The Urban Dictionary. Neil Diamond's They're Coming to America. Breakup Rehab - Start Over Stronger. Wellness Tip (being resourced) Love has a learning curve. We need to have a little mercy for ourselves. Contact information Rebekah Freedom Author, Columnist, Speaker Rebekah Freedom's website Rebekah Freedom on Facebook Breakup Rehab - Start Over Stronger The Break-Down on How to Manage your Breakup Using podsafe music from http://ccmixter.org/ Loveshadow - Almost Given Up Nethis - Steady Speck - Greensleeves (whatever mix) DISCLAIMER The information contained in these podcasts and on this website is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease or health condition. Please consult a qualified healthcare professional to diagnose your health condition and prevent self diagnosis. We do not dispense medical advice or prescribe or diagnose illness. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration or the American Medical Association have not evaluated, approved, or disapproved the material contained in these podcasts or on this website or its related material. No specific claims are made in relation to any health conditions or the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of the devices contained in this website.    

Mirabai Bush is co-author, with Ram Dass, of Compassion in Action: Setting Out on the Path of Service. She has new CD program Working with Mindfulness from www.morethansound.net. She offers exercises from the workplace which she has taught at Google and other companies. Mirabai Bush was a co-founder of the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society and Executive Director there until 2008. The Center developed programs integrating contemplative practice and perspective into their lives and work. Mirabai holds a unique background of organizational management, teaching, and spiritual practice. For Seva Foundation, she co-developed Sustaining Compassion, Sustaining the Earth, a series of retreats and events for grassroots environmental activists. .Mirabai has organized, facilitated, and taught workshops, and courses on spirit and action for more than 20 years at institutions including Omega Institute, Naropa Institute, and Findhorne

Wednesday Reading Series Angela Carr's most recent book of poetry is Here in There (BookThug 2014). Her other poetry books are Ropewalk (2006) and The Rose Concordance (2009). She has also published a few chapbooks, including “Risk Accretions” in Handwerk. Currently, she teaches creative writing and poetry at The New School for Liberal Arts. In addition, she is a translator (French to English). Her book-length projects include Jean A. Baudot's 1964 poetry experiment, The Writing Machine. Her translation of Québécoise poet Chantal Neveu's Coït was also published by BookThug (2012). Selections from Carr's poetry have been translated into French, Spanish, Portuguese, Slovene and German. Originally from Montréal, Angela Carr now lives in New York City. Cedar Sigo was raised on the Suquamish Reservation in the Pacific Northwest and studied at The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at the Naropa Institute. He is the author of eight books and pamphlets of poetry, including Language Arts (Wave Books, 2014), Stranger In Town (City Lights, 2010), Expensive Magic (House Press, 2008), and two editions of Selected Writings (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2003 and 2005). He lives in San Francisco.

Katana and Vicky will be interviewing Author and Body-Centered Psychotherapist, Carolyn M. Hobbs. Join us as we’ll discuss:How to dissolve anxiety, fear and despair by locating it “in the body,” free of any mental story, and hold it in loving compassion.How to name unconscious limiting beliefs & change them within seconds.How to drop any resentment or fear story and return to the present, where all power always lives.Carolyn M. Hobbs is an Author, Therapist, Workshop Leader and former College Professor. She is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist specializing in Body-Centered Therapy. Carolyn is also a Workshop Teacher on Joy at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, SF-Bay Area, and has been since 2004. She is also a Professional Trainer at the U.S. Journal’s Annual Conferences in Santa Fe, NM & Seattle, WA. Carolyn is a Former Graduate Professor at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, CO. Lastly, Carolyn has served as a National Body-Centered Therapist for 35 years from home base in Durango, CO. To learn more about Carolyn go to Carolyn-hobbs.com.

Mirabai Bush is co-author, with Ram Dass, of Compassion in Action: Setting Out on the Path of Service. She has new CD program Working with Mindfulness from www.morethansound.net. She offers exercises from the workplace which she has taught at Google and other companies. Mirabai Bush was a co-founder of the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society and Executive Director there until 2008. The Center developed programs integrating contemplative practice and perspective into their lives and work. Mirabai holds a unique background of organizational management, teaching, and spiritual practice. For Seva Foundation, she co-developed Sustaining Compassion, Sustaining the Earth, a series of retreats and events for grassroots environmental activists. .Mirabai has organized, facilitated, and taught workshops, and courses on spirit and action for more than 20 years at institutions including Omega Institute, Naropa Institute, and Findhorne

IIn 1958, when I was sixteen and in tenth grade, I stole my parents' checkbook, booked a flight to New York with a bad check, and moved into the Plaza Hotel, where I assembled a wardrobe and other artifacts, went to a play on Broadway (J.B.), drank, ate high and finally bought a $2,500 Patek Phillipe watch in the hotel jewelry store — all paid for with bad checks from my parents checkbook (times were easier then for a child con man). In the end, they called my grandmother in New Jersey who wired enough money to bail me out and get me a train ticket to her. I lived with my grandmother for a while, got involved with a married woman, was found out by her ex-Marine husband, and escaped into the Army, where I soldiered poorly for three years or so in Germany. Upon my discharge from the Army, I returned to New Jersey and my grandmother and was hired on as an apprentice machinist at a shipyard in Camden, New Jersey, where my grandfather had worked. I learned a good trade to fall back on and embarked on a pretty good run of good jobs and bad and stupid adventures. Before long, a woman who worked for me left her husband and we took off for Southern California, where I settled into a career of poker, credit card scams, and fraudulent check operations. She didn't stay for long. When the police moved in to break up the ring of fences and check runners that I used to dispose of stolen merchandise and cash bad checks, I escaped by the skin of my teeth and ran away to Oregon with another woman who herself was on the run from her husband with her three kids in tow. I took a job there as a photocopy salesman and was soon arrested when the car I was driving was checked by the Oregon police and identified as having been bought in California with a bad check. After eighteen months in the hole, I was released from McNeil, and reunited with the woman with whom I had fled California, went to work for Boeing as a journeyman machinist in the R&D department, and joined the Revolutionary Communist Party. After several years, I left the RCP over an ideological dispute, and before long got involved with a ragtag bunch of anarcho-commies, led by my old comrade from McNeil, who called themselves with considerable grandiosity The George Jackson Brigade. I didn't stay caught for long. About six weeks later, I escaped with the help of friends who had evaded capture at the bank, and we left town for a while to lick our wounds and gather our strength. We returned about a year later to rob banks, sabotage capitalist institutions, and cause consternation among our enemies. We managed to do just that for another year or so, after which we were caught again, tried, convicted. I had been sentenced to a total of thirty years — an act of leniency that almost gave the prosecutor a stroke — and sent to the US Penitentiary at Lompoc, from which I escaped with the help of my new wife a couple of months later. I was put on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List, but this time I resolved to stay straight, as it were. We moved to Golden, Colorado, and I took a job as a precision machinist at Sundstrand, an aerospace company in Denver. All was going quite well until I undertook a campaign to unionize this rabidly anti-union company in the rabidly anti-union State of Colorado. I was fired but later was awarded a considerable settlement for violation of the labor laws that make it illegal to discharge an employee for union activities. I had made a record of very high productivity and accuracy in my work that made it impossible for Sundstrand successfully to claim that I had been fired for cause. During my years in prison, I studied philosophy, physics, metaphysics, etc. Early on, drawn by its unabashed celebration of a mystical reality, I even converted to Catholicism. Much later, in 1993, in a federal prison in Littleton, Colorado, I got involved with the Buddhists who were coming to prison from the Naropa Institute in Boulder.

If you experience any technical difficulties with this video or would like to make an accessibility-related request, please send a message to digicomm@uchicago.edu. The author of more than ten books in a range of genres as well as numerous performance works, Carla Harryman's recent publications include Open Box (Belladonna, 2007), Baby (Adventures in Poetry, 2006), Toujours l'epine est sous la rose (Ikko, 2006: tr. Martin Richet), and Gardener of Stars (Atelos, 2001). A collection of conceptual essays, Adorno's Noise, is forthcoming from Essay Press this spring. Recent performance pieces in Detroit, Montreal, Germany and Austria have featured bilingual choral improvisation and sound manipulation. She is also a participant in The Grand Piano collaboration, a ten-volume experiment in collective autobiography by ten writers originally identified with Language Poetry in the San Francisco Bay Area. Since her 1995 move out of the Bay Area, she has lived in Detroit. She currently teaches at Wayne State University, Naropa Institute, and the Bard College Milton Avery School of the Arts.

If you experience any technical difficulties with this video or would like to make an accessibility-related request, please send a message to digicomm@uchicago.edu. The author of more than ten books in a range of genres as well as numerous performance works, Carla Harryman's recent publications include Open Box (Belladonna, 2007), Baby (Adventures in Poetry, 2006), Toujours l'epine est sous la rose (Ikko, 2006: tr. Martin Richet), and Gardener of Stars (Atelos, 2001). A collection of conceptual essays, Adorno's Noise, is forthcoming from Essay Press this spring. Recent performance pieces in Detroit, Montreal, Germany and Austria have featured bilingual choral improvisation and sound manipulation. She is also a participant in The Grand Piano collaboration, a ten-volume experiment in collective autobiography by ten writers originally identified with Language Poetry in the San Francisco Bay Area. Since her 1995 move out of the Bay Area, she has lived in Detroit. She currently teaches at Wayne State University, Naropa Institute, and the Bard College Milton Avery School of the Arts.

Peter Warshall The Spiritual Labor of Earth Healing Join Michael Lerner in conversation with ecologist, activist, and essayist Peter Warshall, editor of Whole Earth Review, and teacher at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa Institute. Peter Warshall Peter was an ecologist, activist, and essayist whose work centered on conservation and conservation-based development. After receiving his A.B. in Biology from Harvard in 1964, he went on to study cultural anthropology at l’École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris with Claude Lévi-Strauss, as a Fulbright Scholar. He then returned to Harvard where he earned his Ph.D. in Biological Anthropology. Warshall’s research interests included natural history, natural resource management, and conservation biology. He worked as a consultant for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees in Ethiopia; for USAID and other organizations in ten other African nations; and he worked with the Tohono O’odham and Apache people of Arizona. Warshall was an editor of one of the later editions of the Whole Earth Catalog series, and served as an editor of its spin-off magazine, Whole Earth Review. He taught at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa Institute. Warshall died in 2013. Find out more about The New School at tns.commonweal.org.

Dominie Cappadonna, Ph.D. describes herself as a lifelong explorer of many dimensions of our human and nature experience. She has been teaching for the past 27 years in the fields of Transpersonal Psychology, Ecopsychology and Education. Currently she teaches at the Naropa Institute in Boulder Colorado, as well as the California Institute for Human Science and other places. She has published many articles and is currently working on her first book, True Nature: Essence Teachings in Nature. She is committed to engaged spirituality in all its forms and humanitarian projects (eg., in Cambodia and Brazil) with people exploring life transitions and rites of passage. She works as a psychotherapist as well as teaching. She says about the new field of Ecopsychology that it recognizes that human health, identity and sanity are integrally linked to the health of the earth and must included sustainable and mutually enhancing relationships between humans and the more than human world.Cappadonna has done an amazing amount of things which integrate into her mind set and work. She leads hikes into the wilderness, sailboat journey's for spiritual and psychological transformation, workshops and Sue Supriano met her at a Lifeboat gathering discussing the issues of peak oil, climate change, etc. and how we can and must live at this time.