New Dimensions

When Irving’s father signed on as an agricultural missionary in Haiti, she was transported from a sparsely populated desert in California into the lush terrain of the densely populated island of Haiti. She describes with great insight the challenge of building a deep democracy in a culture in crisis.Tags: Apricot Irving, memoir, Haiti, Christopher Columbus, Taino people, wailing at funerals, beauty, NGOs, earthquake in Haiti, Steve James M.D., democracy, Einstein, History, Writing, Health & Healing, Parenting, community

People are living longer but this new longevity is not equivalent to an extension of old age or years added on at the end of life. Bateson describes a whole new stage of aging: Adulthood II. It is a time endowed with wisdom, health, and energy. It is a time to become the needed visionaries society is calling for. She’s the author of Composing a Further Life: The Age of Active Wisdom.Tags: Mary Catherine Bateson, Aging, Adulthood II, ageism, friendship, post-reproductive women, intergenerational relationships, longevity, Social Change, Politics, Community, Family, Philosophy

An awakening is taking place planet-wide and it is a channeling of healing, peace, and higher consciousness. Stocker suggests that we are not alone in this evolution of awareness. Each one of us is divinely designed toward love. He calls this “holy electricity” and shares ways to activate this potential. Ricardo Stocker, Ph.D. grew up in Argentina, moved to Europe when he was 25 years old and now lives in California. He studied at Emerson College in England, Prescott College in Arizona, and at the Saybrook University in Oakland, CA. He’s a counselor, homesteader, musician, and professor of Psychology and Communication at Mendocino College. He is the author of Our Compassionate Kosmos: Awakening to the Presence of Celestial Love (Balboa Press 2016)Tags: Ricardo Stocker, night sky, original sin, Big Bang Theory, Rupert Sheldrake, gravity, speed of light, impermanence, vertical intelligence, horizontal intelligence, guardian angel, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Jesus, father mother god, holy electricity, prana, meditatio

Buddhist teacher Namgyel points out that “everything leans.”She frames this statement with the reminder, “[W]e live in a world where ‘it all depends’ and everything is influencing everything else. We might think we know something at one moment but everything is always interrupting and influencing and so it’s always changing. Life, as we know it, is very dynamic.” Elizabeth Mattis Namgyel is a Buddhist teacher and teaches throughout the U.S. and Europe. She’s the wife of Tibetan Buddhist master Dzigar Kongtrul and has studied and practiced in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition since 1985. After many years of solitary retreat, Dzigar Rinpoche appointed Elizabeth as Retreat Master at Longchen Jigme Samten Ling, retreat center in southern Colorado. Her books include It's Up to You: The Practice of Self-Reflection on the Buddhist Path (editor) (Shambhala 2006), Light Comes Through: Buddhist Teachings on Awakening to Our Natural Intelligence (editor) (Shambhala 2009), The Power of an Open Question: The Buddha's Path to

This dialogue with the daughters of Alan Watts takes a deep dive into the colorful and controversial life of this late philosopher and popularizer of Zen Buddhism and other Eastern philosophies. Through his collected letters they show how he was always learning something new, how he was clear that wisdom is not a static thing and his views will always be under revision.Tags: Alan Watts, Joan Watts, Anne Watts, Joan & Anne Watts, Joan and Anne Watts, Christmas Humphreys, Toby Humphreys) Buddhist Society of London, LSD, genetic code, Mandalas, Native Americans, Buddhist term tathāgata, psychedelics, History, Philosophy, Psychology

Kaufman grew up in the Bronx, the Jewish son of a Holocaust survivor. He recounts a most poignant tale of his trek to follow the footsteps of his mother’s escape from the Nazis. His two traveling companions are inexplicably sons of Nazis. With disarming candidness, he shares his story of sinking into alcoholism and his road to sobriety and writing.Tags: Alan Kaufman, Holocaust, Israel, alcoholism, addiction, Jim Brodey, Holocaust survivor, Second Generation Writers, Jewish, Jews, poetry, 12 step program, recovery, sobriety, History, Writing, Alcoholism, Personal transformation

Ora Nadrich shares a series of fundamental and effective questions we can ask ourselves when we pay attention to our negative thoughts. Her “Says Who!” Method can transform fear-based and worried thoughts into thoughts that serve our well-being and support positive action. Tags: Ora Nadrich, Jungian analysis, fear-based thoughts, worry, negative thoughts, neural pathways, busyness, monkey mind, isolation, beliefs, mindfulness, thoughts as a cheering squad, road rage, Pollyanna, baby steps, Spirituality,Personal Transformation, Self Help, Psychology, Relationship

This dialogue is filled with practical wisdom to support us in growing calmness and well-being so we may be more effective and resilient in our lives. Hanson assures us that the core of our being is “calm strength.” It is the background of who we are; it is a fundamental quality, the “wallpaper of our mind.”Tags: MP3, Rick Hanson, resilience, resilient, neuropsychology, resistance, persistence, developmental psychology, calmness, calm, Foundations of Well-Being, desire, neuroscience, brain, motivation, liking something, wanting something, brain science, motivational brain circuit, dopamine, neurochemicals, empathy, mirror neurons, empathic, generosity, Forrest Hanson, Health & Healing, Psychology, Science, Personal Transformation, Self Help

Sometimes our activity for positive change in the world makes a visible leap and other times the impact of our work takes a seemingly long time to show any results. As Loeb points out, “You draw hope from the knowledge that whatever it is that you do, something unexpected is going to happen. And, it often happens at the periphery of your vision.”Tags: Paul Rogat Loeb, Paul Loeb, Vaclav Havel, Velvet Revolution, Keystone Pipeline, Rosa Parks, Raymond Parks, Dr. Benjamin Spock, Anti-Nuclear Proliferation, grassroots movements, Clarence Jordan, Koinonia Farm, Tiananmen Square, Tank man, Tolstoy, David Roberts, Grist Magazine, Climate Change, hope, optimism, renewable energy, Jay Inslee, Governor of Washington State, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Dan Savage, Gay Rights Movement, getting out the vote, Walter Wink, Jesus and Alinsky, Bible stories, Turn the other cheek, nonviolent resistance, minimum wage, bike lanes, Cuiritiba Brazil, Bill McKibben, Peace/Nonviolence

Shakti, the feminine lifeforce energy that marries with our well-honed masculine skills, can fuel our creative endeavors.Our inner resources are like a tree, needing to be grounded like roots, giving and receiving love from the heart like the trunk of the tree. Connecting with spirit can be akin to the branches reaching upwards.  Tags: Lisa Schrader, sacred feminine, Shakti, tree of life, soul work, inner wisdom, showing up, masculine energy, beauty, pleasure, stress, sexuality, tantra, shame, resourced, self love, bisexuality, static masculine, static feminine, dynamic feminine, powerlessness, empowerment, oxytocin, Spirituality, Women's Studies, Personal Transformation, Meditation

As we deal with the many successes and challenges of life, Sluyter guides us in understanding the benefits of natural meditation and shares that tuning into our inner luminous silence is actually what we are at our deepest core level. He says that love is a lack of otherness and reminds us that fear and love cannot occupy the same place at the same time. Tags: Dean Sluyter, dharma, silence, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, luminous silence, emptiness, fear, addiction, anxiety, anger, Miles Davis, Rupert Spira, fear and hope, fear and love, karma yoga, grief, prisons, Vajrasattva practice, Aikido, silly walks, Personal Transformation, Self Help, Meditation, Buddhism, Death and Dying 

Octopuses are highly intelligent, show their cleverness in myriad ways, and love to play. Montgomery describes befriending several of them over a number of years and shares how they can make remarkable connections with individual people. This is a most fascinating dialogue about the meeting of two very different minds, human and octopus.Tags: Sy Montgomery, devilfish, Wilson Menashi, scuba diving, the Octopus Church in Mo’orea, octopus, Animals, Ecology/Nature/Environment, Science

Every day, it appears, the news about climate change is worse, as is the precarious balance of global politics. When it seems we are bent on destruction Bruce Lipton and Steve Bhaerman see our dire state as evidence of an evolutionary shift, as profound as the transformation of a caterpillar to a butterfly. Bruce Lipton, Ph.D. is an internationally recognized cellular and stem cell biologist and the recipient of the 2009 Goi Peace Award. He is an internationally recognized leader in bridging science and spirit. Steve Bhaerman is an author, humorist, and workshop leader. He’s also known as Swami Beyondananda, the “Cosmic Comic.” Tags: Bruce Lipton, Steve Bhaerman, Swami Beyondananda, Biology, Caterpillar, Butterfly, Imaginal Cells, Love, Fractal Mathematics, America, Baboons, Bonobos, Iain Couzin, Darwin, Social Change, Politics, Ecology, Nature, Environment, Global Culture, Science

Millions of people have reported having a dream or intuition that later came true. There is compelling data  from a growing mountain of research and fascinating theories about what it all means. Collectively, Dossey sees this information as one more clue that we’re all connected, each of us part of a great continuum that extends beyond space and time.Tags: Larry Dossey, ESP, premonition, consciousness, remote viewing, J. B. Rhine, 9/11 stories, John William Dulnne, David Bohm, Dreams, Health & Healing, Intuition, Psychic, Parapsychology, Paranormal, Science, Spirituality

How may we focus on what is important to us? How can we avoid technology overload? Why do certain things grab our attention and not others? With so many things now demanding our attention - emails, cell phones, text messages - many of us are overwhelmed by a plethora of distractions. Our lives may be described as the sum of what we focus on.Tags: Winifred Gallagher, psychology, focus, attention, meditation, brain, motivation, will power, Science, Psychology 

A lifelong Christian monastic who now lives in a cabin in the desert, Bielecki offers practical suggestions that will help you break out of the everydayness of your spiritual practice, bring laughter and play into your relationship with the sacred, and rediscover the wildness in your own life.Tags: Bible, Christianity, Desert Foundation, Jesus, mp3, Mysticism, Sabbath, Saint Teresa of Avila, Saints, Scriptures, spirituality, Tessa Bielecki

Williams connects two catastrophic events: living downwind of nuclear testing in the deserts of Utah, and the record-breaking flooding of the Great Salt Lake. These events have deeply affected her sense of the need for refuge. She poetically conveys to us her personal perspectives on grief, love, and the spirituality of nature, lake and desert.Tags: Terry Tempest Williams, atomic testing, nuclear power, Great Salt Lake, Utah, cancer, nature, grief, spirituality, creativity, family, relationship, poetry, ancestors, Ecology, Nature, Environment, Social Change, /Politics, Personal Transformation, Relationship, Partnerships, Self Help

Travel with Susan Moon to get an inside view on the perils and joys of aging. With humor and deep insight, she encourages us to move forward in our aging with courage and hope. She talks about coping with “senior moments”, facing the death of loved ones and why long-term friendships matter. She is the author of This is Getting Old: Zen Thoughts on Aging with Humor and Dignity.Tags: Susan Moon, Personal Transformation,  Buddhism,  Community,  Death , Dying,  Aging , Senior Moment, Eldering, Growing Old, Personal Growth, Buddhism, Community, Death & Dying

The stories we tell ourselves about our childhood and our present life are like clothing we put on. But do these tales tell us who we truly are? Gangaji says, "For better and worse, our stories become the reference points for defining who we are, who we are with, and what it all means." How do we separate ourselves from this narrative and uncover the truth of our lives?Tags: Gangaji, Stories, storytelling, suffering, personal narrative, nature of inquiry, fear, habits of mind, questions, reversal of fortune, Papaji, Sri H.W.L. Poonja, emotion, emotions, feeling, feelings, Spirituality, Meditation, Personal Transformation, Psychology, Religion, Self Help

Homer survived being trapped without Cooper for days after 9/11 in an apartment near the World Trade Center. Listen as Cooper shares how his unswerving loyalty, his infinite capacity for love, and his joy in the face of all obstacles inspired her daily and transformed her life.Tags: Gwen Cooper, cat, veterinarian, 9/11, love, animal companions, Animals, Relationship, Partnership, Sexuality