A Show of Hearts

This episode is with Neil Gumenick, a Five Element Acupuncturist and student of JR

In this episode, you’ll hear about how Neil went from being a police officer to being an acupuncturist and what the common thread is between the two. You’ll also hear him speak about the difference between body, mind and spirit imbalances as well as how each of the five elements manifest in different people. He goes into the different tools one uses to diagnose someone in Five Elements, and he goes into detail about a particular block he has treated many times and what that looks like. At the end he speaks about the gifts acupuncture has given him.

The post The Spirits and Healing Power of the Points with Acupuncturist Neil Gumenick appeared first on A Show of Hearts.

Max ZT is a world-renowned hammered dulcimer player who lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Priya Darshini (from a previous episode). NPR referred to Max as the Jimi Hendrix of hammered dulcimer. Max’s plays mesmerizing music—weaving Indian, African, and Celtic traditions into music that is both medicine and meditation.

In this episode you’ll hear Max talk about discovering the hammered dulcimer as a small child, learning how to play it, and eventually living in first Senegal and then India, where he studied with his guru (teacher), Pandit Shivkumar Sharma, who was the world’s foremost santoor player. Max has only ever played hammered dulcimer, it’s been his one and only profession. As a result, he is arguably the most talented player of that instrument in the world. He has been nominated for one Grammy for an album by his band, House of Waters, and for many other albums as a collaborator, including Priya’s album, Periphery.

In this episode you will hear Max speak about what following his heart has looked like, how he copes with what’s happening in the world and how his instrument helps him with this. He says a lot of people with creative professions weren’t hit quite as hard with the pandemic because they had a significant outlet. Listen as he shares what gifts the dulcimer has given him and join us in igniting the world with our hearts by following yours with courage and strength.

Find Max here:

https://www.maxzt.com/

 @maxzt

The post Music as a Journey of the Heart, with Hammered Dulcimer Player Max ZT appeared first on A Show of Hearts.

Fed up with the patriarchy? In this episode of A Show of Hearts, host Rosemary Pritzker dives into the Tibetan Buddhist practice of Green Tara, who is a beloved deity revered as the great mother. Doing this practice not only shows reverence for her but helps us to cultivate the divine feminine energy in ourselves and to recognize it all around us. Rosemary shares how she came to the practice 19 years ago in Montana, what it has offered her over the years, how she’s turned to it in times of need, and what you can expect to gain from doing it yourself. This practice can help you to feel empowered, offers a bridge from your everyday life to the divine, and it reminds us we are all part of the same ocean.

A rich and complex practice, Rosemary talks about the concept of archetypes, explains who Green Tara was, guides you through the mantras of the practice, explains what they mean and what to visualize and then leads you through the practice itself. This episode was recorded as a live class in her home, so you’ll hear the experiences of attendees and their in-depth Q&A session about Tibetan Buddhism after completing the meditation. If you haven’t tried Green Tara practice before but love meditation, give it a try and connect to your inner divine feminine!

Resources mentioned in the episode:

Materials for beginners: Lama Tsomo

Thanks so much for listening! If you like what you heard, please subscribe and give a five star review on iTunes, visit www.ashowofhearts.com or follow us @ashowofhearts on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook! Take a screenshot of this episode and share it in your Instastory and use the hashtag #ashowofhearts . Feel free to email us at info@ashowofhearts with any questions or comments!

You’re listening to A Show Of Hearts, the podcast about finding the courage to live a deep and magical life. I’m your host, life coach Rosemary Pritzker. (singing)

In today’s episode I’ll be leading you in the Tibetan Buddhist meditation practice of Green Tara, the Great Mother. You can think of it as kind of a sacred goddess practice, designed to get us in touch with the divine feminine.

I began learning this about a month after I graduated high school, in the summer of 2000, when I did a two week Green Tara retreat with my teacher Tulku Sangak Rinpoche. Since then I’ve done Green Tara practice with my sangha or spiritual community, based in Montana, many times. And I’ve done it countless times on my own as well. So this practice is very close to my heart.

Part of why I wanted to share it with you is because it’s one of the tools I’ve used to center myself in order to more effectively follow my heart in life. It’s allowed me to sort of commune with the divine, get my head on straight, and drop more deeply into my heart. Centering in this way is incredibly helpful in the pursuit of knowing yourself, feeling your own power, and listening to the intuitive guidance system within you. There have been times where I’ve really been struggling, usually with health problems, where I can turn to this practice and feel empowered and get a sense of solace in that connection with the divine feminine.

It’s also allowed me to go more deeply into connecting with my lineage, which has been passed down from one lama to another for thousands of years.

This ancient wisdom still has its place today because humans are humans, and we still suffer with a lot of the same basic issues of living everyday life. So, these are tried and true principles that can help just about anyone. Another reason I wanted to share this practice is, because Tibetan Buddhism is kind of complex, and it can be challenging to find any really good quality guidance or materials for newer practitioners, which makes it a little hard to break into, and I wasn’t finding much of anything that I could refer people to.

When I’ve done online searches to try to find more information or instruction on Green Tara, I wasn’t able to come up with much, and I wasn’t really connecting with the few books I found. So, most of what I share in this episode, I learned directly from two people: the first is my mom, whose Tibetan name is Lama Tsomo. She speaks Tibetan and is an ordained lama, which is something similar to a minister or rabbi. She’s also the author of the book Why Is The Dalai Lama Always Smiling?, which is an introduction to Tibetan Buddhism for westerners.

The other person I learned some of this information from is Namchak Khen Rinpoche. He’s the brother of my teacher, but he is an accomplished scholar and teacher himself.

Now, I wanna give a little disclaimer, which is that I’m not ordained or certified in any way, so what I’m teaching here is just coming from my own experience and what I’ve learned from my teachers. But if you wanna go deeper, you’ll wanna seek out a more qualified instructor. I’ll get more into that at the end, and leave you with some resources. What you’ll hear in this episode today was recorded in a class I taught to a small group of people in my living room. First I gave a talk explaining what was going on, how it works, and why one would want to do Green Tara practice. And then we dove in and actually did it.

But before we get started, I’d love to share the review of the month. This one is from Raphael, he wrote: “Touching. An absolute gem of a podcast, with heartfelt moments and inspiring stories. I highly recommend it.” Thank you Rafael. And if you wanna be featured as the review of the month, head over to iTunes and give a five star review, and be sure to leave your name.

And now, let’s dive into the episode.

So, the practice we’re gonna do tonight is to Green Tara, who is a deity in Tibetan Buddhism, who’s regarded as the Great Mother, the Mother of all Buddhas. She’s also referred to as the Great Liberator. So Green Tara was a princess actually in Sri Lanka, a really long time ago. We actually don’t know how long ago. And, her name was Yeshe Dawa, Dawa means moon. Yeshe is like a form of wisdom. And, yeah, she was Mahayana Buddhist and she lived at the same time as Amitabha, who is the Buddha of limitless light and life. And she was actually his benefactor. She would give food and whatever else to him and his monks. And, some of his students would say to her frequently, “Oh, you know, you’re getting such good karmic merit for helping all these people. You should pray really hard to come back as a man so you can reach enlightenment.”

And, her response was to become very determined to reach enlightenment as a woman, and to keep coming back, keep reincarnating to help as many beings as possible to reach enlightenment, and to keep reincarnating as a woman. And, not only is this my favorite practice and has been for a really long time, but I also feel like it’s really important right now with what’s going on in the world, where the patriarchy seems to kinda be rearing its head. And, there’s a lot of Buddhist feminism I would sort of say around Green Tara. So it seems like the right thing to be bringing forth right now.

And, yeah. So I first started doing this practice pretty much exactly 19 years ago, in a two week retreat with my lama and what was the beginnings of a sangha Buddhist community in Montana, where he taught us all about her, taught us details about the practice and her life, and all kinds of stuff. Then what was that tiny little group of people, sort of mushroomed into this huge thriving community that’s there now, that since then has built this place called The Garden of a Thousand Buddhas, it was meant to me like basically a pilgrimage site, now that most Tibetan people can’t live in Tibet and have built, you know, be where the pilgrimage sites there are.

So, it’s called The Garden of a Thousand Buddhas because there are a thousand three foot high Buddha statues in the shapes of like the spokes of a wheel around this giant 24 foot high central figure of Yum Chenmo, which is another Great Mother figure who’s actually an emanation of Green Tara. The temple there, which is where all of the retreats and workshops and teachings and stuff happen, is a Tara temple. So, if anyone listening ever finds themself in Montana, definitely go check out The Garden of a Thousand Buddhas. I mean there’s like a constant stream of people stopping there to check it out all day ever day. And, it’s really beautiful and just so powerful.

Anyway, so yeah, so Green Tara started out as a princess, did reach enlightenment or became a bodhisattva, which basically is someone who kinda stops just short of reaching enlightenment and dissolving into the ocean of existence, stops just short so that they can keep coming back and helping people to free themselves. And so, in that sense she has immense compassion. It was said that she liberated a thousand people every day before breakfast. So she was busy. Yeah, and her name as the princess as I said was Yeshe Dawa, and then once she became the bodhisattva, became Green Tara, the Tibetan name for Green Tara is Jetsun Dolma.

So, this practice is considered a deity practice. Tibetans are known for doing deity practice, it’s kind of one of the hallmarks of Tibetan Buddhism. And, it’s really drawing on archetypes. So, you may have heard of archetypes in like the Jungian sense of, you know, you might have heard it as like the warrior or the priestess, et cetera. Each one of them has a different name and configuration and whatever. But, they’re basically seen as these principles of reality. A good example is the Great Mother. So, we see our mother as the Great Mother, ’cause that’s like our mother is our point of reference, but that Great Mother feeling is a principle of reality, that is kind of imbued in everything.

These archetypes are everywhere. For example, you know, we went from monarchy to then a new system, you know, democracy obviously, where we still needed to have that point of reference of this archetypal whatever to look up to, that need for something like that to turn to is so ingrained in us. And I think that it’s part of the whole, usually unconscious desire to have something to remind us that there’s something higher, that we’re not separate.

Yeah, so basically we turned from the monarchy to Hollywood for that. But Hollywood and all the movies that we watch and the actors and actresses we pay attention to, and the award shows that they go to and whatever, it’s not actually filling that deep need for like, I would say reverence or also just kind of answering our questions about the universe or … It’s good to still have something deeper to turn to, which different wisdom traditions have these different archetypes. Christians have Jesus and the Virgin Mary, and in Tibetan Buddhism they’ve got these deities. There’s tons and tons of different deities, and Green Tara is one of them.

They believe that these archetypes are in everything, because nothing is separate. I know that sounds like kind of vague and, “What does she mean by that?” So one way to think of it is, like imagine this vast ocean that represents everything in the universe and beyond, and then we thinking that we’re separate, are really just these waves on that ocean, and the waves eventually go back into the ocean and are always part of it, they’re never separate from it. So that’s like us, as part of that greater ocean. And, just like that, the mother archetype is one thing that’s in the soup of that ocean. So if that’s the case, then Green Tara is in there too. So there’s nowhere and no thing in which Green Tara isn’t, if that makes sense. Yeah. So that archetype of the Great Mother is everywhere, including in us.

So, in Green Tara practice, which is a deity practice, we imagine ourselves as the archetypal image of Green Tara, to bring that out of ourselves, while also paying homage to an outside version of her, so like imagining ourselves as Green Tara and imagining a version of Green Tara in front of us too. So, I’m her, but I’m also paying homage to her, it’s both because the principle of the Great Mother is everywhere. It’s in me, it’s in front of me, it’s all around me actually.

So, yeah. So we use these archetypal images in order to feel the quality and presence of the archetype themselves. And this is something that I’ve felt, you know, I’m going about my life as like a regular old human, thinking I’m all separate and all, and then I go to do Green Tara practice, and it’s like, “Oh.” There’s this whole other thing that I’m not even noticing as I’m in my daily life. Like I sit down and imagine becoming her and there’s so much power in that. And, we’ve got these super active imaginations and Tibetan Buddhists like to really utilize that, like making use of our wild imaginations and emotions, and bringing all of that on to the path of enlightenment.

So, directing it in a way that serves a purpose, that’s like ultimately the purpose is to liberate us from the suffering of feeling that separation. So we’re basically using these archetypes to piggyback on them to remind us of the ocean that we are all a part of. But we have trouble remembering we are part of this ocean. That we’re not just the waves, and if we didn’t have trouble remembering that, we’d all be enlightened already. That’s kind of how that works. So, deity practice is one of the hallmarks of Vajrayana or Tibetan Buddhism, and the goal is to help us to get pure vision.

So we see things in this super confused way, we don’t really know how to clean the windshield on our own in order to get clarity, to see clearly. So, we use deity practice, working on the archetypal level as a bridge for our complex minds. So, taking our monkey mind and our tendency for complex thoughts, you know, our mind is kinda like this super computer that’s super active all the time, and it wants to think about stuff. So rather than trying to make our minds go blank, we use these practices to turn our mind towards the path of enlightenment, rather than on rumination and misery and grasping at stuff. And, these are really efficient methods honed over a really long time by masters who were coming from that place of not being separate from the whole ocean.

So, if I’m ever feeling disempowered in whatever way, I can use deity practice as a really good anecdote do that, because it’s an opportunity to remind ourselves of our power, of our divinity, of our connectedness. But we need that bridge to the divine from the complex reality we’re used to, to remember we’re all one enlightened mind basically.

So, I wanna kinda give you a bit of an overview of like the sort of progression of events in this practice that we’re about to do. So, if you imagine welcoming an illustrious guest, then this practice starts to make a lot more sense. So, imagine Nelson Mandela or Gandhi or the Dalai Lama in this case, since it’s Tibetan Buddhism we’re talking about, let’s just use the Dalai Lama as an example. So, you imagine you invite the Dalai Lama to come and then, you know, he comes, you open the door, you welcome him in, you offer him all sorts of lovely wonderful things, you praise him, and you might even make a request of him, that’s what’s happening here.

So, you’ll see these stages of inviting, welcoming, offering praise and making requests. You’ll see these stages in all Tibetan deity practice. So, in this practice, we’re gonna at various points visualize ourselves as Green Tara. For those listening, if you’re on my website, there’s gonna be a photo there of her. If you’re listening through Apple Podcast or somewhere else where you can’t see an image of her, it’ll be both on my website and on all of my social media, all of which is at A Show Of Hearts, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, all the things. So, see if you could find that image. And, if for whatever reason you can’t find it on any of my places, just Google Green Tara and you’ll see a picture of her.

So, throughout the practice we visualize ourselves as Green Tara, this green goddess-ey Great Mother woman with the right foot sticking out, actually has green skin. And, we are becoming empowered by becoming this deity. And, there are different deities associated with different qualities, and they’re all qualities that we have deep inside of us, that we haven’t been able to bring up out of the basement for whatever reason. So, we’re using this to bring those qualities out. For example, compassion, in the case of Tara that’s one of the things that we’re bringing out.

So, another thing I wanna talk about is mantra, which mantras are sound formulas that are connected to specific aspects of reality. So, great masters who were much more aware than us, put together particular sound formulas for specific effects, that if you pay really really close attention, you can actually feel in your body, like the heart syllable is hung, which if you sit still and close your eyes and pay attention to the sensations in your body and then say, “Hung.” You’ll feel that resonating in your chest.

So, the Tara mantra connects us to the Great Mother principle. That’s what that sound formula was designed for. In this practice there’s various different mantras and other things that we’re chanting. The first thing that I’m gonna chant is this very well known thing called the Seven Line Prayer, that is at the beginning of a lot of different practices, and it’s a way to call the enlightened presence of this guide, Guru Rinpoche, the Tibetan is Guru Rinpoche, the Sanskrit is Padmasambhava, he was the guy that brought Buddhism from India to Tibet, and then worked with this king, the king of the time in Tibet, Trisong Detsen, worked with him to combine Buddhism that he’d brought from India, with the pre-Buddhist religion of Tibet called Bon. I’ll talk more about that after we do the practice.

So, that’s who Guru Rinpoche is, the one who brought Buddhism to Tibet. So, that’s what that first thing you’re gonna hear me chanting is. And again, that’s to call his presence in. And then the same with this other thing that you’ll hear towards the end called The Hundred Syllable Mantra, which is to this guy Vajrasattva, and he’s all about cleansing and wiping the windshield basically. And, you don’t have to remember all of this stuff that I just said, I’m just saying it so that you have these examples of like, “Oh okay, so these are some of the different kinds of things that mantra is used for in the context of an actual practice.” It’s a formula, you know, for alchemizing the mind really.

So, the heart of this practice is this part where I’ll be calling out the names of the 21 Tara’s. So there are 21 different versions or emanations or whatever of Tara. There are different colors, they have different qualities. Some are wrathful, like that mama bear, fierce quality I was talking about earlier. Some are about generosity and bounty, some are extremely attractive, others totally ferocious. They all serve their own different important purpose. And this practice is calling out and praising each of them, the 21 of them.

All right. So, just take a moment to get comfortable. So just take a breath and let it go gently. Just start to let your body and your breath relax. With each breath your body becomes more and more relaxed.

And as we practice, make sure you’re not trying too hard. Just do your best and sort of just let go. Make sure there’s a sense of ease.

So now imagine that you are a part of this vast ocean. See if you can bring up that feeling of the vast ocean. And this ocean is completely compassionate and so loving. This ocean is aware. It’s the source of everything.

It’s all compassionate and all loving because it’s the generator of everything.

Immerse yourself in the feeling of that compassionate intent as the ocean.

And let your breath be gentle and natural.

Keep feeling that immense compassion as the ocean. Keep feeling yourself as part of this ultimately compassionate, ultimately loving vast ocean.

Out of this ocean you arise as Green Tara. So imagine yourself as this green skinned lady, sitting cross legged but with your right leg kinda sticking out in front of you a little bit. And don’t worry about having the image of her be perfect. It’s more about the feeling.

So here you are embodying Green Tara. And see if you can bring up a sense of faith in her, in recognizing this principle of reality, of the vast ocean and her as part of it. Feel the power and the truth of that.

So now continue to visualize yourself as Green Tara and I’m gonna start singing and chanting a bunch of stuff. Do not worry at all about not understanding what I’m saying. It’s not necessarily meant to be understood, it’s meant to be felt. So just let the feeling of it wash over you, and work its magic on you, alchemize you. Think of it as sacred sound.

(Singing)

I’m just gonna say that in English so you guys have a little bit of an idea. Hung in the northwest of the country of origin, in the pollen heart of a stemmed lotus, endowed with the wondrous supreme siddhi, you are renowned as the lotus born, surrounded by a retinue of many Dakinis. I follow in your footsteps. Please approach and grant your blessings Guru Pama Siddhi Hung. In the sky in front of me appears the accomplished, transcendent conqueress, inseparable from my lama, from the mandala of the hand of protector Amitabha, whence arose from the eye of the lord of the world, the swift mother, the source of an ocean of Dakinis. 21 emanations of the conquerors compassion, the glorious swift mother, the activity of all victorious ones. To my lama, lord protector, inseparable from all enlightened ones, I prostrate and pray that you bestow blessings and empowerment.

Namo, to venerable mother, the essence of the ocean of refuge, I go for protection until I reach the heart of enlightenment. May all sentient beings drowning in the ocean of suffering accomplish the state of the mother Arya Tara.

Namo, to venerable mother, the essence of the ocean of refuge, I go for protection until I reach the heart of enlightenment. May all sentient beings drowning in the ocean of suffering accomplish the state of the mother Arya Tara.

Namo, to venerable mother, the essence of the ocean of refuge, I go for protection until I reach the heart of enlightenment. May all sentient beings drowning in the ocean of suffering accomplish the state of the mother Arya Tara.

Ho, mother Arya Tara and all the victorious ones and their heirs, I prostrate, make offerings and confess negative actions and transgressions from my heart. I rejoice in virtue and invoke the Buddhas to remain and teach the Dharma. I dedicate the accumulation of merit to attaining the state of the exalted mother.

Om Ma Hung, in the completely pure realm of Uloko, a ray of turquoise leaves, in the center of an ocean filled with the clouds of Sumanta Vajra’s offerings.

Tam, instantly upon recollection I appear as the perfect form of mother Arya Tara. Clearly in the three places, forehead, throat and heart, appear three Vajra letters: Om, Ah, Hung.

So now I’m gonna pause here and just explain. So what we’re gonna visualize now is basically you have two options here. You can keep just visualizing yourself as Green Tara, if what I’m about to explain is a little too complex. Or you can do this next visualization which is, so you as Tara imagine light rays coming from your heart, going out in every direction as far as, you know, basically out into infinity. And these light rays go way way way out and then they call forth the ultimate, most empowered, most wise version of Tara, who appears in front of you.

So now you’ve got yourself as Tara and Tara in front of you. Here we are as Green Tara, and we’re about to imagine the light rays coming from our heart, shooting out in all directions, way to into infinity, calling forth this powerful version of Green Tara. So just imagine that as I say this next part.

From the heart light rays radiate to all the victorious ones and their heirs, invoking the form of Arya Tara, with 21 emanated Goddesses, who dancing in delight, appear real and perfectly clear to my senses.

And then this next part is what’s called a mandala offering. So as I’m saying this next part, you can just imagine that you’re offering to her all of the most wonderful things in the universe, especially all of the most wonderful things you have. And again, keeping in mind that idea that you’re offering this to this illustrious guest that you’ve invited.

So … Om Ma Hung, together with the ocean and clouds of real and imagined offerings, I offer the mandala of my body enjoyments and collection of virtue. May I and all beings gather the accumulations and purify obscurations. From now until the heart of enlightenment is reached, may we never be separated from the compassion of the exalted mother.

Okay, so this next part is the real heart of the practice. This is where I’m gonna be calling out the 21 names of Tara. It’s a really long chant that is first recited two times in a row, then I go back to do that mandala offering we just did. Then I recite this 21 Tara praises three times, go back to the mandala offering, and then I recite this seven times. That’s how this practice was designed to be done, it’s part of the magic. And, while I’m signing this, just imagine yourself as basically supplicating to her as if you’re asking her for help for whatever’s going on in your life, you know, aliments, you have whatever’s going on that you would need help with, as if you’re like a child calling out to its mother.

And, you’re calling to the version of Tara in front of you, that you’re visualizing. You’re still also Tara, but that’s sort of an afterthought you don’t really need to think about. You’re just really focusing on the Tara in front of you, supplicating to her, and bringing forth that sense of faith in her.

There have been plenty of times when I’ve been doing this practice where I’ll suddenly break down into tears, either during the part where I’m visualizing myself as Green Tara, and it’s kind of reminding me of my power, which I may have kind of forgotten about for a while. Or during the part where I’m imagining her in front of me and, like I said, supplicating to her as if, you know, sort of like a child reaching for their mother, asking for help. If I’m really struggling with something in my life, that can feel really powerful. So, if you find yourself getting really emotional during this practice, that’s totally normal.

(Singing)

So that was one.

(Singing)

So back to the mandala offering and imagining offering her all of these wonderful things. Om Ma Hung, together with the ocean and clouds of real and imagined offerings, I offer the mandala of my body enjoyments and collection of virtue. May I and all beings gather the accumulations and purify obscurations. From now until the heart of enlightenment is reached, may we never be separated from the compassion of the exalted mother.

(Singing)

So now back to the mandala offering. Om Ma Hung, together with the ocean and clouds of real and imagined offerings, I offer the mandala of my body enjoyments and collection of virtue. May I and all beings gather the accumulations and purify obscurations. From now until the heart of enlightenment is reached, may we never be separated from the compassion of the exalted mother.

And one thing I wanted to add before I do this next recitation that is gonna be longer, it’s gonna be seven times, is just with everything going on in the world and how, you know, I was saying earlier about how the patriarchy’s really been rearing its head lately, if we can use this practice to flood the world with more feminine energy, but like powerful, ultimate mother, ultimately powerful, kind of fierce, but like truly ultimately loving, compassionate, feminine energy, that’s part of what we’re doing here too. So …

(Singing)

Khey, from the mandala of the hand of protector Amitabha, whence arose from the eye of the lord of the world Amitayurdhyana Sutra the swift mother, the source of an ocean of Dakinis, 21 emanations of the conqueror’s compassion, the glorious swift mother, the activity of all victorious ones. To my lama and lord protector, inseparable from all enlightened ones, I prostrate and pray that you bestow blessings and empowerment.

So, for this next part, imagine that the version of Tara that’s in front of you now comes and places herself above your head, facing forward. And then out of her comes what we’re referring to as the empowerments, all of these powerful qualities that she possesses. The visualization that I’m gonna be doing is a little bit complicated, so I think what I’m just gonna have you guys do is just imagine coming out of her is this like kind of golden liquid, it’s basically wisdom nectar called Amrita. So just imagine the Green Tara above you has this golden wisdom nectar pouring down into you, completely filling you.

And, take a minute to do that while I’m reciting this next part, and then imagine her dissolving, kind of pouring down in through the top of your head. So she dissolves into you and fills you. And so, now you are the version of Tara that you had imagined yourself as before, that is also filled with and imbued with the ultimate powers of the ultimate version of Tara that was coming from the outside. So …

I prostrate and pray that you bestow blessings and empowerment from the exalted teachers, the places, white, red, blue, yellow light rays, radiate sequentially. They dissolve into my four places. I obtain the four empowerments. Arya Tara joyfully dissolves into light then into myself. I appear clearly as the accomplished transcendent conqueress. Look upon the absolute noble mother, the unity of lucidity and emptiness. And as I’m saying that there are peacocks calling in the background which is very interesting.

In Tibetan Buddhism they use peacock feathers a lot because they’re this symbol of, according to them anyway, peacocks can eat all kinds of different things that are supposedly poisonous and it doesn’t harm them, and in fact it ends up making their feathers more colorful. And peacocks are totally my spirit animal, at least right now. And so, I really like that image.

Now you are Tara, this like ultimately powerful version of Tara. You’re kind of glowing with this very pure power, and just full of compassion and love. So, now we’re going to sing together if you guys wanna join me. So, we’re gonna sing the Green Tara mantra which is very short. I promise it is mercifully short. If you guys wanna join me, you don’t have to. So, I’m just gonna recite it once so you can hear it and then I’ll quick teach it to you. So, the words are: Om Tare Tuttare Ture Soha. So, Om Tare.

Om Tare.

Tuttare.

Tuttare.

Ture Soha.

Ture Soha.

Om Tare.

Om Tare.

Tuttare.

Tuttare.

Ture Soha.

Ture Soha.

Om Tare Tuttare Ture Soha.

Om Tare Tuttare Ture Soha.

Om Tare.

Tuttare.

Ture Soha.

Ture Soha.

So, Om Tare Tuttare.

Om Tare Tuttare.

Ture Soha.

Ture Soha.

Let’s do it one more time. Om Tare Tuttare.

Om Tare Tuttare.

Ture Soha.

Ture Soha.

So I’m just gonna sing it, and just let me sing it through a few times on my own so you can hear it, and then if and when you’re ready you can join in.

(Singing)

Om Tare Tuttare Ture Soha.

So this next part I mentioned in the beginning of … It is just more archetypal sound, it’s called the Hundred Syllable mantra, it’s to Vajrasattva who is about cleansing and purifying.

(Tibetan chanting)

Ho, before the exalted mother I confess the mass of my impurity and faults, with my completely pure three doors, I enter the path of timeless awareness. I dedicate the assembly of virtue of three times within basic space. May I quickly attain the state of the unity of the noble mother, until enlightenment is reached, may there be the auspiciousness of never being separated from the compassionate protector of my lama, venerable mother.

So, I’m gonna end the official practice there. It can be much much longer, but we’ll leave it at that and then what we end every Tibetan practice with is dedicating the merit of the practice to, dedicating the karmic, like positive karmic accumulation that we’ve acquired by doing this practice, to the enlightenment of all beings. So, I’m gonna say it in Tibetan and then I’ll repeat it in English.

(Tibetan chanting)

By this virtue having swiftly accomplished the lama of origin, may I bring all beings without exception to that level.

And then I’m just gonna sing my lama, my teacher’s long life prayer. His name is Tulku Sangak Rinpoche.

(Singing)

Next I checked in with the audience and asked them to share their experience and ask questions. Here’s what the first person, Liz, had to say.

All right. So the first mantra that you sang, I felt sensations, vibrations, I felt my nervous system working, and I felt my head just like, a powerful activation going through my body. Before I got confirmation about this event, I did a little bit research and I started doing the mantras and I started to notice after the mantras I was having things come up, but like synchronicities and good fortune. And I was meeting people and just I guess what’s another word for it? Coincidence, like good coincidence I guess.

So it’s funny you’re saying this because just last night I was saying to somebody that at times in my life where I’m doing more practice, whether it’s Tibetan practice or whatever, where I’m like really dropping into that, those spiritual feelings of grace and awe and that kind of thing, and just focusing on that part of my life more. All of a sudden all kinds of synchronicities start to happen in my life and things start falling into place and the people I need to meet show up. And, I start literally seeing signs and, you know, the more practice I do and the more I focus on that area of my life, the more that stuff happens.

So, yeah. That’s great. Keep with it.

Liz also said that the long chant I did at the end was really powerful for her. So she wanted to know more.

The thing that I chanted right after the Om Tare Tuttare Ture Soha, right after that the thing that I was saying really fast, that’s the Hundred Syllable mantra to Vajrasattva. Vajrasattva as I said is use for cleansing and purifying and clearing. And that Hundred Syllable mantra of his is thrown into a lot of Tibetan practices, usually towards the end, in case, you know, you didn’t totally 100% didn’t do the practice right or in case your motivation wasn’t 100% pure 100% of the time, which is likely ’cause we’re humans, we’re not totally enlightened, so you use that to kind of cleanse anything that came out of that.

Yeah. And so, in that sense there are a lot of things like that that are like, there are certain mantras that everybody knows because they’re imbued in so many different practices, and all theses practices are so action packed with these very specific things, like what I was just describing of cleansing and clearing at the end of the practice, calling Guru Rinpoche at the very beginning, which I mentioned, that one at the very very beginning. That was called the Seven Line Prayer. And that’s at the beginning of a lot of practices, not just this one. And that was one of the first things that I learned. I think it was in Bhutan when I started learning that one. Or no I think it was in Bhutan I started learning some of the shorter mantras like Om Tare Tuttare Ture Soha, or Om Mani Padme Hum, which for like Tibetan lay people, the only mantra that a lot of them know is Om Mani Padme Hum, which is associated with Avalokiteshvara, which in Tibetan is Chenrezik, who the Dalai Lama is an emanation of that. He’s the Buddha of compassion.

So in the kirtan world, is there a common place for a Hindu mantra to be set to music, in the case of Deva Premal for example, that one Om Tare Tuttare, I’ve heard of that one.

Yeah, I heard her do that.

Her arrangement of it is quite beautiful. But I don’t think I’ve heard any Tibetan Buddhist chants be set to music, so do they exist and if so could you tell us about that?

Yes. So, there are a number of them. They’re not that easy to find, but there’s one in particular that I love telling people about. So there’s this Tibetan nun by the name of Tsering Wangmo which the translation of her name is epic. So Tsering Wangmo means long life power woman. And it’s actually a fairly common name, Tsering Wangmo. And she’s like my sister. She, way back I think it was in 2000 actually, moved to Montana where my mom lives and lived there for many years, lived with my mom for a long time, and she and I were both having really intense health problems for years together. And so, we spent a lot of time together, and she’s now back in Nepal, she’s recorded a number of albums. They call her the singing nun over there.

And, there is different instrumentalists who accompany her. There’s I think Nepalese guy who plays this wooden flute along with her. But she has this album that is, it’s only three songs, but each of them is really long, and one of them is this thing to the medicine Buddha, that is alternating her singing and my mom reciting the text that she’s signing in English. So the nun singing in Tibetan, my mom reciting in English. And I think that track is 18 minutes long. I don’t know if, I think it’s on iTunes. I mean I have it and I think that it’s on iTunes. If I can find it I’ll put it in the show notes. But again, her name is Tsering Wangmo, and she’s a very sweet, very dedicated practitioner. She loves Tara, she’s very devoted to Tara. So, yeah.

Any other questions?

For the Green Tara, the mantra, did you explain the translation for it exactly?

So that’s tricky because each one of the syllables is like a whole concept, and there’s no really direct translation. And even in the text that I was reading from, it gives the English translation to like everything but that and the Hundred Syllable mantra because it really is just pure archetypal sound. And there are words in there referring directly to her, and then there’s Om at the beginning of it, which, you know, Om is a whole concept in and of itself.

But this is another case of just, it doesn’t really matter what the words mean, you just let it wash over you and trust that they’re really powerful. Yeah. Because it is basically just primordial sound that is specifically designed to call her in and to bring on the feeling and essence of Great Mother, Ultimate Mother. So, yeah.

What’s a good way to start a practice? Is this a good place to enter or not?

That is a really good question. So, how do I answer that? I would say this practice is not necessarily where you would want to start just ’cause it’s so complex. It’s great if you have someone around who really knows how to do it, who can regularly walk you through it, and I do plan on leading this here in Miami monthly whenever I’m in town, and probably in New York when I’m there.

If you wanna start having a regular practice at home, I would say to start with something more like inside meditation. But you can just start chanting the Green Tara mantra which is very simple, Om Tare Tuttare Ture Soha, and just imagine yourself as her and feel that feeling of like the ultimately compassionate, loving, but fierce mother. And there are plenty of practitioners that like all they do is Green Tara practice. And, like I said, this practice, all these practices are so action packed, that you can pick any one deity practice and use that as all you really need to reach enlightenment.

Most of the time people use a combination of different practices to get to enlightenment, but you could just use this. So, I guess really what I would say is, Green Tara practice it is kind of a spectrum of, you know, you can get a lot of benefit to of just imagining yourself as her and not even saying a damn thing. Or you can add the mantra to it and it adds another layer. Or if you really start feeling the power of this practice and wanna throw yourself into it, like as I just demonstrated, it’s like a whole thing. So, you know, that’s definitely something that one can learn. But the problem is that Tibetan Buddhism is more complex than most forms of Buddhism in terms of like all the ritual and fanfare and mantras and all that stuff, partly because when Buddhism was brought from India to Tibet, it was combined with the pre-Buddhist religion of Tibet called Bon, that was very ceremonial, ritualistic, kind of shamanic, and that’s why Tibetan Buddhism has so much more pageantry and color and ritual than any other form of Buddhism.

My experience really is mostly just with Tibetan Buddhism, but from what I’ve seen and heard, other forms of Buddhism like Theravada and Mahayana, so Theravada is basically like Laos, Vietnam, Thailand and a few other little areas right around there, Cambodia. You know, some of them have some color and fanfare and stuff too, but Tibetan Buddhism is so much more complicated. So, that makes it harder to break into if you wanna really get into it, when you’re not somewhere in the Himalayas where that’s more easily accessible. So, it is more and more accessible here, but I would say a great place to start is my mom’s book, and the other things she offers on her website, which I’ll put in the show notes. ‘Cause she really designed it all for beginnings.

And then there are a lot of great teachers out there of, you know, there are things that all Buddhism kind of shares, more entry level, friendly practices, like the Four Measureables, loving kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, equanimity, and the meditation practices associated with each of those, one of which I did a recent episode on, on compassion. And, also just basic insight meditation, you know, you may have heard of the term Vipassana, which is meditation practice that as far as I know pervades all the different forms of Buddhism. They have it in Tibetan Buddhism too.

So, just one last thought I wanna leave you guys with is, again back to what’s going on politically, et cetera, in the world. Remember the feelings that came up for you during this practice. How powerful it felt, what it felt like to immerse yourself in these powerful feminine qualities of this Goddess, and see if you can find little ways to conjure that within yourself in order to fill the world more with that energy, as often as you can. You don’t have to know how to do this practice in order to do that. So, thank you guys.

If you’ve appreciated being able to learn more about Tibetan Buddhism in this episode and the previous one, please drop me a line at [email protected]. Or on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter @ashowofhearts. That way I’ll know to keep putting out episodes on this subject. And, if you’re feeling called to explore Tibetan Buddhism more deeply, you’ll want to connect with a real lama who’s deeply trained in this system. Like I said, I’m not ordained or certified. I’m just sharing my own experience and some of the more entry level practices that anyone can do. There are many much more advanced practices that need to be taught by an actual lama.

For beginners, I recommend my mom’s book, Why Is The Dalai Lama Always Smiling?, as well as the materials on her website. And for more advanced practitioners, you can find information about my lama Tulku Sangak Rinpoche, as well as his brother Namchak Khen Rinpoche, at ewam.org that’s E-W-A-M.org. You can explore these links and more in today’s show notes. Or if you want advice on how to get more involved, you can write to me at [email protected].

Thank you for listening to A Show Of Hearts. If you enjoyed what you heard, please subscribe in iTunes and share it with your favorite people. Visit or website ashowofhearts.com, where you can sign up for emails and explore all our episodes in depth. Follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter @ashowofhearts. Remember to choose courage even when it’s scary, and join me in igniting the world with our hearts.

The post Connecting with Your Divine Feminine Power through the Tibetan Buddhist Practice of Green Tara appeared first on A Show of Hearts.

In this solo episode of A Show of Hearts, host Rosemary Pritzker dives into the subject of compassion: how to cultivate it for ourselves and others and what compassion and having an open heart means in today’s world. She shares her interpretations of the Buddhist concept of the Four Immeasurables: Lovingkindness, Compassion, Sympathetic Joy and Equanimity. Rosemary shares her own stories and recounts stories about compassion passed down from her teacher (a Tibetan Buddhist Lama). Then she leads listeners through a 15-minute heart-opening meditation for cultivating compassion, called Tonglen. Rosemary shares the personal story of how a childhood trip to Nepal and Bhutan opened her heart and helped her deal with childhood bullying by using Tonglen and learning to have compassion for both herself and the pain of those who hurt her. You’ll come away from the episode with tools for how to build your own meditation practice so that you can feel the benefits of implementing them into your day-to-day life.

Resources mentioned in the episode:

The Compassion Book by Pema Chödron

When Things Fall Apartby Pema Chödron

Why is the Dalai Lama Always Smiling? By Lama Tsomo

The Compassion Institute

Thanks so much for listening! If you like what you heard, please subscribe and give a five star review on iTunes, visit www.ashowofhearts.com or follow us @ashowofhearts on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook! Take a screenshot of this episode and share it in your Instastory and use the hashtag #ashowofhearts . Feel free to email us at info@ashowofhearts with any questions or comments!

You’re listening to A Show of Hearts. The podcast about finding the courage to live a deep and magical life. I’m your host life coach, Rosemary Pritzker.

(singing)

Today’s episode is about compassion. We’ll talk about what it is, how to cultivate it, and why. A Show of Hearts is focused on why it’s essential to follow our hearts in life and the fact that it takes courage, bravery, and guts to do it. It’s not just rainbows and butterflies all the time. It can be really painful or scary to face ourselves and overcome our fears. So it’s important to me that this show include ideas and instructions on how to do all the things required in order to truly follow one’s heart. From time to time you’ll hear me share some of the tools and practices that have helped me the most. I’ve been a practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism for most of my life. And two things that have helped me the most with the long list of things that I’ve faced is training my mind through meditation and learning to better understand compassion. So that’s what I’ll be sharing with you today.

But before we jump in I want to share the review of the month. This month’s review is from Keely Carney who wrote “I love this podcast. It makes me feel like I’m getting to know some of the most interesting people on the planet in a really in depth way. Always excited for new episodes and invariably end up inspired after listening.” If you want to be featured as the next review of the month, head over to iTunes and write a five star review. This helps make sure more people will find this show so they can be inspired to follow their hearts too.

Albert Einstein said “A human being is a part of the whole called by us, universe. A part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts, and feelings as something separated from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”

There’s a set of concepts called The Four Immeasurables that exist throughout not just Tibetan Buddhism, but all forms of Buddhism. They’re also sometimes called The Four Boundless Qualities, and they are loving kindness or metta, compassion, sympathetic joy or mudita, and equanimity. So when we talk about The Four Immeasurables what we’re talking is these inherent qualities that we all have. That there are certain practices and concepts around cultivating these four. And in Buddhism there’s this thing called Buddha nature that we talk about. Unlike original sin, Buddha nature is basically saying that we all have the inherent qualities or key ingredients necessary for reaching enlightenment. We all have those qualities within us, they just need to be nurtured. And the ultimate goal of Buddhism is to reach enlightenment, but this whole enlightenment thing, it’s not just having no thoughts and being blissed out all the time. Although that’s kind of part it. But there’s also this sense of no longer avoiding our experiences and no longer feeling the separation of self and other. Being able to feel how connected everything is.

So today were going to talk about compassion, which is a really good tool for not turning away from our experiences, for looking right at them. And we’re going to specifically work with a Tibetan practice called Tonglen, which means sending and receiving as a tool for looking at those experiences. Specifically experiences of suffering. Looking at them directly and working to transmute them. And I originally learned this practice when I was 15 in Asia in 1997. My mom took me out of high school for a month to take me to Nepal and Bhutan, which was an amazing experience and I learned so much about Buddhism and the various cultures in that region. It was kind of a pilgrimage and it really affected me. So I started doing this practice and it really helped me at the time to deal with some experiences I was having at the time, which I’ll get into more later.

So I wanted to take a step back and talk a little bit about a couple of concepts in Buddhism that you may have heard of. One is samsara and the other is karma. Samsara is the cycle of existence basically. It’s all these different realms sort of existing on top of each other. The human realm, the animal realm, there’s God realms, there’s hell realms, there’s the insect realm, all kinds of things that we can see and also cannot see. And within that is what the Tibetans refer to as precious human birth. Which the way they look at it is you can be born anywhere in that cycle of existence but the one place you can be born that actually allows you to train your mind and work to free yourself from that samsara cycle of existence is human birth. You have the right mental faculties, the ability to read and understand teachings and all this stuff. So that leaves you poised to not only find the right guidance, but to actually be able to use it to reach enlightenment. And what keeps us stuck in samsara is karma. And the nature of samsara is basically suffering, is what they talk about in Buddhism. As long as you’re in samsara you’re going to be experiencing suffering. You may be happy for a while but there eventually will be more suffering because you’re still in samsara.

This does not mean Buddhism is the path of suffering. Most of the practices in Buddhism can help you achieve more and more peace and joy and can really help you overcome a lot of pain. Nobody’s going to be completely blissed out all of the time. So then there’s karma which a lot of people have probably heard of. That you do various actions and have various thoughts that give you negative karma, positive karma, and those stay with you throughout all of your lifetimes. And so something that’s happening to you now is a result of something else that you did. Could be last week, could be several million years ago and it’s just carried through to this lifetime. So the karma that follows us keeps us stuck in this vicious cycle in samsara. And I say vicious cycle because, you may have heard the phrase hurt people hurt people. So if you’re hurting you might be more inclined to want to do actions that might hurt someone or that are just negative in some way and then that give you more negative karma and then you’re stuck in samsara for longer. And so a really good antidote to all of that is compassion.

So the suffering that we experience in samsara is the best motivation for trying to seek liberation. So why would we want to try and reach enlightenment and get out of samsara? Well it’s because otherwise we will be suffering. So Tonglen, the Tibetan practice is about alleviating that suffering for all beings. That’s the motivation for doing Tonglen.

So the Buddha was born … Actually he was a prince named Siddhartha. And when he was born his father got all of these predictions from holy men basically saying that his son was either going to be a great king or he was going to be a religious figure who was not going to want anything to do with the throne, if I remember correctly. And the kind was really worried about this and so he worked really hard to shield Siddhartha from experiencing or witnessing any form of pain, or suffering, or hardship of any kind. And then when Siddhartha was a young man he wanted to experience what real life was all about, more so than what he was seeing in the castle where everything was just perfect and wonderful all of the time. And so he got his driver to sneak him out of the castle grounds and he started seeing things like sickness, and old age, and all these things he’d never seen. And because he’d never seen them before it was more shocking and therefore made him so much more heartbroken for these people and wanted to help so deeply that that’s what ended up thrusting him in the direction of leaving the castle and going to work really hard to try and train his mind, and help others, and eventually reach enlightenment. It was the witnessing of the suffering that brought all of that about.

I wanted to take a minute to distinguish between empathy, sympathy, and compassion. So a woman named Sara Schairer writes on chopra.com about how empathy … The way she describes it is empathy is basically putting yourself in someone else’s shoes so that you can basically feel what they feel. And she describes sympathy as the ability to intellectually understand why they would be suffering with whatever it is that they’re … You know, feeling pain from whatever they’re suffering with. But then compassion is the combination of the two. Being able to feel what they feel. Intellectually understand what it is that they are going though and why they feel the way they feel. And on top of it wanting to alleviate that suffering. So compassion’s basically those three combined. But this whole compassion thing, it doesn’t just apply to others. It’s also important for us to have compassion for ourselves.

So there was this Tibetan Lama named Mingur Rinpoche who when he first came to the US started hearing from his students about this whole concept of self loathing, self criticism, the inner critic, and he’d never even heard of this before because they just kind of don’t really have that. And he didn’t really understand. He was like “Why would people talk so negatively to themselves? Why would they say such hateful and hurtful things to themselves and be critical all the time of themselves?” And so he wanted to understand better and didn’t know any other way than to try and experience it himself. And so he for 30 days straight sat and meditated on saying really horrible awful things to himself and it worked. By the end of the 30 days he felt like crap. He was totally depressed. It was like “Ah man, I really understand what these people are talking about now. This is awful.” And so then he had to go back to his trusted practices that he had used all his life in the Tibetan tradition to turn that back around, which he did pretty quickly because that was more what his mind had been used to. But what an act of compassion that was, that he was willing to do that to make himself feel so terrible just so that he could understand his students better.

So this whole thing of like guilt and I’m bad and all of that is … Pema Chodron describes it as this useless western hook. And she suggests that instead we say more compassionate things to ourselves. Like oh you can do it sweetheart, that kind of thing. I like to think about it as like talking to ourselves the way our ideal parent would talk to us, or the way we would talk to our own child if we were the parent we wish we were. And so while it is useless to talk to ourselves in hurtful ways, it’s also important for us to know our worst, to look at our shadows, but with an open heart. That’s the difference. And to look not only at our shadows but to look at what scares us instead of running away.

For example, Trungpa Rinpoche who is fairly well known, he’s the teacher of Pema Chodron. Was the teacher of Pema Chodron. Pema Chodron likes to tell this story about Trungpa Rinpoche where he was at some monastery and there was this vicious dog who was really aggressive and was foaming at the mouth, and chomping at the bit, and just barking and barking really aggressively. It was tied up, I guess it was on a chain. And they were walking at the monastery and the dog got loose and started charging towards them. And everyone that Rinpoche was with started running away in fear, and he just instinctively started running towards the dog, waving his arms and growling at the dog. And the dug tucked its tail between its legs and ran away. It was scared. So I feel like that’s a really good example of one way that we can handle even things like just anxiety. I have had my own experiences with working with anxiety like that, where instead of trying to push the bad feeling that is anxiety away … There’ve been a few time where I’ve been able to really deeply sit with it and welcome it, and like basically say bring it on and let it just flood me. And there have been times where when I do that everything calms down. Because our feelings want to be felt and they’re going to keep pounding on the door until we open the door.

I just want to explain first the setup of how to do Tonglen before we dive in. So like I said Tonglen means sending and receiving. And what we’re going to be doing with this practice is we’re going to pick a specific topic to focus on. So pick something that is a form of suffering that is really affecting you in your life right now. It could be physical pain, loneliness, there’s so many things to choose from. Let’s use loneliness as an example. So you’re going to start on yourself because of what I was saying earlier about we westerners tend to be really hard on ourselves. So having compassion for ourselves first is kind of like putting that oxygen mask on on the airplane before trying to help anyone else. So what you’re going to do is … In this case I would suggest imagining yourself in front of you like you’re watching a TV screen or a movie screen. See yourself there and start to really see and feel and understand that form of suffering that you’ve picked. In my example I’m going to use loneliness. And really feel it. Like fully bring on that feeling.

And what you’re going to do is imagine that that feeling of suffering forms this dark smokey cloud. And you’re going to breathe in that dark smokey cloud. It’s going to come into your heart. Don’t do this right now, I’m just describing how to do it at the moment. But breathe the dark smokey cloud into your heart and then use that feeling of really wanting to alleviate the suffering. Really bring that feeling on of true compassion, really wanting to take away the suffering and replace it with whatever the antidote is, happiness, joy, love, health. So it’s that feeling of compassion coming from your good heart that sort of alchemizes and transforms the dark smokey suffering cloud and turns it into this beautiful white sparkly cloud full of love, joy, peace, wellbeing, all of that stuff.

And then you’re going to breathe that white sparkly beautiful cloud out and back into the version of you that you’re looking at. And it’s going to surround that version of you and soak into that you and into every single cell. And we’re going to do that a number of times, first on you. Then after we’ve done that for a while on ourselves, then we’ll step it out and do it for another person who is someone for whom it’s really easy for us to feel a sense of compassion. So it’s not an ex-boyfriend that we still resent. It’s not a crazy mother-in-law, it’s not that person that accidentally tripped us on the street. It’s our best friend, our mother, whoever it is that most easily brings on that sense of compassion, of wanting to alleviate their suffering. And then we’ll step it out a few more times from there, but we’ll get into that when we’re actually doing it. So just to recap, you’re breathing in the dark smokey cloud of the suffering into your heart and then consciously bringing on that strong feeling of compassion of wanting to alleviate the suffering. Using that to transform the dark smokey cloud into the white sparkly cloud and breathe that out and back into you, the person you’re breathing for, whoever.

And you know a lot of times when people are first doing this a lot of people end up wondering, well if I’m breathing in that dark smokey cloud, is that okay? Is that safe? Is that going to get stuck in there? Is it going to harm me? First of all you’d have to be a really highly accomplished practitioner to say take on someone’s cancer just by breathing it in. Some really accomplished healers and practitioners of various kinds can take someone’s cancer away. But we’re not maybe quite at the level. So first of all there’s that, and then second of all there is the focusing on that strong sense of compassion coming from your good heart is the antidote to that suffering, and that’s what protects you form the suffering getting stuck in there.

So, with that let’s dive into some practice. And we’re going to start by just quieting our minds for a little bit before we dive into the Tonglen. The practice we’re going to do today called Tonglen can be maybe a bit too intense if you’re already in really acute emotional pain. So if you just lost a loved one, or are thinking about hurting yourself or anything else critical like that, I would suggest you first go and get whatever form of professional help you need first before you attempt this practice.

So to start our practice get into a comfortable position, take a breath and let it go. So in Tibetan Buddhism we like to start basically all practices by taking just a moment to give rise to what’s called bodhicitta, which is basically that fervent wish to alleviate the suffering of all beings. So just take a moment now to find that feeling within you, that strong wish for all beings to be free of suffering.

And now we’re going to transition to just quieting our minds. So just start to let your body relax. We’re really good at being tense and stressed in this culture, so it’s good to take a moment to consciously tell our bodies, okay you can relax now. So just let every muscle … Almost like as if it’s melting. Notice where you might be tensing up and see if you can tell that part of you to gently let go and relax.

And start to focus your attention on the sensations in your body. You know when people start off meditating for the first time they often think that they’re supposed to make their minds go blank, but minds really like to have something to focus on. So in this case we’re working with the sensations in our body to sort of land us in the present moment. So just keep focusing on the body. And while you’re doing this you’re breathing gently in and out, and letting the breath just be natural. Not forcing it.

If any thoughts arise or you start to get distracted, just let it go like a passing cloud. And if it’s useful you can label it thinking. And then just return to the sensations in the body and the gentle breath.

Try not to get too caught up in, oh my God and I doing it right? And I focusing on my body enough? Am I having too many thoughts? There was an old apache medicine named grandfather Stalking Wolf who said “Trying creates impossibilities, letting go brings that which is desired.” If you try too hard to not think, or just try to hard in general, you end up kind of chasing your tail. So just gently breathe, let go, and do your best.

Continue to focus on how it feels in the present moment in your body. Gently bringing your mind back to the present moment through sensation.

One of my favorite dharma teachers Vinny Ferraro likes to say right now it’s like this. Right now it’s like this. Right now it’s like this.

Okay so now take a nice big breath and let it go. Now we’re going to transition into Tonglen. So first imagine that there’s this beam of white light coming from above you from way, way, way up. And it’s this pure, pure white light coming down through your head, filling your entire body. This white light soaks into every cell in your body. Your whole body’s beaming. Now see in front of you that version of you that’s on the TV screen. And see that form of suffering that you picked. Start to let that feeling really come up. It may be be something you’ve been avoiding because it’s just too painful. Slowly start to let it come up.

Then once it gets really strong see it start to form that dark smokey cloud. Now start to breathe in that smokey cloud through the mouth into your heart. Feel that strong sense of wanting to alleviate the suffering. It turns into the white sparkly cloud. Then you breathe that back out and you see it soak into the you in front of you. And you see a slight smile starting to form and a slight glow. Now once again bring up that strong feeling of that suffering. Breathe in the dark smokey cloud into your heart. Transform it with your compassion, and breathe the white sparkly cloud out, and see it soak in, the smile getting wider.

And each time you do this the smile gets wider, the glow gets stronger, that version of you gets happier and happier. So just continue to do that on your own for a little bit. Breathing in the suffering, feeling that strong sense of compassion, and breathing out the white sparkly antidote.

Feel that sense of passionately not wanting yourself to suffer anymore. Sending out that wish for comfort, happiness, joy, or whatever the antidote is, love. And again, don’t try too hard with the breathing. Let it flow gently and naturally.

What we’re going for here is complete happiness always. Not just happier, but complete and total happiness. And if it helps, you can add these phrases as you do it. On the in breath you can say, may I be free from suffering. And on the out breath, may I experience happiness. May I be free from suffering. May I experience happiness. And try and make sure that the in and out breaths are roughly the same length so you’re not holding that suffering in.

You’re alchemizing the suffering with your good heart, your good intention, and your compassion. Really anchor into that truth. Anchor into the belief that your compassionate intention is transforming the suffering. Okay so take one more breath, breathing in the suffering and out the joy, love, et cetera. And at this point the you that you’re watching is beaming, fully and completely happy, glowing. And now just take a breath and let it go. And we’re going to transition to doing this for someone else.

So once again you’re going to pick someone who you easily feel a sense of compassion for. In my case I’m going to pick a friend who doesn’t have much of a sense of family. Most of her family is gone and the really only one that remains is not an easy relationship. So I’m going to imagine her in front of me and I’m going to allow myself to see and feel the immense suffering and pain that she must have. The loneliness involved in not having any real family. And I’m going to see that turning into the dark smokey cloud. I’m going to breathe it into my heart. Feel that immense passionate wish to take her suffering. I care about her so much that I just want to take her suffering. And that transforms the dark smokey cloud into pure white sparkly love and I breathe that love out. And I see it surround her and soak into her so that she’s bathed in love, she’s steeped in love. Then I start to see that smile form and the glow. And just do that a number of times with whatever form of suffering on the person that you’ve chosen. Breathing in the dark smokey cloud, feeling that immense desire to alleviate their suffering and that wish to give them that sense of love, peace, joy, by breathing the white cloud back into them.

And just keep doing that for a few minutes. Really stay engaged in and focused on the intention of wanting to relieve their suffering and replace it with happiness, health. And remember if the mind wanders, bring it back to the sensations in your body and the breathing. Breathing in the smokey cloud, breathing out the white sparkly cloud. And now we’re going to take one more breath for this person. Breathing in their suffering, feeling that desire for them to be happy, breathing out the white sparkly cloud. Seeing them soaking in it. A big grin on their face. Beaming. And now take a breath in and let it go. And now pick someone that you either barely know or don’t know at all, but have kind of a neutral feeling about. So maybe the cashier at the grocery store or someone you walked by on the street yesterday. And imagine them in front of you and imagine that if they’re not experiencing that form of suffering now, they have or will at some point in their life. Because the human experience is the human experience and we all go through the full range of emotions and forms of suffering at some point.

So imagine them in front of you. Imagine them experiencing a similar form of suffering. Breathe in the dark smokey cloud. Feel that wish for them to be happy. Breathe out the white cloud. And see them getting happier and happier with each breath.

Okay so one more breath for this person. Inhale and exhale. Seeing them fully and completely happy. Now imagine everyone on your street. Imagine them in front of you. See and feel them experiencing a similar form of suffering. Breathe it in. Breathe out the white. See each of them smiling more and more with each breath. Now continue to anchor into the belief that your compassionate intention is transforming the suffering.

Okay now one last breath to make them really, really happy. In and out. See that big grin on their faces. And now imagine everyone in your town or city breathing in that form of suffering. Breathing out the joy, love, et cetera. Over and over until they’re fully happy.

And one more breath. In and out. See your entire town or city beaming with happiness and love and light.

And now imagine everyone in America or whatever country you’re in. Breathe in that form of suffering, transform it with your compassion, and breathe out the white happiness. See it soak into everyone. And do this again and again until they’re all happy.

Notice how it feels in your body as you see everyone getting happier and happier.

Okay so one more breath for everyone in the country. In, feel that compassion. Breathe out the white happiness. See it soak into everyone. Everyone is beaming with so much happiness, love, light, peace, gratitude, health, safety. Now just take a breath, let it go. And when you’re ready you can open your eyes.

So eventually as you continue to do this practice, after you’ve done it for a while and feel really comfortable with it, then you can start to step it out further and eventually do it for all mankind, all beings on the planet, including animals, insects, and ultimately all beings in existence. Not even just on this planet but everywhere. In all the realms, the whole universe, and once you feel like you’re getting kind of good at this, you can play around with doing if for people that you don’t have the easiest time feeling compassion for. So maybe someone who’s giving you a hard time in your life or a politician that you cannot stand, who you think is ruining the world. But give yourself some time to get there. For now just continue to do it for the people for whom it’s easy to do it for.

I just wanted to share a story from my teacher, my lama Tulku Sangak Rinpoche, who is from Tibet. And he was in prison for almost 10 years during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. And he was thrown in prison because he was a religious figure. He made it to prison when he was 14 years old. And they threw all of the so called worst offenders together, which meant all of the religious people were together, which meant that he actually got a really good spiritual education while he was doing hard labor and being worked like an ox, and being forced to eat pork, which was against their religion and all kinds of other things. And when he first got there he had so much anger, and resentment, and maybe even hatred burning within him towards the Chinese for what they were doing to him and his people. And he now says that that was actually the worst part of being in prison, was that feeling. And anger, hatred doesn’t feel good. And he could see that feeling of anger and hatred on the faces of the Chinese people too. They weren’t enjoying themselves.

So after he’d been in there for a while his teacher, who was in prison with him, asked him “Are you feeling anger and hatred towards the Chinese?” “Yes, I am.” “And when you’re out working, doing the hard labor that they were having everyone do, are you doing it kind of half assed and when they’re not looking are you just kind of banging to make a noise but not really doing anything?” And he’s like “Yes.” So he explained to Rinpoche that you should actually have compassion for the Chinese people because they are working up some really negative karma for themselves right now and when it comes time for that to be paid off it’s going to be pretty awful for them. And you right now are burning off a lot of really negative karma so see this as an opportunity and do the work the best that you can so that you can really burn off that karma and not have to deal with it again later.

And that combined with the various meditation practices that his teacher taught him allowed him to really turn around how he saw the experience, until he felt better and better and better and eventually found himself feeling kind of content and looking at his surroundings thinking oh, it’s kind of like monastery with really bad food. So I share that as an example of how we can use compassion to shift our experience. I know this is something that helped me when I came back from that trip to Asia having learned about Tonglen and karma and all these other concepts. I had been really badly bullied for, at that point, eight years and when I came back I was able to not internalize so much of the way that they were treating me and instead see that they were actually hurting and giving themselves bad karma at the same time. And that really helped me. And it wasn’t an act of like oh, I have compassion for them, which means that now I’m going to let them walk all over me and not stand up for myself. No. That is idiot compassion.

In Tibetan Buddhism we talk about the importance of wisdom and compassion coming together. That you need both because wisdom without compassion can lead to things like the atom bomb. Whereas compassion without wisdom can turn into compassion that’s just kind of weak or ineffective.

A common question when people are doing Tonglen for the first time is do people actually benefit from you doing Tonglen on them? First of all just know that you benefit from doing it on yourself, on them, on the world. And if it’s benefiting you then that ripples out because we affect everyone around us. If you start to feel more compassion towards yourself and others, that helps more than just you because you’re going to be treating people differently. Helping helps. Helping yourself helps helping others.

So one last thing I want to talk about is the near enemy and far enemy of compassion. The far enemy is more obviously because it’s basically the opposite of compassion, which is cruelty. So bullying, genocide, et cetera. These things are definitely the opposite of compassion. But the near enemy of compassion is a little bit trickier. The near enemy is pity. And the difference between compassion and pity is with pity there’s this almost kind of looking down on. Like oh, you poor thing. And what comes to mind for me is when somebody’s having a hard time and somebody else is interacting with them and seeing and hearing about the hard time this person is having but it makes them feel uncomfortable so they’re like oh, there, there, you’re going to be fine and tries to just make it better or sweep it under the rug rather than just being present and supportive. I, a couple of weeks ago, was having a moment where I was really upset and emotional about something and I was on the phone with a friend of mine. And rather than just being like oh, I’m sure it’s going to be fine, she was like “Wow, I really hear that you’re in pain.” And she just was reflecting back to me what my experience was.

And I stopped and was like “Thank you for not just trying to make it better because when people do that it feels like it’s negating my feelings instead of letting me feel what I feel.” Common questions, one is okay, what if I pick a particular form of suffering to work on and I start to work on it and then at some point something else comes up? I was teaching this recently and a guy started out working on stress and what eventually started to come up was anger. Like a lot of it. So there are a couple options.

First of all you could look at that thing that’s coming up, in this case anger, and kind of peel the onion a little bit and start to explore what am I angry about? What’s the source of the anger? Is my stress level making me angry? Is the source of the stress, like my boss or whoever, making me angry? So you can explore that. Or since you have sat down to do this practice you could make a mental note to deal with that later. Not stuff the emotion, but just I’m going to deal with this but not right now because right now I’m doing this practice. And instead go back to focusing on the form of suffering that you chose and working with that for now. But do make sure that you go back later because we don’t want to stuff our emotions because that does make us sick and repressed and all kinds of other things.

Another common thing is okay, well if I start to do Tonglen on someone who I think it’s going to be easy to do it on and it ends up being harder than I expected … Like it’s hard for me to even find the desire to breathe the white cloud back into them or whatever it is. I would say maybe wait on doing that person. If that comes up, make another mental note. Like oh, okay this is not a person for me to do this on now because I’m still new at this practice. I’m going to wait until I’ve done this for a while and then get back to that and you can also make an appointment with yourself for later to, if you want to, in another time and place or once you finish doing Tonglen, whenever, really sit with and explore why was it difficult for me to do that for that person when I thought it would be easy? What’s underneath that? You can just actually sit and be present with whatever arises when you think about that person, what might be causing that. Or you can journal about it.

As far as how often to practice, I do it as needed. Currently this is not a practice that I do every day but there have been times in my life where I did do it every day. When I first learned it I did it every day for a long time. You know how sometimes it can be hard to get yourself to actually take the time to sit down and meditate? Well it’s been those times in my life where I’m in the most pain that that is a non-issue. Where I just find myself feeling naturally drawn to sit still and go inside because I need to in order to alleviate the suffering. That’s when I’ve done the most Tonglen practice. If you’re really having a hard time, Tonglen can help a lot. Also when you learn any new meditation practice, if you find one that really lands for you, it’s good to take the time to really practice it ongoingly for a while so you start to feel the benefits that it has to offer. If you’re always jumping from one practice to another or constantly trying new things, your mind is going to kind of be scattered. So yeah, it’s good to anchor into one practice and get those neural pathway grooves nice and entrenched. And then it gets easier and becomes more and more helpful as you continue to do it.

As you’re learning and starting to practice Tonglen, as you’re starting to step it out and go beyond the people for whom it’s really easy for you to experience compassion and want to alleviate their suffering, et cetera, if you’re finding it hard as you step it out to your neighborhood or whatever it is, if you’re finding it hard to breathe out the white cloud or to really feel that strong sense of compassion, maybe just take it a step back and wait for that and just practice the parts that feel easy for now. And just do that for as long as it takes. I have had sessions where I’ll just sit and practice Tonglen on myself over and over and over and over because I may really need it at that time. Or I’ll step it out to other people but really just inner circle people that I feel really close to. And that’s as far as I get that session because I just really am feeling so much for those people at that point. Again, as you’re starting out just do your best to keep it as simple and easy as you can.

Another question that comes up sometimes is what benefits do you get from doing this ongoingly? I would say it’s a mix of yes, we’re really focused on cultivating compassion but at the same time it’s also training our minds. So I feel much calmer after practicing this. And usually much happier. So while I’m cultivating this wish for alleviating other people’s suffering and for them to be happy, I end up becoming happier. If I’m having a hard time, if I’m feeling lonely, if I’m feeling down for some reason, I might sit and do Tonglen for other people and that helps me. Because again, helping helps.

If you’re someone who sometimes experiences anxiety it can be really hard to sit and be still and do any form of visualization or meditation practice when you’re feeling really anxious. And that’s something I’ve struggled with a lot. I mean there are tips and tricks and things but ultimately you kind of got to sit through a little bit of it in the beginning and then it starts to alleviate. I’ll do more episodes about these things. Like I’ll do a whole episode about working with anxiety and another episode about depression, et cetera. And the thing is part of why we often feel anxious is because there’s some feeling we’re trying not to feel or there’s something that we’re afraid of. So stopping and feeling or facing what we’re afraid of at first might feel kind of shitty. But then once we sit with it long enough it starts to actually alleviate the anxiety because we’re actually facing it. Like I was talking about earlier of Trungpa Rinpoche running towards the dog or me mentally, emotionally, et cetera running towards my anxiety and fear.

Often when I sit with my anxiety and let it kind of flood me on purpose, I’m often surprised at what comes up. I might think if I do that right now a bunch of anger’s going to come up and I don’t really want to deal with it. But then I sit and I let it come on and all of a sudden I burst into tears because actually it’s grief or sadness or whatever. So you never can fully anticipate what it’s going to be until you actually sit down and sit with it.

One last thought I’d like to leave you with is as you go about your life can you stop and ask yourself how can I have compassion for myself right now? Especially in difficult moments or if you’re being hard on yourself. Let this be your kind of second nature go to question. How can I have more compassion for myself right now?

If you’d like to learn more about how to cultivate compassion or how to train your mind through meditation I’ve shared some resources in the show notes. The first two are books by Pema Chodron. One on compassion, the other, which is my favorite of hers, is called When Things Fall Apart, Heart Advice For Difficult Times. I’ve turned to that book for guidance and solace in many challenging times. Pema talks about compassion a lot so if you read or listen to almost anything by her you’ll hear more about it. I recommend all of her works for learning how to transform the mind and how to improve your life.

Another link you’ll find in the show notes is to my mom’s book called Why Is the Dalai Lama Always Smiling? A Westerner’s Introduction and Guide to Tibetan Buddhist Practice in which she teaches Tonglen and shares her story, more about our lama’s story, and other useful information on beginning a meditation practice. The final resource I’ve shared is The Compassion Institute, founded by the Dalai Lama’s personal translator, Thupten Jinpa, and others at Stanford University. They have educational resources including a compassion cultivation training.

Thank you for listening to A Show of Hearts. If you enjoyed what you heard please subscribe on iTunes and share it with your favorite people. Visit our website, ashowofhearts.com, where you can sign up for emails and explore all our episodes in depth. Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @ashowofhearts. Remember to choose courage even when it’s scary and join me in igniting the world with our hearts.

(singing)

The post Tonglen and the Practice of Compassion with Rosemary Pritzker appeared first on A Show of Hearts.

In this episode of A Show of Hearts, Jeff Feldman shares his experience working in Haiti for over a year and a half in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake in 2010. We talk about what it was like to be on the ground at the time, the many misconceptions about Haiti and acts of strength he witnessed in the wake of unimaginable hardship. We discuss the darkness but also the light – the magic of Haiti, the resiliency and pride of its people and a culture steeped in mysticism and creativity. Inspired by this creativity, Feldman produced a show of Haitian art called the Haiti Art Expo that drew attention to art from the area and raised funds for relief. Also hear a hilarious, eye opening story at the end about what we see on the news that may or may not be true. Feldman is a dear friend and, in addition to continuing to advocate for Haiti, is the Senior Vice President of Uribe Construction, which designs and builds commercial and residential real estate in Miami.

Resources mentioned in the episode:

JP/HRO

Ayiti Community Trust

Hand in Hand for Haiti

How to Fix the Broken Humanitarian System: A Q&A with Paul Spiegel

“Why Haiti Needs New Narratives: A Post Quake Chronicle” by Gina Athena Ulysse

Thanks so much for listening! If you like what you heard, please subscribe and rate on iTunes, visit www.ashowofhearts.com or follow us @ashowofhearts on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook! Take a screenshot of this episode and share it in your Instastory and use the hashtag #ashowofhearts – we’d really appreciate it. Feel free to email us at info@ashowofhearts with any questions or comments!

RP: You’re listening to A Show of Hearts, the podcast about finding the courage to live a deep and magical life. I’m your host, life coach, Rosemary Pritzker.

Speaker 2: (singing)

RP: My dear friend, Jeff Feldman, and I met at a sustainable business conference in Tucson almost 13 years ago. He’s the Senior Vice President of Uribe Construction, which designs and builds both commercial and residential luxury real estate in Miami, but what Jeff and I are focused on in this episode is his passion for Haiti and particularly his experience working there for a year and a half after the massive earthquake that happened nine years ago on January 12th, 2010.

RP: When we sat down to talk last year, Pres. Trump had just called Haiti a shithole country, and Anderson Cooper had a strong emotional response on CNN. We picked up the conversation there. I’m just wondering what your response was to that video of Anderson Cooper, how it felt to watch it.

JF: There’s too much emotion wrapped up. I was watching him go through this, and I was like, “You Know What?” I turned the TV off. I just turned the TV off, because I knew where he was going. I knew where he was coming from, and I didn’t really want to be there in the moment, and because my anger, I was so furious, and to see the leader of the United States make such a terrible and awful and completely false type statement like that was infuriating. I just had to turn it off.

JF: He’s not the only person. A lot of people have the completely wrong picture of what Haiti actually really is. I mean, most people don’t really understand it. The visuals that we see on television here for the last 30 years have been of struggle and strife and despair, and there’s just so much more to it than that. It’s such a special place. It’s so different from anything that you’ve ever experienced. I mean, it’s one of the happiest and most beautiful and fruitful places as much, as they send the message that it’s not.

RP: Jeff spoke of the dignity and resilience of the Haitian people despite all the negative narratives about Haiti in the international press.

JF: I mean, these people are … Many of them go to sleep every night with less than a dollar to their name, millions of people, and particularly those in the capital in Port-au-Prince, but you can take everything away from them, their homes. You could take away jobs, food. You could take everything away from them, but you cannot take away their dignity. They’re the most dignified people. They’re the strongest willed people. They’re the most resilient people I believe anywhere in the planet.

JF: If you were to look in any of the shanties or any of the homes or anything in Haiti throughout, you’ll see that they’re completely organized. They’re clean, top to bottom. The shoes are by the front door. The spices are on a rack. I mean, the places, they are just … Their fingernails are always clean. Their teeth are always clean. Their hair is always brushed, and that’s something that just runs through the entire population of that country. There’s just pride in yourself and dignity, and you can’t take that from them.

RP: What was your relationship to Haiti like before the earthquake?

JF: Well, it goes back to about when I was 12 years old, which is now 30 years. I was always, as a kid, working. I was a busboy in South Florida. I worked for a friend’s father’s diner as a 12-year-old, and all the dishwashers were Haitian, and I was a busboy, so my job was to bring the dishes back to the dishwashers. They were these unbelievably unique and different people. I also grew up in white suburbia, so they were the first black people that I really knew in mass.

JF: I mean, there was definitely a few black kids throughout my schooling and all this other stuff, but this was an entire group of people, and they were from some island offshore. Being the way that I am, of course, I wanted to be their friends and learn their language and ask them how to say certain things, and they were the sweetest and the nicest and the kindest people. Even the ones that didn’t speak English, we had this unspoken, just affection for each other. It was part of the reason why I studied French in school growing up.

JF: From being a busboy and then just throughout the course of my life, I’ve always been drawn to them, to Haitians. Then, in 2006, I actually went the first time to go surf, one of my buddies I went to high school with, a couple of Haitians that grew up here in Miami. They lived back in Port-au-Prince. Their family business is in Port-au-Prince, and so we all went down to surf. I went 2006 for New Year’s. 2007, we went back. I toured all over the countryside, off-road, surf, Safari, crazy, driving down goat paths, the whole thing. It was wild, wild.

JF: In 2008, there were four hurricanes that had, in sequence, one after the other, passed right over Haiti and just absolutely annihilated Haiti, killing thousands. I should say thousands of people, but lots of people, stranding thousands of people, killing livestock, destroying crops. I mean, it just really was devastating, and I started a local supplies relief campaign, and then this thing happened a couple of years later, and I was a go-to guy after my experience there.

RP: When the earthquake happened, what motivated you to go?

JF: When we started our supply chain rally here in Miami Beach, there came a point in time where we had personally delivered so much stuff, pharmaceuticals, clothing, feminine hygiene products, medical products, just, I mean, so much stuff. We had transported dozens and dozens and dozens of aircrafts over the course of the first five days after the earthquake, that I said to the people with whom we were coordinating this at UM, University of Miami, “Whose, what’s happening with this stuff when it hits the ground? Where is it? How is it getting dealt with?”

JF: The answer was, “We don’t really know.” It’s a disaster, and it was. I said, “Well, what if I can rally a group of eight of us to go down and sort it out, figure it out?” The answer was, “When can you go?” and so we went the next day.

RP: What happened when you got there?

JF: Well, we were on the first commercial airliner that was able to land at the airport. It was the first five days. The airport was destroyed. The actual physical building, the airport was destroyed and closed. The runway was unknown whether or not it was working or not working, but planes started landing there, and the US military got there very quickly. We were on the first commercial airliner that was chartered to get as many supplies, but also critical people down there to administer, I mean, from aid to prayer to security. I mean, you name it.

JF: I was on an airplane, that you couldn’t make it up if you tried. There were priests, nurses, doctors, mercenaries with weapons, animals. I mean, you name it. It was crazy. The eight of us, our group from Miami Beach, we went down there, and as we were landing, before we touched down, I circled the group up and said, “Listen. When we land, when this plane touches the ground, there’s not going to be somebody here landing this plane and telling you, okay, welcome to Haiti, and unloading our bags and unloading the belly of the aircraft that was loaded to the gills with supplies.”

JF: I said, “It’s going to be us. When we get off the plane, we’re going to be first off the plane, and we’re going to control the area around this aircraft,” which is exactly what we did. We unloaded the plane. We told all the people to stand over here and don’t move. Then, we started to daisy-chain all of the materials off the aircraft. As we saw people’s names on it or organizations’ names or whatever it was, people claimed it, and they took their stuff, and then they moved along.

RP: What did it feel like to instantly have that responsibility on your shoulders?

JF: It’s just the way I’m programmed. When there’s a situation, I’m the guy that jumps into the burning car in the accident. I’m the guy that takes control of a situation.

RP: Why is that?

JF: It’s just the way I’m programmed. I don’t really know any other way. It’s just how I am. One thing I’ve always known is, if you look the part and you act the part and you think you’re the part, then people will give you the part, and so I just looked the part and took control. There came a point in time, a very, very quick point in time after touching down there, that I personally was one of the main people at the airport, where all of the aid and recovery and rescue missions were originating from within the capital.

JF: The airport grounds were, was ground zero for that. It was closed, and it was protected by the US Air Force, and there were groups, search and rescue, aid groups, and I don’t really mean NGO’s like the Clean Water people or the Save the Children people or school … I’m talking rescue teams that go into, from South Africa, from Qatar, from Australia, from all over the world. The airport had a capacity of, I think it has a maximum capacity of 160 aircrafts landing and leaving per day.

JF: It was maxed out for weeks, aircrafts from all over the world, from small private jets to Russian Antonov’s and US military C-17’s and C5’s and the biggest aircrafts you can imagine filled, filled with supplies and nobody there really to claim it, which is where we started to fill in the blanks. We just started claiming things off of the plane. If there wasn’t somebody standing at the base of the plane, which there almost never was, the Air Force was tasked with taking the materials off the plane and putting it in the middle of the infield, so we just started taking stuff.

RP: What was that experience like, witnessing the whole world coming in to help?

JF: It was unbelievable. I remember seeing the Red Crescent from Turkey, the aircraft from Brazil, from Qatar, from South Africa, from all over the world. It was incredible, I mean, absolutely incredible. Actually, the first aircraft I remember landing in Haiti after the earthquake from another country besides the United States was China. China and Haiti do not have diplomatic relations, because Haiti has relations with Taiwan, and Taiwan will … China will not accept a country that has relations with Taiwan.

JF: The first country to land a plane was China. They literally dropped several humongous crates of whatever the heck was in it, and they were just sitting there for days and days and days. Finally, we said, “You know what? No one’s coming to get this stuff.” It was actually the Chinese materials that made us realize, no one’s picking anything up. If it’s not picked up, it’s just being taken to the middle of the infield.

JF: No, it was just otherworldly. It was surreal. I was so hopped up. I worked, I literally worked 20 hours a day. I would probably sleep four or five hours in a cot.

RP: Jeff had a connection to someone who managed private jets, so he could get people, supplies and himself in and out of Haiti. After you got there, how long did it take before you got a really clear picture of the magnitude of what was going on, and was there a moment where it hit you?

JF: I mean, it was instant. When we landed on the runway and as we were flying in, you can see Port-au-Prince from the airplane. I mean, I actually saw the national palace collapsed from the airplane. When we touched down, and you can see the total mayhem happening inside the airport, and then an airport that I had been to collapsed, but it was when I got on the truck that drove us back to the hospital site, and I could see the infield was starting to fill up with stuff, and all the camps, people were burning fires.

JF: I mean, it was like this crazy, Mad Max, Burning Man disaster, insanity that I just couldn’t comprehend. Well, the national hospital was 60% to 70% destroyed. They closed the gates, because they didn’t have a way to handle the number of people who needed to come in. There were bodies piled up out in front of the gates of the national hospital. I stumbled into the triage area / recovery area for people who had been brought into the airport, and it was the United Nations airbase, and it was inside of a hangar.

JF: I went there to find baggage from our plane that didn’t make it off, and I stepped into this room full of people. People were crying. People were wailing. People had bandages on their heads. People had arms missing. It was nighttime. It was hot. It was crazy, crazy, and I remember seeing a little girl, was probably 12 or 13 who had part of her head smashed, and that was when I finally first realized, “Holy moly, this is real. These are the people. These are the actual humans who live here who were impacted by this.”

JF: It was about two or three days later that the hospital that we were putting together at this campsite, for lack of a better term, on the airport grounds were all 200 people who had been, medical conditions of whatever. I mean, there were people having their arms amputated, their legs or whatever. We had to have this hospital up and running, built, air-conditioned, wood floors, the whole thing by a Thursday or whatever the day of the week was. We had 200 people transported from the UN airbase to this tent, and we literally were carrying bodies on people, patients on stretchers into this makeshift hospital.

JF: I was like, “My God, this person is so messed up. This person’s arm is off.” Then, these were just days after the earthquake, and people were still being found. In fact, I saw the very last survivor that they found. I believe it was 16 days after the earthquake, and I saw them, I saw them bringing her into our hospital.

RP: Did she make it?

JF: Yeah, she did. I think she was inside of the famous Caribbean market. The entire market completely collapsed, killing basically almost everybody inside, and she was trapped in a pocket, and she was surrounded by food, so she was just eating and drinking. Eventually, two weeks later, they got to removing the rubble from around her. She wasn’t well. I mean, she was severely hurt and dehydrated and, but she lived.

RP: You’ve given a picture of what it looked like for the injured people, the people trying to help, et cetera, down there, but what happened to you down there?

JF: That’s a really big question. It was life-changing. I mean, that’s the shortest, quickest answer. It was life-changing. We throw around the terms, “Gosh, it was a disaster. How was the party at your house last night? It was a disaster. I mean, my plate, my house is a disaster.” You don’t know what a disaster is until you’re in one, and this thing, it was a catastrophe of epic proportions.

JF: There were 250,000 people who got killed and another 250,000 people who were severely wounded. There were so many dead bodies, that the Haitian government, rightfully so, made the decision to literally scoop them up with machines and dump them into dump trucks and bury them outside, way outside this, about eight to 10 miles outside of the city limits. It sounds inhumane. It sounds terrible, but it had to be done, and they, if I’m not mistaken, I believe they burned them.

JF: It was the right thing to do. As terrible as it sounds, it had to be done. There were too many dead bodies. You can’t let them just sit in the city and decompose, and there was nowhere to put them.

RP: An estimated 300,000 people died as a result of the earthquake that struck Haiti. Not everyone agrees that burying the dead in mass graves was a humane response. Many people still don’t know where or how their family members died or where their remains are. Shortly after the earthquake, Haitian anthropologist and artist Gina Athena Ulysse wrote, “The Haitian government treats the dead the way they treat the living,” and describes these mass graves as a human rights abuse.

RP: On the flipside, having all these dead bodies lying around was unsanitary. They needed to be removed for the health and safety of the living. One could argue that there just were not the resources to dispose of these bodies in a more humane way. There were just too many, and all efforts needed to go towards helping the living since the dire need was so great. Either way, it was a tough call.

JF: People say, “Why didn’t they do this?” or, “Why didn’t …” There is, and I always said the following, “There was no they.” When this thing went down, there was no they. There was no, “Why don’t they help us? Why don’t they open this? Why don’t they do …” There was no they. They were half dead.

JF: It didn’t discriminate between rich and poor and neighborhoods or areas. Everything everywhere was destroyed, and wherever you were, if the building collapsed, you were dead. A lot of the politicians and a lot of the leaders of Haiti fled. They literally got on airplanes and flew to the Dominican or helicopters flew to the Dominican. They just got the hell out of there. It was total mayhem.

RP: What did it feel like to have everything be so out of control, so out of your control?

JF: Well, I mean, that’s why I took control. I took control of an area that I could control, and that I was given that control, because everybody was so busy doing what they do. If you were a surgeon, you were operating. If you were a truck driver, that’s what you were doing. You’re using your truck. Everybody was in on helping however they could.

JF: Of course, there were always, there’s always forces of evil, and there’s always people trying to look for ways to profit. I didn’t fault any of the Haitians who were looking to steal food or any of that stuff. They were just looking to feed their families or their children or whatever the case may be. There were lots of instances where trucks would be taken or stolen or containers would be taken or stolen and then sold to the Dominican. All kinds of stuff like that was happening too, but I couldn’t concern myself with that.

JF: I was concerned with the area that I had an immediate impact on. We had … We were saving lives. I mean, that was the thing, is get the hospital up and running. At one point, very, very quickly after arriving there, I had 77 Haitian volunteers who were desperate to volunteer, because it means, it meant that they got fed twice. They were also safe inside the airport grounds, and it was crazy. It was crazy.

RP: I remember you telling me, that after you got there with your group of eight, what was it? Five days later, the rest of them all left? What gave you the guts or the courage or the bravery or whatever you want to call it to stay there despite how enormous it was and how intense it was?

JF: I just think I’m just built for that stuff. I’m just, I’m tough like that, and I also knew that, and I felt that if I didn’t continue to do what it was that I was doing every single day, that it may not, and I’m not saying that it wouldn’t, probably wouldn’t, but it may not get done. I knew that the role that I had was so critical, that I had to keep doing it to make sure that, that little space that I controlled was taken care of. Even since I was a kid, I was volunteering.

JF: When hurricane Andrew struck in the early 90’s, I drove around my neighborhood and did my own little canned food drive. Then, I went with the food supplies down to Florida City, which was another … By the way, the first disaster zone I ever saw was Florida City, a stop on the way from South Florida to the Keys that I’d make every year at least once or twice to go fishing and hang out during the summer. Florida City was completely flattened, completely and utterly flattened. The only standing building was the Burger King.

JF: I saw that at, I don’t know, 13 or 14, and that was the beginning of my service and feeling like I have to help people. That, not only do I feel like I have to help people, I actually enjoy it. It feels good.

RP: Do you feel like you need to do that?

JF: Yeah. I wouldn’t know. I wouldn’t … I’m not one to stand around and watch. I made a lot of sacrifices to be there. It took a toll on me physically. It took a toll on me emotionally.

RP: Financially?

JF: Yeah, definitely, but I did it, because I knew it was the right thing to do. People needed it, and I hadn’t really see an option. I just did … There was no option. There was no, “What the hell was I going to do?” Just … I remember one of the first few times I came back home for a few nights. I’d come home for two nights, three nights, a week, once in a while. A friend of mine was in town for Massachusetts, and he said, “Hey, let’s go to dinner. Where do you want to go?”

JF: I said, “I really don’t care. You pick it.” He said, “Let’s go to Joe’s Stone Crab,” which was one of the nicest restaurants anywhere in Miami. It’s very expensive. It’s delicious. It’s fantastic. They’re famous for stone crabs. I said, “Okay. That’s fine. Sure.” I remember just being bummed I was there. I felt terrible about the amount of money we were spending. I remember looking out the window and just fantasizing, daydreaming a little bit of, “Here we are, 750 miles away from utter catastrophe, from complete devastation, suffering.”

JF: People were living on sides of hills, because there was just, there was a place. There was space. People were living under tarps and tents. People were living in squalor, in mud and rain. I knew a guy who lost two of three of his children. I mean, the list goes on and on and on and on, and here I am having a $60 dish of stone crabs and an $18 cocktail, and I’m just like, “Man, it’s just, this doesn’t feel right.” It took a while for me to come back from that.

RP: Is there one experience that sticks out in your mind that was the hardest thing that happened to you down there or the hardest thing you witnessed?

JF: There’s so many. It’s hard to really know, but I actually watch a 10-year-old girl die literally right at my feet. I walked up on it, and I always say, in Haiti, when this was all happening, “Wherever you were, there you were, and if something was happening, when you were there, you were on it.” It was you. That was your thing, and I just walked into the doorway of the hospital. All of a sudden, this girl went down on the floor.

JF: I remember, there was a couple of local US doctors and then two Israeli doctors, and everybody circled this little girl. It was like, “She needs blood. She needs blood.” I said to the Israeli doctor, “Take mine.” He said, “We don’t know what her blood type is.” I said, “I don’t care. Just try it. She had lost so much blood.” I said, “Just try it. Take mine. Just do it.”

JF: I’m not a doctor, so I don’t know if that’s even possible, but they said, “No, we can’t. We just, we can’t.” She literally, her eyes rolled back in her head and closed, and she expired on the floor at the feet of five men. That was definitely not easy to watch, but I remember, at that moment, I was like, “Okay. Well, she’s dead, and I’m busy,” so I ran off to the next thing that I was in the middle of doing to begin with, and I didn’t really think twice about the fact that I just saw a 10-year-old girl die.

RP: Did it hit you at some point later?

JF: There was a lot of stuff that happened just like that, that there was no time to think about, there was no time to process. I remember having a Blackberry at the time, and my dad would text me saying, “Make sure you take time to process. Make sure you take time to think about all this stuff and let it out.” I was like, “I’m too busy, dad. I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” or whatever, texting about it.

RP: I think I was texting you the same thing.

JF: I was just like, “God, people, don’t text me. I’m not taking pictures. I’m not sending pictures. I’m busy.” Yeah. There was a time where it was about 8:00 or 9:00 at night, and I was standing in a moment of just calm, and there was control and quiet among the camp, this hospital camp, and I was standing outside, and I heard the sound of people singing, coming from inside the hospital. It was like, it was a beautiful gospel-type Haitian gospel.

JF: They sing about God a lot. That’s why, naturally, I walked in just to see what was going on, coming from this hospital, where during the daytime, you hear people’s arms getting sawed off. I walked in, and there’s 200 beds and people. See, Haitian people don’t necessarily have nurses at their bedside. They have their family at their bedside. Their family is their nurse when they’re in a hospital. You have 200 patients, and you have at least 200 other people sitting next to them.

JF: There’s 400, 500 people inside of this tent, which was packed. By the time I walked in, the entire place was singing this song, which I would give anything to know what song it was, and it was so beautiful. I had heard it twice, and it was so unbelievable and so beautiful, that at that moment, that was the first time I, it all hit me. “What the hell happened here? How am I standing in the middle of this? This can’t be real,” and I just completely lost it.

JF: I mean, I just cried like I probably had never cried before, and just, I mean, it was like I wept. The guy who was my right-hand man, who walked next to me everywhere I went to help me translate and to help me get this and do that, put his arm around me, and I just, I cried even more. He was crying, and I was crying, and everybody was crying, and people were singing. It was just, it was out of body. It was unimaginable.

RP: Yeah. I remember you telling me that there were two times that you broke down like that. What was the other time?

JF: The other time was, every morning, the airport was locked off, closed off, and every morning, there were, I’d say thousands, but certainly hundreds of people, if not thousands of people, at the gate, the main entry, trying to get into a driveway gate to get into the hospital, because they knew that there was medical care. There was food. There was water. There was life. There was safety, security, so part of what I had created on my own was a volunteer task force of Haitians, that I had a list of their names, and I had them on two shifts.

JF: I had a morning, a 12-hour morning shift and then a 12-hour afternoon overnight shift. One morning, I went over to, early on, early on, I went over to the gate. The Air Force opens the gate. There’s thousands of people very orderly standing. They’re not running in. The gates opened. They’re all standing there and everybody yelling my name, “Mr. Jeff, Mr. Jeff, I speak English,” flashing resumes, “Please, I work, I work, Mr. Jeff.” Then, once my name was known, they all knew it, so everybody, “Mr. Jeff, Mr. Jeff,” but I knew I was looking for my list.

JF: The Air Force guys would give me a bullhorn, and I would start calling out my names, and I would see their arm reaching through this wall of people, and I would literally grab their arm and pull them through the people. I would tell them, “Stand right here and don’t move.” Then, I, so I’d get the first batch of 35, 36 people out of this crowd at about 7:00 in the morning, and I would literally march them single file from the gate to the back of the hospital. Somehow, I known. I don’t know how they ever did it. They were very crafty.

JF: I would count when we got to the camp, before we walked in, and there’d be an extra one. I don’t know where they came from, how they got in and how they got in the line without me seeing it, but there’d always be an extra guy. One morning, there were two extra guys in the line. Somehow, they got in, and I was like, “You guys know. You can’t stay here. You have to leave,” and they were … “Don’t make me call the guards on you.” They both said, “No, please. We’ll work. I speak English. We’ll work. I’ll do whatever you need.”

JF: I’m like, “No, no, no. We got plenty of people. We got too many people. You got to leave. Don’t make me, don’t get me upset.” They were like, “Please, we have children. We need milk. I need to work. I need to be able to feed them. Don’t make us go back out there,” and I was like, “Don’t make me cry. You’re going to make me … You have to …” They were like, “Please don’t make us leave,” and I was like, “Please leave.”

JF: They were like, “We can’t leave.” I was like, “You have to leave.” Then, I just started to well up, and one guy put his arm on me, and then I just, that was it. I sat down on this wall, and I put my hands in my face, my face in my hands I should say, and I just cried uncontrollably. These are humans. These people eat, breathe, drink like we do and love their family and their kids like we do, and they’re desperate. They’re desperate, and I can’t make them leave.

JF: I just all came up and out, and I just, it was the second time that this happened to me when I was there. From that point on, I was just like, “All right, man. You just got to be made of steel.”

RP: Why?

JF: Because there was too much sadness. There was too much to spare. There was too much desperation. There was too much pain, and you just can’t feel it. You have to just not feel it. You’ll feel it eventually. You don’t need to feel it now. Right now, it’s about the business.

RP: Did you find space to feel it later?

JF: I think so. I mean, what I found is, that it became the topic of conversation for everybody that I knew for so long, that it was like all they ended up talking about, but I was never really able to tell the stories of what I experienced, because there was too much story to tell. There was too many things that happened. I have potentially, I don’t know, forgotten about more than I could ever remember because it was 24 hours a day for almost a year and a half of stories.

JF: Good, bad, fun, funny, scary, threatening, all kinds of stuff that have just became part of, I guess, my life, and so I don’t know. I think so.

RP: Was there an element too of when you were talking about the guys that you couldn’t turn away. One of them putting their arm around you, et cetera. It reminds me of soldiers in the trench together in war where they’ve got this shared experience, camaraderie, shared purpose, a sense of belonging and seeing each other that you couldn’t possibly have shared with the people here sitting like wanting you to share your story.

RP: Like I imagine telling the story to people who had never been there, who couldn’t begin to comprehend it? I don’t know. You tell me. What did that feel like?

JF: I’m not a soldier. I’ve never been a soldier. I’ve obviously never been to battle but I can tell you that in my mind, this is the closest thing to it that you could ever imagine. There absolutely was this feeling of we’re all in this thing together camaraderie, this brotherhood, sisterhood, of course. It also led to some confrontations as well because I felt, if you weren’t onboard with the way we’re moving this thing forward, you need to get the hell out of the way.

JF: There were a few instances where people would come in because it became regular where there were flights to bring people in who wanted to help and volunteer. Doctors, nurses, medical support type people but then also just regular people who wanted just to volunteer. What ended up happening was once it stabilized, people started to come in because they wanted to see it.

JF: That hurt. That really pissed me off. It upset me. I didn’t want them around. I didn’t want to see them. People came with cameras. They’re taking pictures. They were becoming disaster tourists. I can tell you that back in those days, I had problems with people who were trying to create a fame for themselves using the situation. I definitely was angry at people who were using our success.

JF: I say success based on lives saved, help given, aid rendered, and people were using at us, hey, look at this group I’m a part of. Look at me, look at me, look at me. I’m going, “Man, look at you on my effing back. Look at you on the tears and the blood of all these thousands and thousands and thousands of people who are literally dying over here and you’re patting yourself on the back because of it?”

JF: I’m going, “No, that’s not.” That upset me. To this day, it makes me mad that people did that. They don’t do it now because it’s not fashionable but when it was fashionable, people used it to propel themselves to … They were clogging up the operation because they were eating our food, drinking our water, sleeping on our beds.

JF: Then the media hype coming through and celebrities passing through and I’ll never forget John Edwards who, at the time, was going through his marital, whatever the heck he had done. He came through and I remember telling him to get the hell out of here. Geraldo Rivera came through and was doing some sensational piece.

JF: I remember telling him to get the hell out of here. Then I saw Sean Penn walk through. He walked through with a very determined look on his face. His hat pulled down low, a group of people walking alongside of him and then they came in. They came out. He wanted to see what was happening. A couple days later, I’d heard that Sean Penn had started a camp up in the hills of Port-au-Prince in a neighborhood called Pétionville.

JF: Actually, at the Pétionville Country Club and so that was where the 182nd Airborne Division was bunking down to. Penn had linked up with the commander of that group, 182nd Airborne and basically said, “I’m not here for TV ratings. I’m not here … I’m here to work. I’m here to work. I’m here to help.” That they said, “If you mean what you say, you can stay with us and make this your camp.” He did.

JF: He made good on what he said he was going to do and they created a camp and what ended up happening was there were 60,000 people who amassed on the hillside of this golf course. J/P HRO was founded by Sean Penn and became a very central location for aid. This was in a time when there was no communication throughout the country.

RP: Jeff began working closely with Sean Penn and moved his own base of operations to Sean’s Pétionville camp.

JF: There came a point in time where I said, “Hey, this is where I need to stand. I’m doing all this stuff in Haiti. I need a place to centralize and I’m going to work here. I’m going to help.” We trusted each other. He trusted me. I was staying in his camp. We got a lot of stuff done together. I knew him to be a tremendous individual, a truly a beautiful human being.

JF: People will say what they will about Sean Penn and I can tell you from personal experience. He is a fantastic human being and he doesn’t do it because he needs to. He doesn’t do it because he gets money from it or because … He does because he can. He has that same internal I have to do this that I have.

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RP: There’s no doubt that Jeff worked hard and selflessly in Haiti and he took on a great deal of responsibility. He also got extra credits simply because he is a white American man. Jeff also had the privilege to come and go. To leave Haiti whenever he wanted. A privilege, many of the people he worked with in Haiti, did not have.

JF: There were times where I would literally fly home at midnight. Be home by 2:00 in the morning. I would shower. I would shave. I would eat. I would sleep and then I’d be on the next aircraft out at seven am. I’m back and nobody even knew I was gone. Meanwhile, I flew out in a Learjet and flew home in a Boeing Business Jet. It was unbelievable. It was truly incredible.

RP: I’m sure this is something that you probably pondered a lot. You show up there as a white American man or those are three separate sources of privilege and that opens all kinds of doors for you and gives you automatic credit, et cetera and yet, at the same time, it’s one thing to like choose to show up somewhere where there are a lot of people who are there not by choice.

RP: Like stay a couple days and like I can’t take this and leave. It’s another thing to like show up and stay and like be in the trenches with people but I just wanted to like bring up that whole subject of like the whole white savior thing, et cetera. Just anything that’s gone through your mind of the years about the-

JF: Yeah, I’ve experienced the whole spectrum of that from people shouting at me, not knowing who I was or what I was there doing. For example, you can walk into the airport. Anybody, anybody that’s there, any Haitian that’s there could see you coming off of a plane from Miami and think that you are just yet another missionary, or yet another charity worker or somebody that’s going to come in, love the country or you’re somebody who’s coming to pillage which happens a lot there too.

JF: You’re coming in and you’re going to disappear like the rest of them. That’s a very common feeling from Haitians. Like I said, it depends on where you are. I find myself on the coast like … When I was there two months ago, I went down to [inaudible 00:44:00] with some friends. We went and served and ate grilled conk by the beach, and drank beers all day, and hung out, and laughed and played.

JF: We were hanging with the kids and the locals and they look at you differently than people at the airport look at you. They look at you like, “Wow, we’re amazed that you’re here.” It depends on where you are and when you’re there. When people see you working and really giving yourself to them and to their cause, whatever you may be doing, they love it.

JF: They love it and they appreciate it and they feel you. They feel you. Those people are so … On one hand, they’re stone cold emotionless about certain things but on the other hand, they’re also deeply emotional and connected to if they feel you, and so like I said, I’ve experienced all of it. I’ve had my life threatened. I’ve had people welcome me into their homes. I’ve had people make me food in a tent. All of it.

RP: Yeah. It’s such a complicated subject of like here we are, a couple of white people talking about this, pretty much entirely black country and I don’t know what we can really say about that because we are who we are and really, what it’s about is like you can speak to what you can speak to through your own experience. You’ve had the experience that you had.

JF: When I talk about Haiti, the Haitian people, they always at first say, “Are you a missionary or what do you go down there for? How do you know about Haiti?” I tell them, I’ve been there 38 times. Wow, or you say a couple phrases in Creole, or you know about a city that they’ve never even been to or the list goes on.

JF: You know obscure foods that they like to eat or the name of a certain soda that they drink and they really then, they just, their eyes connect-

RP: Because you’ve taken the time to-

JF: You know my Haiti. You really know my Haiti. That’s when people say, that’s when you see their smiles and their eyes, really bright. They love to know that I know Haiti. They want people to know it because if they’re here on the states, they miss it. It’s their home. They live here but that’s their home. That’s their mother nation.

JF: They don’t really look at me personally like just another white person going down and doing their thing, and then never going back. They look at me as somebody who loves it like they do.

RP: Jeff then shared the story of the day he decided to leave Haiti.

JF: I woke up one morning and said to myself, “I’m leaving Haiti today. I don’t care what it takes. I’m leaving today.” Before I left, I decided to not tell anybody until 15 minutes before the plane took off. I’ve gone down to the plane by myself and I told the pilot, “I’m on this plane. You do not leave without me on it. I’ll be back in an hour or in 30 minutes when we take off.”

JF: I went back to the camp. I told a couple of the people, “Go inside. Go find everybody. Tell everybody I’m leaving.” People came running out. They all said, “No, no. You can’t leave. No, don’t leave.” I said, “I’m leaving. I’ll be back. Don’t worry. I’ll be back.” They picked me up and they carried me out of the camp and were shouting and cheering and it’s crazy.

JF: Laughing and smiling and I was like, “No. Geez. Don’t do it. Don’t pick me up. No.” They did and then they put me down and I got into this little van and headed down and-

RP: Ultimately, Jeff’s experience in Haiti continued to impact his life and he found different ways of remaining engaged with the republic.

JF: One of the things that I took from Haiti was and it was an effort to raise awareness and to raise funds was the art. Haiti is a country that is steeped in and based on creativity and art and music. It’s the one thing you can’t take away from them. Their dignity and their creativity are the two things that they have endless amounts of.

JF: I created with other folks a few different art shows. We had a very big art show in 2010 called the Haiti Art Expo where we created so much hype. It was fresh. It was during [Art Basel 00:48:42], the biggest contemporary art fair in the United States. We created the Haiti Art Expo and I believe we raised about $250,000 in art sales. We had celebrities there and we had tons of hype and we had a big Haitian Rara band.

JF: We had four nights of programing and we did the Haiti Art Expo in December of 2010. Again, in 2011, I did an art show up in New York. I sold art to private collectors. It’s fantastic so that’s something that’s always with me. I have it in my home. A photography in my home and every time I see … I live in Miami so every time … I’m with Haitians all the time. Yeah, so it’s always with me. It’s always a big part of my existence.

RP: What’s it’s like for you to go back to Haiti now?

JF: It took me a while to go back. I basically, from 2000 … No, it’s 12. I don’t think I went back until 2017. It was exhausting to even think about stepping foot there. The traffic, the heat, the exhaust, there was dust and it’s just so high maintenance to be there in Port-au-Prince. Of course, the memories, I was just like, I needed to not go.

JF: Going back in March of 2017 with eight of my friends, with one of my very best friends, bachelor party was just the best. I took people all the time. You could go to Haiti today as a tourist and you’ll have the most amazing time and you’re not going to regret it. You’re not going to get kidnapped. You’re not going to get killed.

JF: You’re going to have the best time of your life because it’s such a beautiful place. The people are so friendly, so welcoming. There’s not really much of a need to spend much time inside of the capital. It’s about the provinces. That’s where all the magic is and Haiti is magic. It’s magic. It’s different.

RP: Yeah. Why? Why is it magic?

JF: There’s something there that is very mystical and magical. I don’t know what it is. I don’t know if anybody knows what it is, including the Haitians. They’re steeped in magic and steeped in mysticism and in stories.

RP: When you were there during the earthquake, did you feel any of that mysticism or anything unexplainable happening while you’re there?

JF: At that point, not really, but the night where I heard the people singing, that was … There was something there in the room that was like I never felt anything like it before.

RP: What did it feel like?

JF: It felt like touching God and I’m not a religious person. It wasn’t a religious experience. It was like touching humanity. It’s feeling humans on a larger scale like the global sea of consciousness. That moment was like coursing through my veins.

RP: Yeah.

JF: Where you just know we’re all one. We’re all people. We’re all the same creature and that was that moment.

RP: What does Haiti need now? What’s it like there now?

JF: The rubbles have been cleared. The problems still persist. The way the government functions, the corruption. That stuff’s baked into their … I think baked into their society and I don’t necessarily know that I have the answers of how that’s ever going to get unwinded. I can tell you that much of what we hear and see and much of what we know to be the case is really based in Port-au-Prince.

JF: A city that was built for 300,000 that has three million. The city’s physically broken. It’s broken. There’s 10 times too many people. Part of the reason is because the people that are living out in the provinces have to cut trees for heating, to eat. They don’t have electricity in a lot of these areas so they have to create heat through flame. By doing that, they cut down immature trees based on need.

RP: If you look down at Haiti, in the Dominican Republic from the air, you’ll see a lush green country on one side of the island and pretty much the opposite on the other. There’s a long history of deforestation in Haiti that dates back to the Haitian Revolution in 1804 when it became the first black republic in the world. The US and Europe refused to trade with them and France imposed attacks that Haiti paid for 80 years.

RP: The new Haitian government, composed of elites, tried to impose a plantation economy on the population that did not serve the majority. As a result, the people, particularly outside the capital, have been left to fend for themselves ever since. There is no standard electricity grid or gas pipeline so people used firewood for cooking.

JF: They have completely deforested much of the provinces of the entire country which then denudes the soil which then, when it rains, runs into the ocean which affects the sea and marine life.

RP: That’s one of the pieces of why the two countries on the same island, the other one being the Dominican Republic when one of these national disasters happened where there’s an earthquake, hurricane, whatever. The effects on the two countries is completely different and from what I’ve read, that’s one of the reasons why.

JF: Absolutely, and one of the things that I would love to see the Haitian government do. I wish they would do this. It would be to subsidize propane. Subsidizing propane, just giving people propane even if it’s for the smallest coin they make. I don’t care what it is. Make people earn it. Give it to them. If they stop cutting down the trees within some number of generations, they would be able to have … I would hope that we would be able to have, restore some of the damage that’s been done.

JF: That damage is the root of so many of the problems of that country. The environmental destruction has led to hunger and poverty and like I’m talking about abject poverty and illness and so many other things. If that was solved. By the way, the Dominican did that and it changed the country. Now, their government still has issues but they don’t have that as an issue.

RP: I asked Jeff, “Who’s making a significant effort to reforest Haiti?” He said that one of J/P HRO’s main projects is exactly that. Their focus is not only on reforestation but to create jobs to replace those of people who cut down trees as their income. J/P HRO is working with the Haitian government on these efforts. Their goal is to eventually make it a national movement. To learn more, visit the link in the shown ups.

JF: Something that really struck a cord with me was one day, I was in the airport in Port-au-Prince and I watched one of these missionary groups come in and their t-shits said something about saving Haiti on their shirts. Everybody wears their color coded t-shirts so that they see each other. They don’t get lost. Haitians are so used to seeing groups come in that fall in love with Haiti, that never go back.

JF: They never live up to their promise to this child. I’ll be back. They never come back, so they’re so used to this. All of a sudden, this group of white people come in off of an airplane that says, “Save Haiti.” I saw a Haitian man say, “What do you mean, save Haiti? You’re not going to save Haiti. Get out of here. I don’t want you. You’re not saving Haiti. We don’t need to be saved.”

JF: I was like, “You know what? He’s right.” They’re fine. Are there problems? Yes. Could it be better? A million percent. They don’t need to be saved by you or by me. They need to be visited. They need to be respected. They need to be paid well for the things that they provide. Buy their art. Listen to their music. Eat their food. Visit Haiti. That’s the best thing we could do.

JF: There’s plenty of tourism infrastructure there and you don’t have to be Indiana Jones to go visit. It’s a great place. It’s a beautiful place with so much history. I tell people to go. Go visit. Go visit. There’s plenty of information on the internet about visiting, tourism. They have an unbelievable Ministry of Tourism. They’ve done a great job of branding it as a beautiful, fun, safe place. The food is fantastic. The people are sweet. The beer is delicious.

RP: Is there anything else you would want to say like to address Haitians directly who are listening?

JF: The Haitian diaspora is very large and very powerful and I would encourage any one of them to continue to promote their country and their homeland regardless of … It’s easy for me to say, but regardless of their feelings towards whomever is in power or whatever those political issues are, encourage people to visit.

RP: I recently followed up with Jeff about the latest situation in Haiti. We talked at length about current events and sustainable development. I’ve been hearing in the news about like violent protests, people asking the president to step down. Can you just give us a little bit of a picture of what’s going on right now?

JF: Yeah. I don’t really know all the details. It’s hard to know the truth of what’s really happening there right now. It depends on who you ask, who you talk to. Everybody has a different perspective. Some people love the president. Some people think he’s terrible. I can only tell you that about two weeks ago, nobody worked for about a week and they were demanding that the president steps down.

JF: There’s frustrations that even if he does, they’re going to be forced into having to deal with a new transitional government which is what they already have right now.

RP: I know you went to Haiti recently, a couple of months ago. What does Haiti look and feel like right now?

JF: It’s generally unchanged from all the other times I’ve been there. I will tell you that I was pleasantly surprised by … I did a lot of driving through Port-au-Prince. Actually, I was there for a wedding so I spent a few days down at the beach and then when we came up to the capital for the wedding, we were driving through the city a lot and I saw a lot of really well-paved streets and sidewalks.

JF: That’s a huge thing. That helps immensely. It gives people hope in some ways so I noticed a lot of it. More than I had seen before.

RP: It sounds like there’s some … Real progress has been made in some ways?

JF: Yeah. In some ways, after the earthquake and all the funds that came in and with President Martelly and he set out to do well. They did do a lot of positive things. One of the most and the easiest thing to do is just paving some of the streets in the capital. The capital hasn’t been improved since the ’70s. That was one of the very first things that they could do.

JF: Oftentimes, when they do that, they do a cheap version and it washes away in the rain but this time, they really did it. It appears to be that they did it well in certain places.

RP: We discussed how in the beginning of a massive catastrophe like the earthquake, you just have to do whatever you can to help in the moment. More long term, just getting humanitarian aid creates dependence and leaves people disempowered. There needs to be more focus on sustainable solutions by merging humanitarian efforts and development.

RP: I told Jeff about Dr. Paul Spiegel of the Johns Hopkins Center for Humanitarian Health who says that “Giving refugees and displaced people jobs, bank accounts, insurance, et cetera, helps not only with their dignity but also with improving local economies. My friend, John Kluge, Founder and Managing Director of the Refugee Investment Network created a matchmaking service between impact investors and impact actors, focused on the 70 million refugees and internally displaced people in the world.”

RP: He said, “We need someone to help connect refugee entrepreneurs to investors, mentors and technical assistance.” What does sustainable development look like in Haiti? What’s the ideal scenario and who’s doing the best work?

JF: After the earthquake, everybody and their brother came down hoping to change the world and open up their NGO or their non-profit or their charity or whatever in Haiti and the overwhelming majority of them didn’t make it for the long term. There are a few that were there from the beginning and have absolutely survived and have become the forefront of what’s possible down there.

JF: Sean Penn went down there as we discussed and he started the J/P HRO which is still down there doing incredible work. They basically have … The overwhelming majority of the people that work there are actually Haitians. They’ve taught them and trained them and empowered them to be able to operate on their own. There’s a school that was started by some folks from LVMH, Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy.

JF: Enormous global brand. They basically started a school. They just basically plot down. The government of one of the areas gave them land and they said, “We’re building a school.” They have built the Lycee Jean-Baptiste Pointe du Sable which is an unbelievable school that is funded through Hand in Hand for Haiti which is an amazing 501(c)(3) organization.

JF: They basically give the kids free school, healthcare, two square meals a day. They pick them up. They have a soccer field. It is as legit as any organization anywhere in the world in Saint-Marc, Haiti. It’s just absolutely incredible. They have really knocked the ball out of the park. They’re teaching kids English. They’re teaching kids French.

JF: The Ayiti Community Trust is another phenomenal organization and they’re focused on their three main pillars which are the environment, entrepreneurship and civic engagement so they’re really providing, giving local people the tools to be able to fend for themselves. They’re teaching. They’re learning. They’re empowering. They’re supporting so that someday, they don’t have to exist anymore.

JF: One of the biggest problems in Haiti is that a lot of the organizations that are down there are down there for the sake of being down there, simply to exist. Their endgame should be to, at some point, not exist, to-

RP: To be obsolete.

JF: Yeah, to have achieved their goals of creating a self-sustaining future for Haiti and her people.

RP: We were going to end it there, but then Jeff told an amazing story that sums up so many aspects of Haiti’s relationship to the US, Haitian ingenuity and resilience in the face of negative narratives and specifically, his friend [Juber 01:04:30] who knows how to get what he wants.

JF: Haiti has always been on the pirate route and a stop for pirates. There’s pirate ships and treasure and all kinds of ships from centuries ago that are sunken off the coast. It’s a very dangerous and rugged coast and so a friend of mine, Juber, he actually … He’s a commercial diver in Haiti by profession. He gets a phone call one day.

JF: The phone rings and he picks up the phone and it’s a guy called Peter Arnett who was the senior foreign correspondent for CNN back in the ’90s and early 2000s and Juber says, “How can I help you?” Peter Arnett says, “I understand that you are Haiti’s leading boat captain,” and Juber says, not being a boat captain at all, says, “That’s right. I am. What can I do for you?”

JF: Peter Arnett says, “There’s violence in the streets and there’s fighting and gun battles and we want to come down and get a story. We want to see this. We want to get a story.” Juber says, “Okay. That’s going to cost you $50,000.” Peter Arnett says, “Why? We can’t do $50,000. It’s too much. We can give you 30.” He says, “It’s $50,000. It’s how much it’s going to cost for me to do this for you.”

JF: He says, “We can get you $40,000.” Juber says, of course, knowing that $40,000 is way too much money to be paid for this, he says, “Okay, that’s fine.” Peter Arnett flies down to Haiti and Juber picks him up and takes him, him and his cameraman to this boat.

RP: That he scrounged up out of-

JF: He scrounged it up. I’m sure he borrowed it from a friend and takes Peter Arnett and the cameraman to this remote piece of the coast off of the capital where he stages a gun battle and fully fakes out the news crew and they’re recording this thing and all of a sudden, the guys firing these guns are heading towards Peter Arnett and the cameraman, and Peter Arnett’s running, “We got to get to the boat. We got to get the hell out of here. We got to go, go, go.”

JF: Juber says to him, “$50,000?” Peter Arnett says, “$50,000. Let’s go. Let’s go.” He raised them back to the boat and got paid $50,000 so-

RP: Didn’t they air it on CNN?

JF: It was aired that night.

RP: Then the whole world thinks there’s this thing-

JF: It was aired that night.

RP: Didn’t you also say that like the only conflict was actually in Port-au-Prince?

JF: Yeah. That was totally made up, completely fabricated and aired on CNN that night as some gun battle, raging violence in Haiti which is totally untrue.

RP: Yeah, so then we watch or hear the news or read about it, whatever. Like of all these things going on all over the world, who’s to say if any of it is what it looks like.

JF: Most of the time, it probably isn’t, but you always got to question the reality. Yeah, Haiti’s got a lot of those stories and it’s really an unbelievable place. It’s really an incredible place.

RP: To learn more about the various efforts in Haiti that we mentioned in this show and how you can help, there’s a list of links in the shown ups. For more detail on grassroots Haitian responses to the hurricane recovery and Haitian perspectives on this period, we recommend the book, Haiti Needs New Narratives by Gina Athena Ulysse.

RP: Thank you for listening to A Show of Hearts. If you enjoyed what you heard, please subscribe in iTunes and share it with your favorite people. Visit our website, ashowofhearts.com where you can sign up for emails and explore all our episodes in-depth. Follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter @ashowofhearts.

RP: Remember to choose courage even when it’s scary, and join me in igniting the world with our hearts.

Speaker 2: (singing)

The post Strength, Dignity, and Resilience in Haiti with Jeff Feldman appeared first on A Show of Hearts.

Dr. Leo Galland is an accomplished doctor known as a founder of functional medicine and has had a long and varied career as both a world renowned physician and a international bestselling author of 5 books. His latest book Already Here: A Doctor Discovers the Truth About Heaven, is a more personal one about the story of losing his 22-year old son and how it sparked his belief in the afterlife. In this episode we talk about Leo Galland the doctor: what inspired him to go into the profession, his experience as a young doctor at Bellevue and how he arrived at using the approach of functional medicine. But we also speak at length about Galland the spiritual person: the experience he had raising and ultimately losing a developmentally challenged son and how that loss opened his mind and heart and ultimately changed how he operates in the world and how he approaches his patients.

To learn more about Dr. Leo Galland, visit www.drgalland.com. Thanks so much for listening! If you like what you heard, please subscribe and rate on iTunes, visit www.ashowofhearts.com or follow us @ashowofhearts on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook! Take a screenshot of this episode and share it in your Instastory and use the hashtag #ashowofhearts . Feel free to email us at info@ashowofhearts with any questions or comments!

RP:    You’re listening to A Show Of Hearts, the podcast about finding the courage to live a deep and magical life. I’m your host, life coach Rosemary Pritzker. (singing).

RP:    Dr. Leo Galland is a highly respected physician, and one of the original founders of the principles of functional medicine. He’s an international bestselling author of five books, and has published many scientific articles. Dr. Galland attended Harvard University and NYU School of Medicine, and has received numerous awards throughout his career. His name also appears on lists such as Leading Physicians Of The World, and America’s Top Doctors.

RP:    Dr. Galland has been my doctor on and off for a decade. His latest book, Already Here, is a departure from his usual subject of integrated medicine. In it, he shares the story of losing his 22-year-old son, Christopher, and what he learned about death, grief, and the afterlife. In this episode, we begin by discussing his worldview as a physician. I asked him if there is a common denominator among his most challenging and mysterious cases, and I think his answer will surprise you.

RP:    Then we discussed his experiences after the death of his son, and what he learned from him. Christopher was a special needs child who was brain-damaged from birth. He liked to challenge everyone around him, but Leo later learned that what appeared as Christopher being difficult was actually him showing up as a very wise teacher.

RP:    To learn more about Leo Galland, visit drgalland.com, or find the link in the show notes. When someone says, “Follow the heart,” what does that mean to you? What does that conjure for you?

LG:    Well, I think the first thing is stop running around, pay attention, know what’s in your heart. I mean, listen to it, because the heart will speak to you. That’s where I start.

RP:    Were there any early lessons in your life about that that kind of led you to thinking and feeling that way?

LG:    Well, I would say that for me, there was always this kind of duality of heart and mind that I probably spent my life trying to learn how to bridge the division between them. For me though, it was always a question of how do you respond to things? I tried to understand that process as I became a physician, I think.

LG:    That’s probably where I made the greatest strides, because what I learned was important to do was to be able to approach my patients with my heart as well as my mind, and that the subjective reactions that I had to my patients was really an important piece of information. It was just as important as what any lab test told me.

LG:    It was a very slow process. I mean, I spent decades trying to bring the two together to the point where I didn’t have to think about doing it, where it just kind of automatically happened. Of course, compassion is a really important part of being a physician.

RP:    What led you to becoming a doctor in the first place?

LG:    Well, to begin with, I wanted to help people, and I was told, “Well, don’t say that when you go to medical school. Tell them it’s because of the intellectual stimulation, or whatever.” Yeah, I just thought that I wanted to be useful, I wanted to be able to be of service, and I felt that being the kind of person I was, that using my intellect and my mind to be of service was the path that I should follow.

LG:    I like to try and solve problems, and more important than just solving problems myself, I really care about empowering people. What I really like to try and do is to help people learn how to solve their own problems. I went to medical school at NYU, and so the clinical training was at Bellevue Hospital. As soon as I got onto the wards of Bellevue and were dealing with real people who were very sick, it was like, “Wow, this is what I want to be doing. I want to be in this clinical environment. I want to be trying to help these people interact, learn, grow.”

LG:    So I mean, it’s very much passion for the work that enabled me to do it. When I finished at Bellevue and started teaching, I realize that there was really something missing. I realized that there was an awful lot that we just didn’t know about people. The whole practice of medicine and the way it was taught was just focused on, “What disease does this person have?” Then you can treat the disease.

LG:    But what I learned as a scientist when I was working in laboratories was that science is all about the details, that is you can change the outcome of an experiment by altering the temperature one degree, or by changing one ingredient that you’re using. If you’re trying to practice medicine as a scientist, then the details are really important. Details like what does this person eat? What does this person think? Who does he or she live with? What’s the environment like in which this person lives?

LG:    That was being totally ignored, and still is to a large extent, which amazes me. I realized there was an awful lot that I didn’t know about my patients, and I wanted to learn how to get that information. I spent years studying nutrition, environmental health, behavioral medicine, physical medicine, and first thing I realized was there was a tremendous amount of research that had been done in these areas, it just hadn’t crossed over into the clinical practice of medicine.

LG:    As I began applying it, I realized that this was really important, powerful information that could help people change their lives, and that once you start doing this, you never want to go back and act as if you … it’s impossible to go back to the model in which I had been trained, and which to a large extent still dominates medical practice in the U.S.

LG:    When I looked at what was effective about what I was doing, and this is like maybe in the ’80s, I realized that I was just … I was thinking about the problems of patients differently. I was in New Haven, saw a lot of chronically ill people. Many of them had been to specialists at Yale. The more Yale specialists they’d seen without getting answers, the more likely I was going to be able to help them, because the specialists were all looking at the diseases, and the people who were coming to me were people for whom that approach had failed.

LG:    I didn’t have to worry about, “Was this test done? Was this diagnosis made?” That had already been done. What I could concentrate on is, “What has everybody ignored about this person that we’re now going to try and shed some light on?” That’s been an approach that has really been very helpful to my patients. There’s information, and techniques, and knowledge that comes out of thinking that way that I’ve taught to other physicians, and it’s been very well accepted, and it helped to shape functional medicine, which has had significant impact on medical practice in the U.S. and elsewhere.

LG:    For me, that’s been a very fulfilling enterprise, sometimes really frustrating. A lot of work. I mean, the work never stops because when you learn a set of skills and you get pretty competent at managing something, and then you go and you teach that to other doctors. Well, then the people that you wind up seeing have already seen those doctors, and so what you already learned that made a difference has already not helped those people, and your challenge, you’ve got to take it one step further. You’ve got to raise the bar on your practice and your understanding.

LG:    I mean, I like doing that. It suits my personality well. It’s also very humbling, because you get to realize, “There is so much that I don’t know, and no matter how long I spend, and how hard I work, and how many breakthroughs I think I’m making, there’s just so much more that I need to address.”

RP:    Yeah. Human bodies, and human psyches, and the coming together of those two things, it’s so complex. How is anyone supposed to get to the bottom of any of it?

LG:    Right, and that’s one of the reasons why the only medicine that’s really sustainable and ultimately successful is one that brings the patient in as a partner with the medical team, because people ultimately heal themselves, and if someone’s not going to cooperate in that process, there’s a limit to what you as a physician can do, but if someone really gets engaged in trying to restore her health or his health, they can bring insights and understanding that I as a physician can’t really access without that person sharing them with me.

RP:    Where do you think the disconnect is between just with how many people don’t want to take their health into their hands? They want to get better, but they don’t want to have to actually do the work. I mean, I feel like that’s pretty prevalent.

LG:    Yeah, it is. I had this really frustrating experience a number of years ago. I saw a child who had a kind of kidney disease that can be associated with a food allergy. She was being treated a CHOP, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, which is a top place, and no one had talked to the parents about the food allergy aspect.

LG:    So I called up the nephrologist, the kidney specialist that she was seeing, to say, “Well, I think maybe we should look at that aspect of it.” He said, “Yeah, we’re totally aware of that, but we stopped telling parents about it, because we found that parents didn’t want to have to change their child’s diet, so we only get into it if the parent asks us.”

LG:    I thought, “Wow, boy.” I mean, these were caring doctors, they were really good doctors. They were so frustrated that they just kind of gave up. If the parent went to them and said, “I want to know whether a diet change can cure my child of this terrible kidney disease,” then they would tell them, otherwise they wouldn’t even tell them about it.

RP:    Yeah. I have a couple different friends who are ER doctors. I’ve asked a couple of them the same question, “Okay, how many of the cases that come into your ER that aren’t stabbings and other accidents, how much of the rest of them are related to diet in someway, where they’re caused by it or exacerbated?” Everyone I asked that question who’s an ER doctor says, “Oh, 100%, basically. Everything.”

LG:    Right. Well, look, we know from studies that have been done that 80% of the burden of morbidity, which is sickness in this country, could be prevented or reversed by lifestyle changes. I mean, that’s huge. The only way to really build a sustainable system is by making that the focus of it. Of course, the big enemy to that are the corporate interests.

RP:    There’s two main factors I see there. One is corporate interests, wanting people to buy sugar and all that other crap, and then there’s also the emotional side of changing one’s diet is really hard, especially when you’re surrounded by other people who are eating a certain way, and it may be hard to afford foods that are better for you. Like there’s so many factors.

LG:    Right, but that is all part of the culture that’s created by the corporate interests, because yeah, I mean, life is hard, and it’s hard to make lifestyle changes without social reinforcement. We have two cultures, really. I mean, we have a culture that will foster, that will reinforce that kind of positive health behaviors, but it’s a minority culture. Then we have this other culture which really antagonizes positive lifestyle change, and does all sorts of things to try and undermine it.

RP:    This is why I get so excited about edible school yards. My friend Kimbal Musk is trying to get a learning garden into every school in America, and he’s already in hundreds of them. Starting young, teaching kids how to grow their own food, what could be better?

LG:    Yeah, just knowing what food is.

RP:    Mm-hmm (affirmative), yeah.

LG:    That it grows and it comes from … plants are real.

RP:    Yeah. When someone comes in who’s a particularly complicated puzzle, have you found that there are any connection points between those people, things that they might have in common, like the most mysterious illnesses?

LG:    Okay, that’s a really good question. Let me just say that my basic approach is to view every person as unique, every illness as a unique set of events, and to try and approach people on the basis of their individuality and uniqueness more so than how they are like somebody else, which is one of the things that makes it different from the standard medical approach, which is you try to lump people, like do they meet these criteria, and then … I mean, that’s what the disease model is about.

LG:    Now, there are certain themes that come up, and I would say those themes tend to have more of an impact on prognosis than diagnosis. They influence how people are likely to do. And of course, the most important is the relationships they have with other people, number one.

LG:    If someone who has good relationships with other people, they have strong family support, you’re just in a whole different universe when you try to help that person help themselves, than if you have someone who’s really isolated, angry, really doesn’t have any positive support, and has a lot of negative energy that they’re getting from people around them. I mean, you look at a situation like that and it’s, “Wow, this is going to be really a tremendous challenge.”

RP:    Do you ever say to those people anything about that piece of it? Like, “Hey, if you were to do something about …”

LG:    Oh, yeah. I’m constantly doing it, but you have to do it in a way that doesn’t … the problem with someone who’s been chronically ill, and is frustrated, and hasn’t gotten better is they’ve seen a lot of doctors who have said, “You know, it’s all in your head,” or there’s a lot of blaming the victim.

LG:    So trying to find a balance between helping yourself, but feeling like this illness is your fault, that’s tricky. I really have to go very gingerly in approaching those issues with patients, because it is important that there’s a feeling of some kind of, “We’re working together. This is collaborative. There’s an alliance between you and me for the purpose of helping you get well.” That’s not always easy to build. Sometimes even when you build it and … it’s pretty fragile and can fall apart.

RP:    Can you usually tell when someone’s too isolated and doesn’t have enough of a sense of belonging in their lives?

LG:    Well, yeah, I mean, that’ll usually come out in the discussions that we have. I ask some questions. I have people fill out a questionnaire, and there are questions in there that relate to that.

RP:    When you ever bring up that subject with people, does it ever start to feel like therapy?

LG:    Oh, yeah. I have a colleague who’s a cognitive behavioral therapist, and we’ve shared a number of patients. He said to me, “What you do with people is psychotherapy.” The way that I view it as psychotherapy is if you take someone who is sick and feels as if no one can help them, and you help that person understand what they can do to help themselves, the empowerment is that psychotherapy, and that’s an essential part of healing.

RP:    We started talking about how he met his wife when they both worked at Bellevue Hospital. So after you guys met, how long did it take before you guys figured things out?

LG:    Figured things out. Well, I don’t know. It’s a process, we’re still figuring it out. Marriage is like medicine, it’s constantly a dynamic situation.

RP:    Yeah, ever evolving.

LG:    Yes.

RP:    How long have you guys been married?

LG:    We’ve been together about 47 years.

RP:    That’s a long time.

LG:    Yes, it is.

RP:    Any insights about what has sustained that?

LG:    I remember at one point the thought that I had, and I’d only been married to Chris for a year or two, I said, “You know, the secret seems to be that you care about each other and you have fun together.” I mean, that was it. Caring wasn’t enough, you had to have fun.

RP:    Yeah.

LG:    Then when you have kids and you have a family, the responsibilities and the caring, and also the types of fun, change and expand. So doing things together as a family really means a lot.

RP:    Okay, so then you started having kids, and right off the bat had triplets, right?

LG:    Chris actually had the triplets when I met her.

RP:    Oh.

LG:    It’s not something that I went into in the book. They were amazing, they were just as cool as she was. Yeah, so I was in love with the whole collection.

RP:    How old were they when you came on the scene?

LG:    Almost five.

RP:    Okay.

LG:    And yeah, they were just fantastic.

RP:    Yeah.

LG:    Christopher was always a challenge, and he … the thing about Christopher that is so remarkable, I think, is the way his relationship to me changed as he got older and with his death. While he was alive, I always thought about Chris in terms of, “Well, he’s my responsibility, and so I’m taking care of him. He’s an amazing, quirky individual who … I mean, I don’t know anybody like him, and he is so unpredictable, and so difficult and frustrating, but has such love, and joy, and sparkle to him that he’s just a unique human being.”

LG:    Then things really changed, because at the time of his death, I had … my wife and I both had this experience. We saw with our eyes that there was so much more to Christopher than we had ever really seen. I mean, we always knew that he was special, and I mean, his grandmother said, “Boy, if he wasn’t brain-damaged, what would he be like?”

RP:    But it sounds like there were a lot of special things about him that came because of him having been brain-damaged?

LG:    Oh, yeah, yeah. That is his directness, his total lack of guile, his lack of resentment. I mean, ordinary people who are not brain-damaged, they harbor a lot of resentment about people who have mistreated them. Chris was like Teflon when it came to resentment. Nothing stuck with him. He would remember things, but it was always kind of like, “Okay, so that’s a fact.” Maybe it was even funny.

LG:    If somebody had been mean or nasty to Chris, he might avoid them, because he didn’t want to get hurt, although most of the time he didn’t care about that. He might really try to annoy them to provoke them, because it would just be funny, but he would never hold a grudge against them. He was always ready to be direct and loving with everybody.

LG:    People who are not brain-damaged are not like that. That was a gift of brain damage in Christopher’s life, and you can’t really separate Christopher from the fact that he was damaged. This was the way he was. This was Christopher.

LG:    What I didn’t understand until his death and afterwards was that he was really here as a teacher. He was my teacher, among others. I mean, as much as I thought I was taking care of him, he was taking care of me at a level that was so much more profound. This was like being in the presence of a holy man, a guru who had so much that you could learn from.

LG:    It started with the experience at the moment of his death. He was 22. He had gone to live at a farm in the Berkshires as part of a community called Lifesharing, and he’d been there for nine months, an interesting period of time, when he one morning in November, went for a walk in the woods. It was November 2nd, which is All Souls Day. He drowned, basically. He probably had a seizure, he wasn’t observed. He drowned in about two inches of water in a streambed, because he had walked away from the group he was with.

LG:    My wife and I were in New York, and I’d gotten a phone call that he was being resuscitated at the emergency room in Great Barrington Hospital, but he was very cold. I mean, he seemed to be dead, but his body temperature was so low. I asked them to keep warming him and not decide that he was dead until he reached a viable body temperature, you know, because hypothermia can protect your brain from damage.

LG:    So Christine and I were sitting there waiting for a phone call, feeling overwhelmed, numb. There’s this tragedy, this life-changing tragedy that’s taking place 150 miles away from where you are. You can’t get there to be part of it. You can’t do anything about it. All you can do is wait. I mean, it’s an agonizing feeling.

LG:    Everything felt really heavy, and then all of a sudden there was this feeling in the room that we both felt, like lightning was about to strike. It was this electrical charge sensation, and we both stood up at the same time just spontaneously, and then there was this vision that we had. It wasn’t like a vision with our eyes, it was more like a vision with our minds. There was light, this intense golden light just filled our minds, and the light was emanating from a figure that had Christopher’s face.

LG:    The shape of the figure was not exactly like a person. It was a kind of oblong shape with a face at the apex, and when I thought about it later, I realized, “Well, that’s kind of the shape of a ghost.” I mean, I think about it that way. It seems crazy to me that we have this image of ghosts as being sad, and scary, and pale. This ghost was like … I mean, it was more like the Holy Ghost. I mean, this was a ghost that was full of love, and energy, and joy, and it was clearly Christopher, but it looked perfect and beautiful.

LG:    I mean, Chris in life had so many scars that his face looked like he was a prize fighter or something, I mean, because he kept bumping into things, and things were always slamming into him. He was very awkward and clumsy. This face was beautiful, and the feeling of total joy that emanated from this being was not like anything I had ever experienced remotely in life.

LG:    It was like you wanted to be there. You wanted to be part of that. It was magnetic, it was amazing. Then he was gone. I mean, I don’t know how long it lasted. 10 seconds, 20 seconds. You wanted to go with him. It was like, “Boy, if that’s the way life could be, you would want that every moment of your consciousness.”

LG:    Then the phone was ringing, and we knew, okay, yeah, they were going to tell us, “Yeah, we warmed his body up. His cardiogram is flat. He’s …” So we said, “Thank you.” And of course, we understand. It was what we felt, and I still believe this, we were seeing the real Christopher. This is who Christopher was, and this was the energy and the spirit that was within that amazing, complex, difficult human being that we had raised.

LG:    If that were the only thing that ever happened, I probably would have thought about it obsessively until I couldn’t think about it anymore, and it wouldn’t have changed my way of understanding the world, but a few days later we buried Chris in the Berkshires. We wanted him to be there with the community that he had been so important to, and we drove back to New York.

LG:    Now, at his graveside, on a crazy impulse that I can’t identify where it came from, we decided to release balloons at the graveside. 22 yellow helium balloons, which if I had thought about it, I would have said, “Well, that’s not really a responsible thing, sending helium balloons up into the sky,” but we did it.

LG:    They had arrived initially at the church, and then were taken to the graveside, tied together with yellow ribbons that were attached to a sandbag. The knot that tied them was so tight you couldn’t untie them, so we had to cut the ribbons. Each balloon had a short yellow ribbon about 12 inches long with kind of a rough edge attached to it, because somebody had … at the graveside, somebody had a rusty pocket … or an old pocketknife that was kind of dull. Didn’t look beautiful the way I thought they would look when they went up into the sky.

LG:    So the next day, we’re driving back to New York, and we get to Columbus Circle as we’re heading downtown in Manhattan. There’s a lot of traffic. We stop at a red light. A yellow balloon literally drops out of the sky, hovers about 10 feet above the ground directly in front of the windshield of the car, and then sort of bobs away. As I saw it, my first reaction was, “Wow, isn’t that a coincidence?” Then I noticed that this balloon has a short about 12 inch yellow ribbon attached to it.

LG:    I mean, and this is a cold kind of rainy day in November. We were right near Central Park. This balloon did not come from Central Park. That would be rising up. This was dropping down. I think it was almost certainly one of the balloons that we had released at the graveside, and the fact that it wound up in New York 24 hours later, yeah, that could happen with a helium balloon.

LG:    The fact that it dropped down right where we were by Columbus Circle, a place that had a certain meaning for us, because I used to call Christopher, “Cristoforo,” which is Christopher Columbus’ name in Italian. He would laugh, and so that location had a particular significance to us. I mean, that’s pretty extraordinary. That really blew me away.

LG:    I felt as if Christopher were laughing at me, and he were saying, “I know you, Leo. I let you see my true soul so that you would know the real nature of things, but I also know that wouldn’t be enough for you. Given enough time, you would doubt that it was anything but some shared hallucination you had with my mom, and so I want you to try and argue your way out of this. How do you come up with an explanation for this?”

LG:    Of course, as a scientist, yeah, I’m always trying to come up with explanations, so what’s a rational explanation for what I experienced? Well, most scientists would just dismiss it. That’s not being a scientist. If you dismiss an experience or an observation, then you’re just … I mean, you’re just doing what people what are not scientists do.

LG:    They just take the data that fits in with their preconceived notion of the world, and that’s all they pay attention to. They don’t pay attention to the most important information, which is the information that challenges your understanding of the world, that shows you, “Hey, you’ve got to get beyond where you are if you really want to understand things,” which is what I really have learned in my medical practice.

LG:    You always have to look at the stuff that challenges you. You have to take that seriously. Chris was giving me an opportunity to really challenge the way that I thought about things, and that started me on a journey, but it took a long time. For a few years, I didn’t exactly know what to make of this.

RP:    There was another interaction with Chris on Thanksgiving not long after his death, where Leo suddenly felt very sick. He immediately got in bed and began to have an experience in which he felt all the disappointments Chris had as a brain-damaged child, all the things he couldn’t do.

LG:    I felt as if I really understood the strength of his character, the way in which he took pain, and the disappointment, and unhappiness, and transformed it into love and joy. When I came out of it, I was really … I was so impressed by him.

LG:    I just understood him more intimately than I had ever before, so I think it took a few years as I began to let that understanding of Chris’ strength, and that being that I had experienced at the moment of his death, and the power of that being who was able to transport a balloon from Great Barrington to Columbus Circle who had that kind of control. Okay, that’s wonderful. Boy, I wish I were like that. Maybe everybody’s like that. How do you find that in everybody?

RP:    If you love what you’re hearing in this episode, subscribe, give a five-star rating and write a review in iTunes and then share it with someone you know who will love it too.

RP:    After that, there wasn’t much interaction with Chris until five years later.

LG:    I woke up the middle of the night with this voice saying, you have to tell my story. My heart was pounding, and it was crazy. Nothing like that had ever happened to me, but I recognized that was Chris who was speaking to me. I started planning this book. In the morning, I said to Christina, “This is what happened and I’m going to write this book.” She said, “Well, that’s a great idea, but keep it simple.” Because I was already planning all sorts of … She said, “Just talk about Chris.” I figured I would write it over the summer when I had time, but I started thinking about it, and I started contacting people who had known Chris, to ask them for stuff that they wanted to share.

LG:    We flew to Palm Springs for this conference. I woke up during the night with another one of these messages. The only two times in my life this has ever happened. This voice was saying, “Tomorrow, there will be a revelation in the desert.” What does that mean? Again, it-

RP:    It sounds ominous.

LG:    Yeah, it did. I was shaking. My heart was pounding.

RP:    Leo had planned a day of outdoor activities for him and his family while they were in Palm Springs, but nothing seemed to work out. Everything he planned seemed to go wrong. Later that day, he went on a walk in the desert by himself in the hot sun.

LG:    I sat down on a rock and I was feeling sorry for myself, I guess. I got to change things here. I’m working too hard. Christina was almost killed in a car accident three months ago. Everything seemed unsatisfying. I think I said, “Okay, Chris. All right. What should I do?” All of a sudden, there was this presence. It wasn’t quite the same being that had been there before, but in the desert, in this heat and sun, there was a bright, joyful presence, and the words that came to me, and I’m not hearing this with my ears, I’m hearing this with my mind were, “Follow my lead.” I thought, that’s ridiculous. That was my initial response. How am I going to follow your lead? I’m 50 years old. I’m a doctor. I’m really busy. You died when you were young. You were just a child. You were brain damaged. How do I follow your lead?

LG:    What came back were the words, teach and serve. I didn’t understand Christopher at that time. I can tell because of my response. It was, oh, come on. I’ve been teaching and serving for 20, 30 years now. I’m really tired of this. I just want to have fun. I want to go mountain biking, body surfing. I need to make a change here. He just repeated it. He said, “Follow my lead. Teach and serve.” I realized that it was Chris who was the teacher, and who was of service, and I was being told to understand that and to follow that lead. One of the most striking characteristics of Christopher is there is no ego there. He just was. He loved being himself. He loved getting gold stars, but it was not the kind of ego that we walk around with. It was that ego-less teaching and serving, that was a model that I have to strive for and that was being presented to me. That was a huge breakthrough for me emotionally, intellectually.

LG:    About three months later, I had this summer, it’s mostly out at the beach going into the city to see some patients. I decided, okay, I’m going to spend three months now and I’m just really going to write and work on this book. I felt very peaceful writing it. It was a wonderful experience. There were times when I was writing it where I would be walking and asking questions of no one in particular about the book when Chris would come to me and he would say things to me. That went on during the length of the summer. There were only a few of these, but they were really profound.

LG:    I think the first one was I was remembering as a child and I was remembering Chris as a child and I was remembering his relationships with people in the family and my wife’s uncle, Jerry, who had died during open heart surgery a number of years before, and how Jerry used to love Christopher and he would toss him up in the air and say, “There’s nothing wrong with my little Charlie. He’s way ahead of all of us.” I just wondered like, I wonder what Jerry would think of Chris now. I said, “Where are you, Chris? Are you with Jerry? Is he there?” This voice comes back to me saying, kind of like, “Well, where else would he be? What’s wrong with you? Of course. We’re all with God. We’re all living, all of us who are no longer living in your world, are living in spirit and we’re all together.”

LG:    He then went into this long explanation about the illusory nature of time and space. The problem that people have is that we all think time and space is real and that that’s what determines our world, but that’s not what’s real. What’s real is outside of time and space. There were a series of other conversations along those lines that occurred as I was trying to write the book.

LG:    I put the book aside for a while in the fall because I got really busy, and then there was a really tragic event that occurred. A friend of ours, someone whom I had mentioned in the book, who had sung the mass at Christopher’s funeral, [Peter Semina 00:06:57] was killed by a taxi cab. He’s crossing the street to get the Sunday Times on a Saturday night. The taxi killed him. He had two young children who were friends of Jordan’s. We knew the family well. They were Polish immigrants. I was so angry and confused. I had developed a lot of insights into Christopher at that point. I had really come to recognize as I was writing the book that Christopher was a spiritual master and my teacher and that what he did in the world that he really was teaching everybody, although you couldn’t recognize him as a teacher.

LG:    In fact, what I realized as I was writing the book was that Chris was part of the tradition of nontraditional teachers. Fools basically and gestures and people who challenge you and they taught you through paradox and that Chris did that with everybody he knew. If you thought that you were a real loser, Chris could show you what a strong person you were. He could get you to take care of him in such a way that you could feel really good about yourself. If you were a pitiful person, even more damaged than Christopher, he would show you such personal attention and respect that if you were all able to perceive it, you would feel like a loved and respected human being. The kind of people that everybody else would ignore, Chris would go out of his way just naturally. He would notice them. He would be kind to them, never in a showy or condescending way, just a natural way. This is a person who needs love and respect, and I’m going to give them love and respect.

LG:    If you were like so many of us, someone who thought of yourself as, hey, I’m pretty on top of things. I’m an adult, and this is a brain damaged child. I’m in authority. I’m smart. I’m kind. I’m general. Whatever you thought about yourself, he could show you that the opposite was really true. He could drive you, and he often did to me, he could really drive you out of your mind. The more your ego was involved in being this authoritative individual, the more that Chris could drive you crazy, and he would just keep doing it and doing it. I realized that actually that was an act of love. He was teaching you about yourself if you were a large enough person to be able to see that.

LG:    I learned that about Chris, and I really understood it by the time of Peter’s death. When Peter died, I was just so angry and upset. I went to Christopher because by now, he had become my spiritual master. I think this was probably the most important conversation that I had with him and it was the last one also. I said, “You helped me understand your death. I don’t understand Peter’s. Is this some kind of freak accident or is this somehow part of God’s plan?” He totally blew me away. He said, “You still don’t understand. You don’t get it. There is no plan. Plan implies before and after. It implies going from here to there. That’s dependent on time. You’re still trapped in that way of understanding.” The conversation went on from there.

LG:    I said, “Okay, so what’s it like in heaven?” He said, joyfully, “This is what I always wanted. Everyone is here. Everyone, even you.” That was like, wow, how does that happen? Okay, well if you understand that the arrow of time is a small part of existence than outside the arrow of time, there is no time and we’re all there, and we were all together in heaven.

LG:    I asked him some other questions because I always have to test him and push him. I said, “Well, you’re saying everyone is there. What about the evil ones? What about Adolf Hitler?” I immediately regretted having asked that because I felt this chill come over me and felt like the air was being sucked out of the room. Christopher went into this amazing explanation of things. He said, “You have to understand the nature of evil. A lot of bad things happen. Bad is not evil.” The reason we are here, the whole purpose for the universe is because God is love, not just that God is love as a noun. God is love as a verb. God is loving. The act of loving is God. There is no God without that. In order for there to be loving, there has to be separation.

LG:    The reason there is a material world is because you need the material world to create the separation, and our purpose here as human beings is to bring God’s love into the material world. There are beings who perversely turn against their reason for existence and do not cherish and love others because of their otherness, which is why we are here. They hate others because of their otherness. That is evil. That is a crime against God. Those beings live in eternal torment. There is no hell. The punishment is the separation from God, from the reason that they are here and, yeah, they were with us. They are part of this whole experience. We feel sad for them, but our sadness for those tortured, tormented evil beings is not enough to diminish the joy that we feel because it was always like this and it always will be.

LG:    I think that was the most profound explanation of things he gave to me. I was actually depressed after I heard that because I’m always trying to improve things. To me, it’s like I have this … I’m always trying to figure out how do things get better? How does the world get better? How do people get better? He was basically saying it doesn’t happen like that. I went and I sat down in my study and I said, “So the world will never be perfect.” He said, “Well, not the way you want it to be.” He said, “You know the way you like to tell stories about the way that I was when I was alive, all the quirky, weird, crazy things that I did.” I said, “Well, around here, some of us like to tell stories about you and how you’re always trying to get everything right and you’re always trying to figure out what’s the right thing to do. Lighten up. You’re already here.” That really blew me away.

RP:    Yeah. When I started reading your book, I read the first chapter and then got to the end of it, which was the end of the experience of his spirit coming to you the day that he died. There was this one thing that you said that really just moved me, I guess I would say. You said something about like, “Well, if there’s that version of him, is there a version like that of me and of everybody else?” Actually when I read that, I burst into tears and I had to put the book down because that’s something that I very much believe, and I think that a lot of the struggles I’ve personally had in my life has mostly come from not being able to see and feel that version of myself.

LG:    I think most of us are separated from that version of ourselves, but there is, and I don’t know how you get there, honestly. What I do know is that there is this thing that I call the arrow of time, and we’re pinned to it while we’re here in the world. I don’t mind it most of the time. I enjoy a lot of the stuff that goes on, although sometimes you just get really exhausted and angry and frustrated. As long as you’re pinned to the arrow of time, you just don’t really see what things really are. There’s a model for this in physics. As long as you’re measuring things in a Newtonian way, which works pretty well in this world, you’re not understanding the true quantum nature of things.

LG:    The route to seeing the way things really are is finding a way to un-pin yourself from that arrow. This self, this marvelous, magnificent self, this is not a self that you own. There’s no ego in this self. It’s not like, wow, boy, aren’t I special? I’m an angel. This is not about you, not the you that’s in the arrow of time. This is God manifesting in all people. What Christopher said to me, it’s not so much about finding your perfect self and getting there to like get out of the way. Let that self find you. Give up all of these things that separate you from that perfect self.

RP:    I would say that a lot of wisdom traditions say something similar. I was also wondering, while this was going on, while he was saying all these things to you and then afterwards, throughout the years afterwards, have you found yourself comparing the things that he taught you to other wisdom traditions?

LG:    Yeah, I have. Originally, I was going to write a book about that until Christina said, “Just keep it simple. Just write about Christopher.” There’s nothing that Christopher taught me that is not part of the great spiritual traditions because he didn’t invent this stuff, and these traditions didn’t invent it. This is the real nature of things, of the universe. These are just different ways of recognizing it and communicating it.

RP:    When you think back to the things that he taught you and then you consider things like the idea of reincarnation, how does that fit in?

LG:    People have asked me that actually, and I don’t have a definite answer here, except that reincarnation is very much a time-related process. There’s this life and then there’s the next life. The one reference point that I have for Chris’s understanding of timelessness, it’s in Siddhartha.

LG:    Siddhartha has this vision, the moment of enlightenment, after which he then becomes the ferryman and takes the role of the ferryman. He realizes that everything happens all at once, and every life he has lived is happening all at once. It’s not as if there’s a progression. I remember when I read that in college, I was puzzled by that. It was like, wait a second. Don’t you get better? Isn’t there a progression? Don’t you earn your way to nirvana? No. It doesn’t happen that way. It’s just all happening at once. If there is reincarnation, that’s just part of the whole party. You’re not earning anything. There’s no ego here. Just get your ego out of the way of God.

RP:    How has what Christopher taught you affected your practice as a physician?

LG:    I certainly, I relate to death and loss differently. As someone who started out always wanting to, I use the term empower, why would I want to empower people so that they’re stronger, so that they’re better, so they do more? I have always been very outcome-oriented, like let’s get the best outcome here. Ultimately, there’s always the same outcome. Everybody dies. Maybe the process is more important than the outcome. I’m a much softer person than I used to be because of Chris.

RP:    Does it affect how you see what’s going on with your patients with their symptoms?

LG:    Sometimes, it will. There are so many things that impact on how I understand the illness of any individual patient. It’s hard for me to say yes because Chris taught me this. There are so many things that happen. He has really helped me take my ego out of the process, and that I think is essential to be a healing practitioner.

RP:    How has it affected your everyday life knowing these things that he taught you?

LG:    Well, I don’t worry about death. There are a lot of things that don’t bother me anymore, but there are still things that do, but I’m less caught up in them.

RP:    Is there any guidance or advice that you can offer for parents who have lost children who were not able to have a visit from their spirit?

LG:    I feel unbelievably blessed by having had Chris to teach me. That doesn’t happen for most people. First of all, I wrote the books to help people who had experienced loss and suffering. At least look at my experience and what I learned and try to see how they can, as I said before, find the Christophers in their life. Find the teachers that are there to guide you because of your loss and because of the pain, not in spite of it, but because of it. Understand that the pain is an important part of your journey here, and that the separation is the illusion. We are all together for eternity. Eternity is now.

LG:    We live this life pinned to the arrow of time in this segment of reality that has its good and its bad and it’s, as Einstein said, this strange world we live in. One of the things that Einstein said, by the way, is physicists know that before and after are illusions. Yeah, so there is this strange, weird world of time and space that we’re in for some period of our real existence or for some part of it, but it’s really just a small part of it.

RP:    I’m curious. Why did you have these conversations with Christopher, write the book and then wait 20 years?

LG:    The first thing was that at the end of my last conversation with Chris, just about the time he said, “Well, you’re already here, I said, “Is there anything else that I need to know that you want to tell me?” He said, “No. I told you everything. That’s it. You’re on your own now.” I wrote the book. I shared it with my family, with some friends. The question is, okay, what do we do with this book? Do I really want to publish this book now? I’ve got all this other stuff I’m working on, so I put it away.

LG:    Then, there were a series of events about two or three years ago, Christina said to me, “I want to send a copy of Christopher’s book to a friend of ours who just experienced a major loss.” I dug it up and I sent it to her. She and I read it. We probably hadn’t read it in 10 years, maybe even longer. It was just overwhelming to read it.

LG:    I also had a publisher that I was pretty sure was right for it, HayHouse. I had just published a book, The Allergy Solution with them. A lot of the stuff that they do is spiritual. They think about things differently for most of the commercial publishers. I sent it to my editor and she said, “Yeah, this is great. We’d love to do it, but,” as editors always do, “you need to present it this way. This can’t just be a tribute to Chris. This has to be about how Chris impacted on you because we’re interested in you. You’re the doctor.” I said, “Yeah, I think I can do that.” Actually, that was a good process for me to go back to it and to try to recognize and understand, what had I really learned? What were the teachings here? To get much more explicit with that. That was basically how that process went.

LG:    I love the fact that the book has been meaningful for a lot of people. Chris, if there was anything that Chris loved, it was to interact with other people on any level. Just having this book out there, whoever is reading it, that’s got to be a delight to him because he just loves interacting with people.

RP:    It keeps him alive in a way.

LG:    Yeah.

RP:    Do you have any fears about what’s going to happen now that this book is out in terms of just professionally or whatever?

LG:    Well, I wondered about that. That might have been one of the things that delayed my publishing it 25 years ago or 30 years ago. What actually has happened is that colleagues of mine have reacted really positively to it and said, as David Perlmutter, wow. Who would have thought?

RP:    I’ve known you for I think probably almost a decade, and I had no idea this whole time that there was this whole other side to you and whatever. When I came across first a podcast where you were talking about this and then the book, I was like, “Oh, my.” I was actually excited. It’s like, there’s this whole other side, this whole other angle.

RP:    Dr. Galland was born Jewish but converted to Christianity as an adult.

LG:    In many ways, Christopher is aptly named because so much of what is in the book and what he taught me is so consistent with what Jesus was teaching.

RP:    Well, and with what a lot of those guys were teaching.

LG:    Yeah, right.

RP:    There are many roads up the same mountain.

LG:    Absolutely. At some point, I tried to figure out, where am I most comfortable in terms of spiritual traditions in the world, and concluded it’s in that ground where Christianity and Buddhism come together. That was the spiritual and intellectual ground in which I felt most at home.

RP:    Overall, what gifts did Christopher give to your life?

LG:    Well, the way I describe it in the book are these three gifts; the gift of the opposite, the gift of presence and the gift of timelessness. We haven’t really talked about presence. We talked a little bit about the opposite. Presence. In order to really understand the opposite, you need to be fully present. One of the things about Chris is he was always fully present in everything that he did at every moment, and that’s what he wanted from the people around him. Most of the time when he caused problems for people because they weren’t willing to be fully present, they had their agendas, they’re running off doing this and that, and he wasn’t going to go along with any of that.

LG:    I reflect on the importance of presence. What was so special about the way that Chris brought that gift is it was not for any purpose like a gymnast has to be fully present, but the gymnast is fully present because if you’re not fully present, you’re going to injure yourself. A brain surgeon has to be fully present because you’ll cut the wrong thing if you’re not. Chris, it was presence just as a way of being. You need that in order to really be able to experience the gift of the opposite, which is the fundamental characteristic and quality of our universe.

LG:    The gift of timelessness, I’ve spoken about that. Time is the enemy of presence because time, you’re always, “Oh, I got to be here. I got to be there.” Even if it’s not the artificial kinds of time that we create, time is just everything is always changing. This was the hardest part of his gifts for me to try and understand and explain, the gift of timelessness. I came to a way of describing it by actually going to Siddhartha because Hesse is the only other person that’s really said to me what Christopher said to me, just basically time is an illusion. It’s all happening all at once, so don’t try to measure it out. Chris, we even went further with that. It was like time is what keeps you ignorant. You have to step outside of that. You have to step outside of time.

LG:    What I realized as I pursued this is, and scientists have studied this and philosophers have written about it, there are really two kinds of awareness. I went with the more scientific discussion. There is the usual awareness. The awareness that is so important to me in my life and in my work is what’s called sequential awareness, and that absolutely depends on time. This happens, then that happens. That’s how you get cause and effect. That’s what you need for rational thinking, for problem solving, but there is this other kind of awareness which Christopher had, which is simultaneous awareness. Cognitive psychologists who have studied this recognize this as the basis for intuition as opposed to reasoned thought.

LG:    Chris really helped me to understand the importance of simultaneous awareness and the reality of it. It is not an illusion. It is a way of if you can bring yourself, if you can let go of sequential awareness and allow simultaneous awareness to present itself to you, you really deepen your understanding of reality.

RP:    I would imagine that it takes a lot of presence to get there.

LG:    Oh yeah. Yes, you have to free yourself from time to do that and from thinking, oh, what do I have to do next? Each of those things is very much essential for the whole package of gifts.

RP:    When I think back on just meditation sessions I’ve had, the longer I sit, the less focused I am on time and the more that concept seems to melt away and I’m just there. What do you want the readers to take away most? Also, how can these lessons be used for helping to navigate and survive what’s going on in the world today?

LG:    Well, what’s going on in the world today is a perfect opportunity to understand the gift of the opposite and how wonderful the opposite is. I think if you can really understand the nature of things through the opposite, it can help you transform the way you approach problems and think about things. Everything contains its opposite. That essential relationship can help you move from anguish to peace, which is pretty … You look at what goes on. Yeah, it’s pretty challenging not to be in anguish much of the time.

RP:    Yeah. I think that there’s another way in which what’s going on in the world is a perfect example too of pain and suffering being important. I’ve been saying to people all day today, just because the midterms just happened, when Trump was elected, the first thought I had was, okay, this needed to happen because we needed a virus to kick up the immune system of our country.

LG:    I think that what has happened politically has spoken to evil and has unmasked evil, and especially evil in the sense that Christopher talked about it. That is the hatred of others because of their otherness. I love the fact that Chris said to me that is a crime against God because it is, and I think we need to understand it and see it that way. As agonizing as it’s been, this is something that needed to happen because of the torpor and lethargy that we had allowed. It’s going to cause a lot of pain. The environment which has to suck up most of the mistakes that we make has taken a big hit, but at the same time, there is the opportunity for a responsive, spiritual growth and an understanding of the profound role of love.

RP:    Thank you for listening to A Show of Hearts. If you enjoyed what you heard, please subscribe on iTunes and share it with your favorite people. Visit our website, ashowofhearts.com where you can sign up for emails and explore all our episodes in depth. Follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter @ashowofhearts. Remember to choose courage even when it’s scary and join me in igniting the world with our hearts.

The post Functional Medicine, Spirituality, and the Afterlife with Dr. Leo Galland appeared first on A Show of Hearts.

Chartwell Dutiro is from the Shona tribe of Zimbabwe and is a master mbira player and professor. Mbira is a traditional, mystical instrument that’s purpose is to call on the ancestors, and it’s also the instrument you hear at the beginning and end of this show. In this episode you’ll learn about the history  of the mbira and its influence on Zimbabwean culture, as well as how it’s used in a spiritual and ceremonial context.

Chartwell holds a master’s degree in ethnomusicology from SOAS University in London, and is currently working on his PHD in Collaboration with Dialogue using mbira as the backbone. He has a great deal of knowledge and wisdom about both traditional cultures and modern culture and how the two can either be woven together in a beneficial way or how they can clash in a way that breaks us as individuals and as a society as a whole. You’ll also hear Chartwell’s thoughts on everything from Apartheid to what happens in cultures that don’t communicate with the spirits of their ancestors.

This conversation was recorded two years ago, when A Show of Hearts was just a faint idea, so you’ll notice that the interviewing style and overall sound differ a bit from the other interviews on this show. But, his wise and insightful words are pretty timeless, and his perspective is unique and thoughtful. As you listen, you’ll get a sense of the respect and connection that he and Rosemary share, as he is her mentor and friend. Finally, you’ll hear one of his songs, Bukatiende, which means “get up let’s go” in Shona.

To learn more about Chartwell, visit chartwellusa.wordpress.com or follow him on Instagram @chartwelldutiro

Thanks for listening! If you loved what you heard, visit our website, ashowofhearts.com, subscribe on iTunes, and share with your friends @ashowofhearts on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter using #ashowofhearts. Feel free to comment on our social media or send us an email at [email protected].

Remember to choose courage, even when it’s scary, and join me in igniting the world with our hearts!

Rosemary Pritzker:        You’re listening to A Show of Hearts, the podcast about finding the courage to live a deep and magical life. I’m your host, life coach, Rosemary Pritzker.

Rosemary Pritzker:        (singing)

Rosemary Pritzker:        Hi everyone. Welcome to the show. I’m so happy to introduce you to today’s guest, my dear friend and mentor, Chartwell Dutiro. He’s from the Shona tribe of Zimbabwe and is a master mbira player and professor. Mbira is a traditional mystical instrument that’s purpose is to call on the ancestors. It’s also the instrument you hear at the beginning and end of every episode of my show. So I’m thrilled for you guys to learn more about its meaning and history.

Rosemary Pritzker:        Chartwell holds a master’s degree in ethnomusicology from SOAS University in London and is currently working on his PhD in collaboration with dialogue using mbira as the backbone. As you’ll hear in our interview, he has a great deal of knowledge and wisdom about both traditional cultures and modern culture and how the two can either be woven together in a beneficial way or how they can clash in a way that breaks us as individuals and as a society as a whole.

Rosemary Pritzker:        This conversation was recorded two years ago when A Show of Hearts was just a faint idea. So you’ll notice that the interviewing style and overall sound differ a bit from my other interviews. But his wise and insightful words are pretty timeless. I hope you enjoy the unique and thoughtful perspective that he has to share. When we sat down, I asked Chartwell to talk about what the mbira is and the purpose that it serves in his culture.

Chartwell Dutiro:          Mbira is a sacred, traditional instrument from Zimbabwe. It is made of three different components. It’s hand-forged metal pieces that are placed on very hard wood and at the bottom of the wood we have a metal plate that has anything that buzzes. Zimbabwe is landlocked and sometimes people use snail shells or sometimes ostrich egg shells, which I’ve used a lot. Now in this modern time, we put bottle tops. When we play mbira we use two thumbs and an index finger. So the thumbs are plucking down and the index finger is plucking up the high notes.

Chartwell Dutiro:          Because mbira is so quiet, we then place it inside a gourd. You can imagine a gourd grows up like a pumpkin and we let it dry in the field. It changes color. It becomes a bit brown. Then we cut off the gourd. We cut off the top and scoop out all the seeds. Sometimes they’re hanged in a kitchen, hot, where it can smoke. It is this kind of shiny brown color. And then we put also bottle tops or shells around it for even more buzzing. But the resonance of the gourd gives the mbira a bit more volume.

Rosemary Pritzker:        Can you talk a little bit about the purpose of the mbira?

Chartwell Dutiro:          It has got a pivotal role and an mbira player is like a linchpin between the ancestors’ world and the living people. So we play mbira in these ritual ceremonies which are called Bira. Mbira is spelled M-B-I-R-A, mbira. We take off the M, B-I-R-A. That’s the name of the ceremony. Shona people for centuries have believed that we know there’s a creator there out who created people and things around the world. So to connect with the creator, we go through the ancestors. And to connect with ancestors, we have to have ceremonies and we have spirit mediums.

Chartwell Dutiro:          In Shona culture, a spirit medium or a shaman is talked about as a pocket, like a pocket where you put things, or a vessel where the spirit of the ancestor come and temporarily inhabit for the night and talk through the medium. So the music summons the spirit of the ancestors to come and temporarily inhabit in a medium or a shaman.

Rosemary Pritzker:        You’ve talked about how you started playing when you were four years old.

Chartwell Dutiro:          I started playing when I was four years old and it wasn’t easy because at that time I was born in Rhodesia, which was a British colony basically. There was apartheid system. I grew up in what they called reserves, like reserves we know. The other word for it was TTL which means tribal trust lands, which means the missionaries, the British, decided that, “Let’s move these people out of the fertile land and put them into a gruffer land.” So-

Rosemary Pritzker:        Sounds a lot like what happened here to the Native Americans being put onto reservations-

Chartwell Dutiro:          Exactly.

Rosemary Pritzker:        … in places that weren’t necessarily where their tribe actually had been.

Chartwell Dutiro:          They were moved from the land, from the fertile land.

Rosemary Pritzker:        Yeah.

Chartwell Dutiro:          So growing up in that system where people are segregated because of the color of their skin and I grew up with Salvation Army. I like to call it Sully Army. It wasn’t easy for a young boy. I missed a lot of Sunday schools because I would have been playing mbira for the whole night for my ancestors. It was very uncomfortable. There’s a word, marumbe, in Shona, which means a vagabond, a young person not be a doctor or a teacher or something. Because of missing Sunday schools as a young boy, I was also in trouble with Salvation Army, Sully Army.

Chartwell Dutiro:          But my mother was always there. She was also singing. She said, “You have to play music for your ancestors.” So playing mbira at the age of four was not easy. At some point I was even shy to carry my mbira, but my mother would carry the mbira.

Rosemary Pritzker:        Did you guys have to hide the fact that you were playing mbira because of the apartheid system?

Chartwell Dutiro:          Well, that happened before even when I was born. The mbira was banned and the spirit mediums were hanged in actual effect. The whole history of Zimbabwe is based on a woman called Nehanda. She was a powerful spirit medium who was resisting from colonialism, so she mobilized the whole country and told Shona people to go and get guns and fight for independence. But the missionaries didn’t like this, so she was hanged and executed. They cut off her head and took it to England. That was in 1897.

Chartwell Dutiro:          So the music was then banned. The ceremonies were banned because they were looked at as worshiping the devil. So by the time I grew up things were a little bit relaxed, but still when the ceremonies are happening, you would be watching out in case some authority might come. But when you ban something it doesn’t mean it disappears. We have got an intellectual problem, an academic problem in that sense which is basically science versus cultures.

Rosemary Pritzker:        Well, and head versus heart.

Chartwell Dutiro:          Yes.

Rosemary Pritzker:        And masculine versus feminine.

Chartwell Dutiro:          Yes. Yes, I agree. I agree. Science believes that you want to talk about something, you’ve got to measure it. We don’t have a device really that can measure how many cycles per second is this spirit traveling before it enters the body. So the argument we can’t measure it, so it can’t be real. This is the problem we have because then if you are connected with the spiritual world like I do, I can’t talk about the ancestors coming as a spirit comfortably or I can’t talk about a dream that I have dreamed about that came true because people will think I’m weird. But in Shona culture, you could probably say the whole culture is weird in that way.

Chartwell Dutiro:          That’s the impact of Roman Catholic, Church of England, Salvation Army, colonialism. What they’ve done is split families and, I don’t even know, maybe different generations. I think the only way to deal with it is education. When I talk of education, it’s a dangerous game because then you don’t want to go extreme education which is really academic and scientific, which is actually where the argument is. We talk about colonialism and we also forget about capitalism, which is actually it’s like a many-headed monster eating everybody around. It’s like one of those monsters that eats its own children.

Chartwell Dutiro:          This is all in combination of Christianity because it becomes the value of if you are not with us, then we bomb you. This is the whole war we are having in the world. It’s actually not only Christianity, it’s religions. That is the biggest problem.

Rosemary Pritzker:        Apartheid ended and Zimbabwe supposedly became free, but the culture there is still very much affected by colonialism, by Christianity, and a lot of people are still afraid of or against learning mbira, participating in the traditional ways of the Shona people because they still believe that it’s the devil.

Chartwell Dutiro:          It’s all kind of been polluted because we talk about colonialism and this education. Zimbabwe is independent, 36 years independence. But the people who are ruling and the people who are academics were all educated in colonial structures and some of them were here. I live in England and there’s lots of Zimbabweans here and USA. I was sort of working with some of them in different universities. They don’t even talk about mbira and the ancestors. They talk about Jesus Christ.

Rosemary Pritzker:        Which is like the soul of Zimbabwean history and culture.

Chartwell Dutiro:          That is when capitalism comes in, isn’t it? Because everybody-

Rosemary Pritzker:        More and more, and yeah.

Chartwell Dutiro:          And everybody’s trying to be a useful asset to fit the system.

Rosemary Pritzker:        What happens when an individual person who is a good person and has a good heart but is in a culture where there is no soul, how are they supposed to get through life?

Chartwell Dutiro:          They don’t survive really because then the ancestors, who you’re supposed to recognize, are not happy.

Rosemary Pritzker:        In cultures where they don’t communicate with the ancestors, they don’t have any practices in any way having to do with the ancestors, in Zimbabwe, in Shona culture, they believe that the ancestors are here. So what happens in cultures-

Chartwell Dutiro:          Guiding.

Rosemary Pritzker:        Yeah. So what happens in cultures where they’re not communicating with the ancestors? Are they causing problems? Or are they just kind of stuck? How does that work?

Chartwell Dutiro:          They are causing problems. These problems have to do with health issues. Yesterday we talked about shamanic sicknesses. It happens. It happens in Shona culture. It happens here. People get so sick, so ill, to a point where the only way we can deal with this is not spiritual at all. We look for the drugs.

Rosemary Pritzker:        When those people practice some form of spirituality in a way that’s helping people, a lot of times those illnesses either go away or get way better. That’s what I’m talking about when I say shaman sickness.

Chartwell Dutiro:          Yeah. But you know when the ancestors come as well, we in Shona Culture, we don’t believe that all the ancestors are perfect because they were humans before. Imagine if my grandfather killed somebody in the street. It doesn’t mean he’s not my grandfather. When they die, then we have mbira ceremony and we call that spirit. We might not know that they killed somebody. The spirit of that person who he killed will come into our family causing mayhem.

Rosemary Pritzker:        So what do you do when that happens, when there’s a spirit of either someone who was murdered or someone who did the murdering?

Chartwell Dutiro:          Then you have a ceremony because mbira ceremony, then you call the spirit and you talk to the spirit and they tell you because this is about creating peace, making peace and reconciliation between the people from where the person was killed. It could be that my grandfather was killed by somebody as well and when he comes he said, “I wasn’t ready to die. Somebody killed me.” And that family who killed my grandfather will be having a nightmare as well. They go to shaman. They say, “Oh, you killed this man. You need to go to that family and have a reconciliation.”

Chartwell Dutiro:          Then we come back to the church and what do they do? They say when someone is seeing things that not many people would see, then it’s schizophrenic. Then the church says, “Well, let’s cleanse that demon.”

Rosemary Pritzker:        Well, unless it’s the Pope and God is talking to him.

Chartwell Dutiro:          If the spirit of my ancestor comes in a church context where people are singing, then they say it’s the Holy Spirit. But it’s my ancestor who was called by the singing.

Rosemary Pritzker:        What do you think of the idea of reincarnation?

Chartwell Dutiro:          I believe ancestors come back. A year after somebody died, then we have a memorial service which is a Bira, where we play three days. We actually go to the grave and dance on top of the grave and invoke the spirit to bring it to the home. It’s like metamorphosis. It’s like we know that it’s now time for the spirit to come back and take care of the children and people around. So you see me with all these beads. They are not just beads. They represent different ancestors. White beads represent ancestors on my grandmother’s side. The black beads, ancestors on my grandfather’s side. The red beads, all different ancestors.

Chartwell Dutiro:          They could be aunt. They could be uncle. They could be cousin. Because the moment somebody dies, they are in that world of the ancestors. So we have to call them back and come and give daily guidance. That daily guidance is about healing people. It’s the healing of the mind, consciousness, what you believe, what is it that makes you who you are. We have a lineage. I have to know seven generations of my ancestors. So if you can imagine seven generations, each ancestors had issues in life when they were living. So the purpose for the mbira and the purpose that an mbira player has is to connect people with their ancestors and their identity.

Chartwell Dutiro:          When we lose identity, then we’re just wandering. We can try that and try this. But the ancestors are looking down on us saying, “What are you looking for? All I need is for you to recognize that I am here.” Even when we travel, the ancestors are always around. Sometimes when we lose the ancestors, then we’re talking about something that is almost like we have to follow this book. That is a basis of capitalism actually because then we are all interpreting it in different ways. What we forget in all that journey of interpreting this book is we forget the ancestors.

Rosemary Pritzker:        Do you pray to the ancestors every day?

Chartwell Dutiro:          I do.

Rosemary Pritzker:        How do you do that?

Chartwell Dutiro:          Well, in my house I have a shrine which has got snuff. You can see I’ve put a little-

Rosemary Pritzker:        Oh yeah. He was introducing this to me yesterday. It’s an herb from Zimbabwe that’s a little bit like ginseng.

Chartwell Dutiro:          Yeah. It’s all mixed with the different herbs. That is channeling me. Before we spoke, we said, “Okay, can we speak?” I had snuff and I said I’m going to tell the ancestors. They are always around me and there’s no doubt about that. In Zimbabwe, I say, “Makadini”, which is “How are you?” I’m not just saying, “How are you, Rose?” I’m saying, “How are you and all those around you?” We have to have a reverse psychology here if we’re going to succeed, otherwise we are doomed really. We have to think about our DNA, our ancestors, and what they’ve done.

Rosemary Pritzker:        How do you deal with something like the Holocaust, with how many people died and in such brutal ways and all of the people who did the killing? What do you do about that?

Chartwell Dutiro:          Well, I think we don’t have to forget these people who died and the people who did the killing. We probably are better off having a national cleansing, awareness.

Rosemary Pritzker:        How much mbira playing and ritual do you think it would take to clean up all of those spirits from the Holocaust and from what happened in Rwanda and Vietnam and wherever else, the Native Americans?

Chartwell Dutiro:          It’s not only mbira. There’s other music and different traditions. There’s other shaman people who are talking like the way we are talking now. We’re building bridges between cultures. If I was really angry about what colonialism did, I wouldn’t be living in England because that’s where the colonial masters came. If I was really angry, I wouldn’t be here because the slaves, we talk about the Holocaust. The biggest tragedy about America as it is today is the story of the slaves and the Native people.

Rosemary Pritzker:        Which still very much affects American culture. People don’t really stop and think about that.

Chartwell Dutiro:          Yeah. That’s where this monster of individualistic capitalism confuses us all because we don’t have time to think. If I was angry about the slaves that came and built America, they went into cotton fields and the subways and all these things, I wouldn’t be here. So I have to have a purpose. Bit by bit, we keep talking.

Rosemary Pritzker:        There’s a Peruvian shaman that I know who talks about the antidote to a lot of this stuff, the antidote to a person’s own trauma, to a lot of the problems in the world is belonging.

Chartwell Dutiro:          Yeah. Exactly. Where do I belong? I mean the beauty of the mbira, if I can give you an example, is actually it has touched people. Some of them have gone to Zimbabwe and gone to these ritual ceremonies and connect with their ancestor. Bit by bit, we have people like this. Nora and Chris Berry, the people who played mbira the night you first had it, they have been to Zimbabwe. Chris has been to my village. What is interesting is some of the people who never wanted to see the mbira, this is a colonial mentality when they see Chris or Nora playing that or you, if I take you, they say, “You’re playing the instrument of my ancestors. Can you teach me?”

Chartwell Dutiro:          For me, that’s the beauty. We’re not converting people. We’re just saying, “Let’s be aware of what is around us, belonging. What is it that we are belonging to and how are we contributing to it?”

Rosemary Pritzker:        And how can we create or find a place in this world where we can feel like we belong with people we feel connected with?

Chartwell Dutiro:          And we can protect whatever we think we have. So that idea of socialism, socializing, I don’t know. That word has been contaminated as well because when people hear about socialism they think about Communists. But actually it’s those communities that we are lacking. And yet we’re all together in this big place, but we are not six degrees apart. We’re not connected. What is that? It’s because the system actually doesn’t allow us to do that. So it’s the structure that governs the people, where we have problem.

Rosemary Pritzker:        What does it mean to you when you hear the term, follow your heart?

Chartwell Dutiro:          You have to go inside yourself, isn’t it, and releasing. When I said there’s more than one person in each individual, that heart is questioning, “Am I at the right place? What am I doing? I don’t want to be doing that. But anyway, I have to do this because this gives me money. I don’t want to be here.” And then we have headaches. And you think, “Where is that headache coming from?” So we’re not following our heart really. It’s this thing of being afraid of something that we don’t know. What brings that in us is actually the system. We have so many negative voices that come to us. Don’t do that. Don’t do that.

Chartwell Dutiro:          A lot of smokescreens in the system that allows people not to follow their hearts because every time you think, “I really would like to heal people,” and then you think, “I don’t have money. How do I do that?”

Rosemary Pritzker:        When in reality there are a lot of people out there who need healing who would pay for it.

Chartwell Dutiro:          Yeah.

Rosemary Pritzker:        Yeah, but we’re taught in our culture to do something normal and respectable so that you can make lots of money because making lots of money is the goal. When actually-

Chartwell Dutiro:          And to be happy. When I talk about building bridges, my wife, she’s English. If I was affected by colonialism and followed that concept of me being primitive because it came a time where everything black is bad. Everything white is good, which means that everything that you do is better than what I do, it doesn’t matter what it is. So if I was thinking like that, I wouldn’t have married an Englishwoman.

Rosemary Pritzker:        How did you do that mentally?

Chartwell Dutiro:          I mean it’s very hard to describe. But this thing of independence that comes in politics, Zimbabwe is independent in 1980. We can all move. As if there’s something very positive about that. That’s actually like the shackles have come off and have time to think, “Actually I can go to England.” And then I see a white woman who looks beautiful to me and I say, “Okay.” But it’s a two-way. She’s also attracted to me. Believe me, it’s not easy because the cultural clashes, conflicts come into these relationships. Sometimes it triggers in me the things that I think, “You think you are special more than me.”

Chartwell Dutiro:          Believe me, there’s so many times that I’ve talked to my wife in that, “You think you’re the colonial master’s granddaughter, you can talk to me like that.” But nothing to do with that. She’s just expressing herself as a human being. So every step is about learning, learning about just human beings.

Rosemary Pritzker:        We have to continually choose and choose again and choose again who we are, who we want to be, how we want to be in the world.

Chartwell Dutiro:          Yeah. Because between the two of us, she’s very careful. She understands this man was segregated by my grandparent ancestors because of the color. So both ways we have to go above that. And then suddenly you have children, half Zimbabwe and half English. Those children could have been segregated in England and in Zimbabwe.

Rosemary Pritzker:        Or they could be really important bridges between worlds.

Chartwell Dutiro:          Exactly. So we have to mix the Black. Who are the ancestors of my children? This I tell them.

Rosemary Pritzker:        In this culture in America, most of us don’t know a whole lot about our ancestors. I know some stuff about my mom’s father’s side of the family and a little bit about my dad’s side of the family, but that’s kind of it. I don’t know six or seven generations back the way you do.

Chartwell Dutiro:          That’s interesting. Then you can see where our lives are breaking. This following our heart is going to be hard if we don’t know who we are.

Rosemary Pritzker:        Yeah. You said something a minute ago about the shackles coming off. We’ve been talking about how do you figure out and decide what it is that you actually want to do, what doesn’t feel good, how do make those decisions. My mentor, who I’ve talked about, Martha Beck, one of the many tools that she has for figuring that out is to ask the person, “Does it feel shackles on or shackles off?”

Chartwell Dutiro:          Follow your heart.

Rosemary Pritzker:        Well, it’s not always easy. That’s actually when it’s most important.

Chartwell Dutiro:          Yeah. How many of us can stick their heads out there? I’m not afraid to do that. I can be anywhere with my mbira. Today I just played in a church in a funeral. I felt I had a purpose to go and play in that funeral of someone I just knew two years ago. Those things happen and the next thing I’ll be playing on a stage. I don’t know. Last year in December I played at the Westminster Cathedral. I had never thought I could go into a church like that and play mbira. So my purpose is there. I believe music can help us build bridges between cultures and people.

Rosemary Pritzker:        Music is a powerful and sometimes sneaky way of doing that because it’s just this thing that’s enjoyable. Who doesn’t like music?

Chartwell Dutiro:          Yeah. Someone is smiling and you think, “Why is he smiling? I like that.” I mean a good example is what do you say about the first time you heard mbira?

Rosemary Pritzker:        Yep. All I knew was this feels good. I want more.

Chartwell Dutiro:          Didn’t you follow your heart?

Rosemary Pritzker:        Yep.

Rosemary Pritzker:        If you love what you’re hearing in this episode, subscribe, give a five-star rating, and write a review in iTunes. And then share it with someone you know will love it too.

Rosemary Pritzker:        Last summer I found myself in a totally different kind of ceremony in the woods where I … and this was before I met Chartwell. I didn’t know anything about mbira. I’d heard it once but I didn’t know anything about its purpose. I was lying there in this ceremony. I was lying on the earth, looking up through the trees, and this powerful thing happened where I was like, I feel my ancestors here. I need to call them in somehow. So I started singing this Hebrew song because I’m Jewish. Randomly, the song I picked was, Hatikvah, which is the Israeli national anthem.

Rosemary Pritzker:        I was singing and singing this and it just was such a powerful moment. A friend sitting next to me was like, “Rose, your ancestors are here.” She could feel them too. So a week later, I found myself in this meeting with a completely different group all the way across the country. They have this practice of whenever they’re having a meeting and they have one person volunteer to hold the heart for the group. There was this session. Keep in mind, this is a week after I had been spontaneously calling on my ancestors. I volunteered to hold the heart one session. I dropped really deep into my heart and suddenly found myself, I guess you could call it a vision. But found myself in this place that had really moist, red dirt and really lush, green plants. I had no idea where it was.

Rosemary Pritzker:        I was like, “Is this South America? Is this Africa?” I have no idea. Two weeks after that, I threw a little summer party. Sean and Banning, the founders of Afropop, showed up and brought Chartwell with them. Chartwell and I sat down and just started talking and talking. We couldn’t stop talking. It was a really heartfelt, powerful conversation. That night, my friend, Kathleen, in Scotland, her daughter, Emily, has the same birthday as me and is a musician, which I knew she was a musician. But what I didn’t know until that moment and I’ve known these women for years, I didn’t know until that moment that she is Chartwell’s protegee. She’s 27 now. She has been his protegee since she was 13.

Rosemary Pritzker:        She teaches mbira. So I immediately started studying mbira with Chartwell because I had already been struck by the sound. In my second ever mbira lesson with Chartwell, I was like, “Wait a minute. Chartwell, where you’re from, does it have moist, red dirt and lush green everywhere?” He said, “Yeah. That’s exactly what it looks like.”

Chartwell Dutiro:          Following the heart is about that. There’s so many people who think like this, but they just don’t know how to shake off the shackles. Those shackles is that system. This is the monster. This is the monster that divides the people. I was just talking to you before about the powerful image I saw with my wife with two midwives and the doula. I’m looking at these powerful, three powerful women surrounding my wife giving birth to my child and I’m playing mbira. That image made me feel powerless. I didn’t even think I’m a man because I came through like that from a woman.

Chartwell Dutiro:          You look at the system. What is it that this system being run by us men?

Rosemary Pritzker:        It’s so funny because we all come into life through women.

Chartwell Dutiro:          Yeah. I see this image that made me humble. Some people look at that as threatening because they see a different kind of power coming from a woman. Of course it’s powerful.

Rosemary Pritzker:        Well, yeah. We’re taught in this culture, what is power? We’re taught that it’s violence and power over. But there are many versions of power. Feminine power, it might look gentle, but that doesn’t mean it’s not powerful.

Chartwell Dutiro:          No. No.

Rosemary Pritzker:        It’s hugely powerful.

Chartwell Dutiro:          No.

Rosemary Pritzker:        And it’s not always gentle.

Chartwell Dutiro:          Well, exactly-

Rosemary Pritzker:        Childbirth is not exactly gentle.

Chartwell Dutiro:          No. There’s blood. There’s everything there. We talk about the cycle, the cycle of what happens with the body, the hormones, the change. We don’t hide that. The connection with the moon and the earth. That Sandy was mostly about the tide. Everything, the moon that swept half of New York was underwater because the moon wasn’t right. I mean hurricane, if you look at the time of moon, where the moon was and that whole and the connection of the women to that.

Rosemary Pritzker:        When Sandy happened, I was here in New York. Lower Manhattan lost power for four days. There were a couple nights there where I found myself walking through the streets of New York in utter pitch black. It was so eerie, but it was also-

Chartwell Dutiro:          The bling bling is not there.

Rosemary Pritzker:        It’s like what is New York like without the bright lights and the buzz that are associated with it. Suddenly we were going back or maybe forward.

Chartwell Dutiro:          You know human beings, if those lights didn’t come people would have found another way of dealing with it. That’s the power that we lose, the power of surviving with each other and thinking about who is next door, what are they doing. We meet here in the street. “How are you?” “I’m fine. I’m fine.” Everybody’s fine. Really?

Rosemary Pritzker:        Yeah. It’s bullshit. It’s just what we say.

Chartwell Dutiro:          Because if we say, “How are you-”

Rosemary Pritzker:        Because we’re not real with each other most of the time.

Chartwell Dutiro:          If we say, “How are you,” I’m supposed to say, “I’m not really very well.” And I tell you my problems and you listen. Or I had dreams and if you can interpret them, interpret. If you can’t, you say, “I know a dream interpreter. Let’s go.” That sort of love and care for each other as human beings, that’s the thing that makes us follow our hearts because we can feel the support of the people around us. Then it’s a community. But there’s something that with the system that make us think individually and it becomes a material way of living. I’ve got this, so nobody else should have it. It’s mine.

Rosemary Pritzker:        There are times where in America we do come together, but it usually takes a crisis. For example, when 9/11 happened. Where I was in Montana at the time, everyone came together.

Chartwell Dutiro:          There were rituals that happened there at the World Trade Center. The blood was spilled. Spilling of the blood can actually make something a ritual and then to build that thing up again, they had to do certain things and honor the people who died. They did that. They couldn’t build that building without that. So rituals are there, but there’s something about the small work that we do, both you and I, that we just have to keep doing and the people you know. This work is the way forward because, believe me, we’re just looking for pieces of puzzles that are already around us.

Rosemary Pritzker:        I was sharing an idea with Chartwell yesterday about bringing together these various people that I know from different cultures who all carry some form of spiritual tradition. One of them is a Native American from Montana, western Montana, from what the white people called the Flathead Reservation. It’s actually the Salish, Kootenai, and Pend d’Oreille tribes. Another Tibetan Buddhist lama who currently lives in Santa Fe but is from Tibet was imprisoned by the Chinese and carries multiple ancient lineages and various other people-

Chartwell Dutiro:          South America?

Rosemary Pritzker:        Yeah, yeah. Various other people from different parts of the world who carry these ancient spiritual wisdom traditions that I want to bring together so that they can have a dialogue about what’s happening in the world and what can we do together, because I believe that it’s those cultures that in large part are holding the heart and the soul of the world.

Chartwell Dutiro:          We have to have space and open space that allows dialogue. That’s what it is. When you facilitate something like that, there’s people who believe in mbira and what I do in Uruguay and in Montana and Martha and these people, we need to just find a thread that goes through because we’ve got different ways of describing the same thing. Those are the things that we need, the things that pulls cultures together.

Rosemary Pritzker:        The song you’re about to hear is called Bukatiende, which means “Get up, let’s go.” This recording is from Chartwell’s album, Pasichigare. I asked him to explain a bit about this song, which is one of his favorites.

Chartwell Dutiro:          In the lyrics, we’re saying, “Give me the feathers so that I can fly and follow the vultures.” Vultures are very sacred birds because they clean things. We were talking about that this afternoon. The vultures, people think they’re nasty. They eat carcass, but actually they clean. So in Shona culture, they are sacred. Why would someone follow the vulture? That’s a spirit right there.

Chartwell Dutiro:          (singing)

Chartwell Dutiro:          And then the other set of lyrics we’re saying, “May somebody tell me where the rest of the people have gone?” So now we’re thinking about the ancestors and then there’s lyrics that say, “I am standing here and standing there.” A bit like wondering where everybody had gone.

Chartwell Dutiro:          (singing)

Chartwell Dutiro:          It’s like a song that triggers a lot of things inside me, lyrics-wise. “May somebody give me the feathers so that I can fly and follow the vultures.” I mean it’s really powerful words. That’s what this music does. A particular song, you feel it inside you. You feel like, okay, this song, I feel different inside my body. Sometimes I feel like the blood is moving opposite way. It sounds like I’m dying, but it is that feeling of what the music does inside our body. Sometimes I feel like I’m going to cry and the tears come.

Chartwell Dutiro:          (singing)

Chartwell Dutiro:          I know that the emotional side of my feeling triggered by music, the ancestors are around. Sometimes I play Bukatiende and I go to bed. I can sleep. The song is still playing in my head and I sleep and I dream about it. I’m playing the same song. It’s taking me on a journey. It’s like a soundtrack of my life.

Rosemary Pritzker:        Yeah. It’s funny you say that because I was just thinking you have played this song for so long.

Chartwell Dutiro:          Sometimes I’m not playing but it’s inside.

Rosemary Pritzker:        And you still love it so much.

Chartwell Dutiro:          Yeah. Yeah. The thing I like about mbira it’s like it goes around, how we connect things. So it’s like a wheel and sometimes I feel like I need to stop because if I don’t stop maybe I won’t come back. Maybe I’ll just be an ancestor forever.

Chartwell Dutiro:          (singing)

Rosemary Pritzker:        Thank you for listening to A Show of Hearts. If you enjoyed what you heard, please subscribe on iTunes and share it with your favorite people. Visit our website, ashowofhearts.com where you can sign up for emails and explore all our episodes in depth. Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @ashowofhearts. Remember to choose courage even when it’s scary. Join me in igniting the world with our hearts.

Rosemary Pritzker:        (singing)

The post Calling on the Ancestors with Chartwell Dutiro appeared first on A Show of Hearts.

“Love is not something that’s optional. In a time of hate and fear, love is one of the most potent things that we can do in movement building.” -Marianne Manilov

Social change organizer and movement strategist, Marianne Manilov, shares her insights and experiences of approaching large scale activism from a place of love and connection. Hear her talk about what it felt like to be at The March for our Lives, what the Parkland students announced they will focus on now that the march is over, and what action she herself is taking on gun violence. Hear Rosemary refer to Martin Luther King’s words about the importance of being “tough minded and tender hearted” instead of being soft minded and hard hearted. She and Marianne discuss how to find compassion for someone when it’s really hard, and how to get past feelings of contempt by listening deeply so the person feels heard, and looking for points of connection rather than “othering”. Rosemary and Marianne also discuss the importance of healing ourselves first from the inside out, before trying to take action in the outside world. Hear how Marianne learned the difference between being ok and being joyful, and she and Rosemary share their advice on how to change the world and heal yourself at the same time. They talked about how in order to get people to take significant action, they first need to feel deep connection. The takeaway: do something simple and sustainable and connected, and do it in community with people who feel good, because movements are built from the heart.

“I think for a lot of people they get into social change because they have a wound and they don’t want to walk through that wound. But on the other side of that wound is freedom. And when you yourself get free, you realize that your journey is tied to everyone, and that you’re not actually getting anyone free, that we all get free together.” -Marianne Manilov

To learn more about Marianne’s work, visit engagenet.org

Rosemary Pritzker:        You’re listening to A Show of Hearts, the podcast about finding the courage to live a deep and magical life. I’m your host, life coach Rosemary Pritzker.

Rosemary Pritzker:        (singing)

Rosemary Pritzker:        Welcome everyone. Today’s guest, Marianne Manilov, is a social change organizer and movement strategist. 13 years ago she founded The Engage Network which helps organizers build the strong networks and personal relationships necessary for powerful movement building. Marianne has long history of social, political, and environmental activism and organizing that goes back decades. She has deep wisdom to share on what makes an effective movement and how each individual within it can contribute to that effectiveness. When we sat down, she had just come from the March For Our Lives which took place the day before our interview. We started by discussing the overall feeling in the air these days.

Rosemary Pritzker:        So there is something happening in our country right now, starting in my eyes on election day where we had this big shock of Trump winning and for me that day I was actually in Peru in the jungle and there was that initial knee jerk shock and … you know. But, pretty much immediately the thought that came to me was this needed to happen because Trump is basically aa virus that’s going to kick up the immune system of our country, because we’ve gotten too complacent. And it seems to me like that is what’s happening right now. Since then, we’ve had the Women’s March, MeToo, and now March For Our Lives. So you were at The March yesterday, could you just share a little bit about sort of what was the feeling in the air? What did it feel like and what did it feel like it meant?

Marianne Manilov:        Well, I think the first thing I want to say is that I agree with you that this is a time of enormous change. But, I also think similar to the analogy you used with flu, some people will die. People are being deported and there is enormous chaos and crisis, hopefully not war, but we’re now looking today at a person coming into the White House who has spoken on Fox News in ways that people, if his practice matches his rhetoric, we will go to war. So I think that was one of the feelings of yesterday, which is that there has been a lot of death and harm and that people want it to stop. And the second … And that was very present throughout, there were a lot of people wearing survivor buttons and carrying pictures of people and a lot of tears, and a lot of hugging, and a lot of sense of the pain. And there was also a sense that we were at purpose and about to break through. I was with a team of people, 700 strong, from Chicago and some of them from Florida, and they were chanting “Chicago strong, Chicago strong”.

Marianne Manilov:        And I could feel many of these people, mothers, children, who’ve lost over and over, because Chicago is like a war zone, just like Indianapolis, so many of our cities, and you could feel the power literally as we were moving towards the place where there were eventually 800,000 people on the mall, of literally almost when your heart gets really beating fast and there is something strong happening. And then, everyone is feeling it. So you could feel that it was a breakthrough moment, you could feel that our country was going to chance, you could see the different movements coming together, the DREAMers, Black Lives Matter. I saw this one sign that made me pause for a minute, that said, “Student lives matter.” And it’s the coming together of all of these movements that then I don’t think they’ll just break through on gun violence. If you register all of the students who are in high school to vote they’d take over the state. If they’re gong to take over the state, that is going to impact immigration, it’s going to impact the police, it’s going to impact prisons. It’ll impact all of the breaking movements that students care about.

Rosemary Pritzker:        Hmm. Yeah. I think when we feel isolated we can forget how powerful we are, and we are so much more powerful when we come together, which is part of why it feels so powerful in a setting like a massive march. I wasn’t there, but I did march when the Eric Garner verdict came out. And that was so powerful, so potent to all those people as far as the eye could see, you know. And there was actually this moment where the organizers somehow super skillfully, all they had was one bullhorn, got everyone, the sea of people, lying down on their backs silent. In the middle of 34th and Broadway I think it was silent. All we could hear was helicopters. There was magic to it, it felt kind of like being in like a church or something like that. And I think that that sense of everyone coming together and sharing in the deep immense emotions around what’s happening, around what happened to Eric Garner, around what happened at Parkland can fuel the resistance, it can help us process so that we then have the strength and the courage to then take the actions that are necessary to cause change.

Rosemary Pritzker:        But, what do we do now? Now that the march is over, what’s next?

Marianne Manilov:        What I think what you said is deeply important. There was moment yesterday where Emma Gonzalez held silence. And, again, same thing the feeling in the moment in a crowd of 800,000 people in silence was enormous. People were weeping and they didn’t know what she was doing, but she was actually saying this is how long it took to change my life and to take all these lives. And I do think mobilization has a very particular feel to it. Unfortunately, it’s like the difference between. I mean, you and I talk a lot about meditation, but there are ecstatic moments in our life, we were talking about this earlier, where something feels like you’re totally connected and everything is so magical, but most of life isn’t that way and if we’re constantly searching for those moments it would really suck to live the rest of life. And organizing is similar. It’s wonderful that people come in through mobilization, but sometimes I wish they came in through the hard stuff of phone calling and.

Marianne Manilov:        And that’s why the connection becomes so important, because not only are you overwhelmed with the issue, but perhaps you came in in a moment of mobilization where it’s one of those connected amazing moments, but the actual doing of organizing, spending all day in a car and going to lobby or writing a letter, these are not particularly. It’s kind of what Jack Kornfield says like, “And then the laundry.” These are laundry tasks. So how we bring about love and connection, and I’m most worried about connection, because what you felt in that moment was the sense of possibility, of breakthrough, and connection. And then, you go home and you’ve got this practice that’s alone and like doing the laundry, and of course you don’t stay in it. And most of the breakthroughs, I was listening to some of the, again, journalists this morning analyzing, and they were talking about the 10 years between these kinds of moments and when the change actually happens: civil rights, different places. Like the moment that Rosa Parks sat down to the actual legislation was 10 years.

Marianne Manilov:        And I thought, “Oh, not another 10 years on this.” And I don’t know. I think things are happening faster today because of social media and a lot of other things, but I do know that what comes next is we have to dedicate to being in the practice, and similar to anything, doing that alone really sucks. So I’m going to focus on the don’t do it alone, because I know that if people do it alone their chances of staying in it for the amount of time we need, for the scale we need, to have the change happen are low. So I’m really focused on connect, have, you know, be with people you love, because I know then, and do something that’s maintainable, 15 minutes, an hour, whatever that is. It’s more important that you’re like, “I’m going to commit for a decade,” than you burn yourself out by organizing 40 hours a week for two months.

Rosemary Pritzker:        We talked about how some of the Parkland students were brand new to organizing after being suddenly thrust into the national spotlight. They began taking action the day after the shooting, and the march happened just six weeks later. For frontline organizers to speak publicly so soon after a shooting and to organize something so massive that quickly was unprecedented. I was wondering what their long term plan is now that the march is over. Marianne said that part of their post march strategy is to focus on what they call REV (Register, Educate, and Vote).

Marianne Manilov:        So the millennial group, if it registers in Florida, will control Florida. And that’s true they can swing elections in most of the swing states. So on Thursday an organizer of the walkouts told me there were two million students that walked out in over 6000 schools and they’re not done counting. So just of the people who walked out, but at many schools, right, students want to walk out, so it’s going to be what does that translate into in registration? And then, registration is one thing, the turnout has been the challenge. So I do believe there are really creative and they’ll use mobile ways to do that. And there is real strategic possibility, I’m really thankful even though they will come up with other strategies that they need, that they focused on this particular one. And I think it’s achievable by midterms. So I do think you’re seeing a sense of power and strategy that’s possible and probable.

Rosemary Pritzker:        It seems to like this shift away from “Oh, bad things are happening, someone else will take care of it,” to “Oh, yeah, this is a country by of and for the problem. I am the people. We are the people.” So once we have that realization or once any of us decides we want to step up and do something more than we have been doing, how do we find the courage to do that?

Marianne Manilov:        Wow, that’s a good question. I think it’s a practice. Anything in my life that’ve done where I have done change, even if it’s something simple like going to the gym regularly, the change didn’t happen where all of a sudden I was a regular person meditating or going to the gym, or anything healthy. So I think organizing is a practice. It’s sometimes really easy in these mobilization moments to come out to a march or to get involved, but the staying power of having a long term practice, even when it’s ugly, even when you don’t want to, and to do that in a sustainable balanced way, really, especially when on this particular issue, gun violence, they’re up against enormous, enormous power in the NRA.

Rosemary Pritzker:        Throughout this whole thing, I keep coming back to various words of Martin Luther King, because that’s whose words speak to me the most, particularly during this time of, like, the age of Parkland. So in his book Strength To Love, in the very beginning of it he talks about the importance of being tough minded and tender hearted instead of being soft minded and hard hearted. And I think that that distinction is really important, and I think that that the idea of being tough minded and tender hearted is a beautiful, powerful concept, and yet can be so hard to achieve when up against something like the NRA.

Marianne Manilov:        I think that’s true. I think we also teach organizing of the mind when we know that movements are built from the heart. Dr. King spoke a lot about the beloved community and I think I have been to so many organizing meetings in my life that have no love in them. And that isn’t where we need to be. I very much worry about organizers who can’t turn it off or who are in spaces of anger instead of love. Not that you can never be angry, of course, you can be angry for a long time, but you can’t sustain anger for a year without it doing harm to your body. So you’ve got to find practices. You know, I always say to people, “You meditate, you do all this stuff.” I’m like, right. If I was an Olympic runner and I didn’t run, you would be like, “Well, you really can’t run the Olympics.” And you cannot dedicate a decade or two decades to working on deep social change and systemic issues without doing that work. It’s not possible to do that in a healthy way.

Marianne Manilov:        So I worry about how do we train people who are coming into this. I mean, all of those kids are going to, or they have PTSD, right. So how do we make sure that we have those systems in place that help people to process through their past trauma, which they bring into the movement? And to do things sustainably in a way where they can stay truly present and open hearted and take breaks, because the way that you’re going to make the change is to commit for a decade. There have been enormous amounts of people who have come in who’ve never been involved and even though they thought they were going to go home, they’re still here. My biggest fear about the Parkland students is not that they will stop, my biggest fear about the Parkland students is that they won’t stop. They’re going to need somehow even in this bright of a spotlight to find ways even to, you know, like they say in the airlines, to give-

Rosemary Pritzker:        Oxygen mask.

Marianne Manilov:        Oxygen mask to each other, to take some breaks and some healing and other things. And it’s not to say that they’re not getting healed along the way, right. It’s not a one thing or another. There is healing in finding your purpose. On the other hand, talking to people like Pamela Bosley who gets up every day and had her son taken from her in a church parking lot in Chicago, she says, “Everyday I think of Terrell, how do I not think of Terrell.” She found the group Purpose Over Pain. He died in 2006. And so she is an early leader in the gun violence movement and these mothers come together, and heal each other, and she’s talked about wanting to take her own life. So they really bonded to find this and then also come together to help each other, and to heal each other, and then to take action. But, do you really get healed when your child is taken from you? I mean, I think part of the way you do that is through dedication and commitment to others and to holding on to each other.

Marianne Manilov:        In any situation where people have really deeply been traumatized, whether that’s prison or whatever it is, that people can come together and heal by shared experience and by literally being in deep circle. There is so much circling happening at this time, people doing just deep listening to each other and gathering, and there is a lot of aloneness. So it’s these two things happening at once and it’s almost like which way are we going to choose? Are we going to choose hate and fear? Are we going to choose love and connection? And it feels like this choice is pretty stark, and we’re going to have to have conversations in all of these, many of these places, with people that we can’t name as other.

Rosemary Pritzker:        Mm-hmm (affirmative). Just reminds me of Martin Luther King said something about it’s really hard to persuade someone when they can feel your underlying contempt. And there is so much contempt on both sides and in the middle all around on multiple issues that we’re dealing with here, but especially on the gun violence now. How do we get past that contempt and talk to each other?

Marianne Manilov:        I think, I mean, some of my greatest fear of this time is actually the hatred that the progressive movement has towards Trump, because the way that a lot of the solutions that I’m looking at are how do we step away from fear and anger permanently and get others to do that? And we are stepping really towards fear and anger. So and one of my mentors, Mel King, who was one of the first Black people to run for office in Boston, Boston Civil Rights leader, he said to me, “No one will ever change who you don’t love.” And it’s been an incredible journey for me to actually be able to live that and often times I can’t exactly live it, but I know that to be true, what you said, you can’t sit there and not really deeply feel someone. I saw definitely, again, on the news this morning some gun violence survivors who are in Arizona, students talking to each other and finding space, but I am very concerned about the hatred of people towards Trump voters and in just in general the othering that we’re seeing in the progressive movement because we’re beginning to pick up a tactic that has been used and will continue to be used to really separate us and to break our issues. And that’s not how we’ll get out of it.

Rosemary Pritzker:        It seems to me like that’s how we find a way to come together with the people on the supposed other aside of the aisle is finding other things to talk to them about and connect with them about, so that both sides can start to how human the other is before getting into the, quote, “real” issue. And I think that one person who publicly has been doing a really good job of bringing people together in these dialogues of course is our friend Van, Van Jones.

Marianne Manilov:        That’s very true.

Rosemary Pritzker:        You know, that’s one of the main things he’s been doing on CNN ever since the election really is bringing people together on opposite sides of the aisle and he himself speaking in a way that is calm and levelheaded and really trying to understand. We all need to find it in us to do that and to not act with contempt when we’re trying to have these conversations.

Marianne Manilov:        There is a lot of research behind what Van did. The people who lost Prop 8 on gay marriage came together over a decade ago and they began to have conversations with the people who voted against them. And over a decade they founded this body of research out of this thing called the Learning Lab, which was the LGBT center in LA, and the thing that I’ve thrown down on since the election is this group that we just launched this week called The New Conversations Initiative. I think I thought I was going to be sort of on the border, but as I have bene looking more and more into the research over the year and we were doing tests what I found was that it’s really a spiritual practice that they teach leaders, and they use this on thousands of leaders to win the four initiatives that won on gay marriage. And they have tested it on immigration, and race, and trans rights. Actually in Miami in the Cuban community there on trans rights is one of the deepest pieces of research.

Marianne Manilov:        And a lot of, again I’m not the team and I’m not the researchers, but what I’m understanding is that what they teach the canvassers is to go and really listen with an open heart and to have that person share a story and connect to the emotions. So on gay marriage they were trying to do you know a gay person? On trans, of course not a lot of people in the Cuban community in Miami know a trans person, but they have had the experience of having someone not like them because of who they are. So they find an emotive connection and get that person talking and telling their story. And this is actually, I mean, university level research what changes people, and they have now trained people at scale. So this is what I’ve decided to throw down on. I think there is a model to train thousands of leaders. It’s great that we win in Pennsylvania where in something is blue when we really mobilize voters, whether that’s predominately, of course, Black voters are the people giving some of these wins.

Marianne Manilov:        And I would love to train a thousand people to go into the next door districts that are red and to have these kinds of conversations. And one of the things is that you don’t try and change the person’s mind in front of them, that you’re listen more than you talk, that you do so with an open heart and you’re looking for that emotive connection. And we went and met with the University of Pennsylvania who is interested in doing some work with us. A friend of mine, who is a dean there, and he said this is very similar what they do in ethnographic research, that actually if people talk for a long time they start changing themselves. And I really think what you’re creating is a space where people can be open hearted and perhaps they find that change within themselves, but, of course, this changes. The leaders who ran this effort on gay marriage, they said it changes them, it changes the canvassers or changes the leaders as much as it changes the people who you’re in dialogue with.

Marianne Manilov:        And that’s what I want to see at scale, that’s my belief in change. And so I admire so much what Van has done, and I want thousands and thousands of people to be able to do that, to be able to download a conversation on Google, and have a conversation with their family on race. So that’s what we’re bringing the team together to do and that’s what I’ve been working on this year.

Rosemary Pritzker:        How do we choose love and connection when it’s really hard?

Marianne Manilov:        The way that I do it is by breathing and by being in community. I won’t take anything I’m building like this new thing we’re in a team. Black lives matter has a saying, “Move at the speed of trust,” we literally sit and like, “What are you feeling on this decision?” And we’ve been moving really slowly and being really clear about how we’re rooted. And how that makes me feel is it makes me feel safe enough that when something comes up that’s hard, I can be authentic and I can say I’m afraid and I can breathe through it. And somehow when I’m together I drop into my body, I can feel a sense of connection, and I know more that even in the long-term that I have to stand and be not afraid and be connected. So it’s not just, you know, are we loving in the face of and not othering people? I mean, I have to confess I do not love Trump. I think I’m in an avoidance stance, I don’t post about him on Facebook, you know. I am not, I can’t find a space to say that I love that person at all. So rather than hate, I’m avoiding and putting my energy behind finding powerful voices.

Rosemary Pritzker:        I don’t love Trump the grown up man, but the closest I have been able to come to loving him is imagining him when he was a little boy and whatever it was that happened to him that made him so broken.

Marianne Manilov:        What do you imagine it was?

Rosemary Pritzker:        Someone having power over him in a way that was not okay, probably his father. Possibly multiple people. I mean, my background is in bullying prevention, so when I look at someone like Trump I think that’s a really broken person. Something-

Marianne Manilov:        He’s a bully.

Rosemary Pritzker:        Something happened to him. He is a bully now because he probably was a victim originally.

Marianne Manilov:        Right. That’s helpful. I mean, it really actually is, because I can’t say that I have found an ounce of compassion so far. But, that’s what you’re saying, what do you when you love? How would you do? You just gave me an example. You try and find compassion for the individual or even, I think the hard thing is when it’s an institution on either side, right. So the police department, how do I find compassion? I mean, in the march there were these police from D.C, these white guys on motorcycles and they were like ready to ride into this crowd of young kids from Chicago. In the moment, I don’t think I found compassion. I mean, I stepped in front of the bike and I, under my breath, said all sorts of things about the police. And then I came back to it later, like “Wow you were really angry in this moment.” But, I can’t say that I have a lot of compassion for the police force is an institution that started, you know, it’s connected to the KKK.

Marianne Manilov:        I think there is something for me about the police that’s cumulative. I remember when the whole Black Lives Matter broke, and I was talking to a friend of mine and he’s like, “They’re naming all these names, but there are so names that they’re not naming that we know that were taken by police.” And I think that’s a piece of what I saw yesterday is just the overwhelm of when something happens that’s so systemic over, and over, and over again. And you’re just at the place where you’re not going to take it anymore. And that’s not a particularly compassionate place, but it’s a place of action and breakthrough as well.

Rosemary Pritzker:        So this reminds me of my Lama’s story of when he was in prison and having to come to terms with, you know, being ordered around by the Chinese who were imprisoning him and killing, and raping, and pillaging, and destroying his country, his culture, his people. He was thrown in with the worst offenders, in the Chinese eyes, which was all the religious people. So he was in there with like the highest lamas and was able to get really powerful instruction that he actually wouldn’t have gotten otherwise if that hadn’t happened. He was young, 14 or younger. He had already been recognized as a lama before that and had to hide it, and practice in caves, and whatever so the Chinese wouldn’t catch him. But so he is in prison young and he started getting really angry at the Chinese early on, like really angry. I mean, how could you not? You’re imprisoned by these people, watching them do horrible things. And his lama one day was like, “You got to stop … ” You know, like you can’t, that’s not how it works.

Rosemary Pritzker:        And he slowly managed to help him turn it around by, A), seeing it as an opportunity to dive really deep into himself and do his own really deep work, and also to have compassion for the Chinese because of how much really horrible karma they were racking up for themselves. So I feel like if my Lama was able to come to a place of having compassion for the people imprisoning him, and destroying his culture, and killing his people, it just that story has stuck with me as an example of okay it’s always possible even when it’s really, really hard.

Marianne Manilov:        And it is. And I think for people like you and I who see practice as part of the journey of social change, I think the challenge comes when we’re building a movement and people come into a meeting and there is someone really triggered or upset, and that person has no intention of getting healed. So I think that’s the challenge is in our movements when we’re talking about millions of people that have to be mobilized to do systemic change is not everyone has a practice or intention of healing, and for some people when we’re coming into circle with them that’s not gong to happen. So how we prepare for that and as circles of people even allow some of the anger also? I mean, particularly black women in this country, they have a right to be angry for a long time. So I think then the question is how do we navigate that within our movements? And that’s a harder space, it is. I have seen it done well. And it’s different than individual change, it’s collective change.

Marianne Manilov:        And I also think it’s powerful if we can be in circle with each other and then we bring somebody else in, right, awe can. But, the circles that I want to create in my life, I want to be with people who are healed and who are in process. When I’m doing work with broader groups, sometimes that’s true and sometimes that’s not. If I’m dealing with a thousand leaders it’s not like everyone is going home every night and meditating. And most of the communities that are directly impacted by the systemic stuff in our society are traumatized. So I do think we have to look at really trauma practices in our movement building. It’s an emerging thing, I think people are, but it isn’t as broad as it needs to be for us to get to where we need to go.

Rosemary Pritzker:        Where do we need to go?

Marianne Manilov:        We need to go into places where we can be in circle and in community where we’re healed. And luckily I have been parts of groups, I have seen that. I look at the national domestic workers alliance where they are really looking all of their leaders and giving them embodied training and I think there are places that were doing that. And just like it became a practice to build a website or it became a practice to think about how we move people from email to active on the ground, it’s going to have to become a practice how we deal with triggers, how we deal with trauma. Most of the people who are deciding to take action, many of them have been traumatized. So for us to have no plan or no skills building, it’d be like, “Oh, go build a website, Rose. Let’s see. You’ve never done that before, okay. Let’s not give you anything to do that with.” No one to mentor you, nothing to help you. You wouldn’t be able to do it.

Marianne Manilov:        Yet consistently we say to really traumatized people, “Come into the movement. Just do what we tell you.” And we have no skills or tools to navigate that. Well, that’s not, that’s just not going to work. We have to have communities that are able to heal.

Rosemary Pritzker:        Was there a moment when you as an organizer realized that you needed to do inner work?

Marianne Manilov:        Well, I didn’t realize it, but the people around me told me that I was messed up. So I think it happen in two stages. The first was when I was a fairly young organizer and I started my first non-profit. And I had a high donor named Peter Buckley and he wanted me to take three months off. And I used to get mad at him and get so triggered by him. And he said I want you to learn to meditate and not go off into the jungle on some human rights thing. And I think I cried for the first three weeks of those three months. And then, I learned to meditate and I learned the difference between being okay and being joyful. And it was one of the greatest gifts that anyone ever gave me, but he literally forced me to take a sabbatical. And then, the second person was Taj James who there was a period of time where I sort of othered some people in organizing where I would say, “Oh, that person doesn’t know, or.” And he  kept saying this is all part of your family and really encouraged me to get and do my inner work. I mean, I’m still a work in progress.

Rosemary Pritzker:        You said something about joy a minute ago. Why is it important to have joy in our lives especially as organizers?

Marianne Manilov:        Well, I think in organizing you can get into a place and it doesn’t have to only be in organizing, you can get into a place where you’re constantly looking at the sorrow and the pain of others, and that also takes you away from the present moment in yourself, so you never have to look at your own pain, right. Somebody else is always in more pain, there is always a world crisis that you can jump into. And as crazy as it sounds, the only way you can have inner joy in your own life is walk through your own pain. So I think for a lot of people they get into social change because they have a wound and they don’t want to walk through that wound. But, on the other side of that wound is freedom. And when you yourself get free, you realize that your journey is tied to everyone and that you’re not actually getting anyone free, that we all get free together, and that that’s a practice. And I think there can be an othering in, “Oh let me help these poor people,” or whatever that is, instead of really seeing your freedom as tied up with someone as integral to each other. And I think that also comes from deep inner practice. And then, you really want everyone to get free.

Rosemary Pritzker:        If you love what you’re hearing in this episode, subscribe, give a five-star rating, and write a review in iTunes, and then share it with someone you know will love it too.

Rosemary Pritzker:        Marianne and I met right around the time she was founding The Engage Network 13 years ago. We formed a bond almost immediately and she is still one of my closest girl friends.

Rosemary Pritzker:        You and I have known each other a long time and when we first met, I was really sick and you were one of the people that was able to actually really show up for me in a way that was helpful and much needed, in a way that most people didn’t know how, because of your own experiences. How did you learn how to show up for someone in crisis?

Marianne Manilov:        I think learning to truly show up and care deeply for people is a process. I think first when we’re in crisis, sometimes the people who show up for us are meant to show up for us to heal themselves, so being around you there was something that was very healing for me that was also going on. So it was mutual. And I was with someone today who I had mentored when she was younger. When my brother took his life, she called me and she said, “give me the hardest thing you have.” I mean, I hadn’t really been that in touch with her and I gave her finding the funeral arrangements because of the way the body was it was a very difficult task. And she managed with this grace and beauty, and like it changed everything that I felt about her. But, earlier in her life, 19 years ago, her fiance was murdered in a political situation in Latin America when he was caring for the U’wa people and we believe was murdered as part of the, you know, oil companies. He was murdered with two others.

Marianne Manilov:        It was an international incident and I saw that at the time more political. I don’t think I showed up at her house, I can’t remember. So it just shows you that in one moment, right, somebody could be really caring because that’s the space they’re in. And other times maybe for someone else they don’t show up and that’s the hardest thing for me when I’ve gone through crisis is, and I can’t say I have done it well, is to not judge people who don’t show up who I’m close to. And I think it’s a mixture of things. One, you want to have a community of care of people where that sort of that is the agreement beyond your family. And to have those conversations explicitly and then I do think there is some beauty and spirit about it that some people come towards you and some people don’t. And the hard thing I actually think is to know that it’s in some sort of divine order the people who come towards you.

Marianne Manilov:        But, I can’t say that I didn’t end a single friendship over people who didn’t come towards me during my brother’s death, because that wouldn’t be true. It did change how I feel about people. It changed how I felt about you. I can remember you came towards me. There are words and things and practices in my body that I got because you gave them to me in a time of such trauma that they sunk in in a way I don’t think that they would have, and they become part of my life. So I think community of care is both a practice, it’s a request, and it’s something that we have to do in a time when we’re feeling more and more isolated and alone and our institutions, our churches, our mosques, our different places are not holding us together in the way they used to or we’re not attending or whatever that is.

Rosemary Pritzker:        I remember not long after we met when I had moved to San Francisco, I was really sick. I felt so alone and then New Year’s happened and I was riddled with anxiety because of what was going in my body, the anxiety was just there no mater what I did and I couldn’t get away from it. And I felt so alone and I didn’t know what to do, and you invited me to this thing in Oakland with all these people. And it was such a warm, loving, sweet environment. And I don’t remember a lot of what happened, but I just remember you being really present with me without trying to fix anything. And just that alone was what I needed and helped so much. It was like I was able to like kind of relax.

Marianne Manilov:        It’s interesting because I feel like I didn’t have that practice then. And the thing that I learned from the trauma of my brother’s suicide is really exactly that, that there are times when people just need someone to sit next to them and not even try and get them to stand up again because they can’t stand. And the presence of love is incredibly important, just presence. And like I said I also think there was just some connection between us where we could show up for each other and that’s a gift that happens in friendship, and in families, and in communities. And this is tied to our political moment, because so much of what’s happening is around fear, aloneness, anger, the sense that we’re not going to be okay because of what’s happening in our economy and what’s happening in the world. And so when we have lost these social ties or the sense of being truly with us it enables political systems that are much more fascist, it enables policies and practices that make people into other.

Marianne Manilov:        And so it’s not just do we have a network of people that will truly be there for us, which is super important just in itself, right. To feel okay. It’s also when we build deep ties how that allows us to be a society and a democracy that can hold everyone.

Rosemary Pritzker:        Yes. So I’m just thinking about that idea of when we form strong bonds with people that we’re in whatever trenches with, that becomes the foundation from which big actions, immense strength, etc., can come in the face of all kinds of things. Do you have any stories along those lines from your life?

Marianne Manilov:        I think that what we see in movements is both deep ties and deep vision. And for me, one of the pivotal movements that I got to work with is Walmart workers. What was so pivotal about that for me was that most of the people who stood up to even make a small change in their store, like ask for more part-time hours or anything, were fired. And in the world when you’re a Walmart worker, who is the biggest employer in the United States, if you stand up and speak back and you’re fired, that also means that you might lose your grocery mean, it might mean that you lose your housing, so it has a high cost. And the reason that you’re going to do that is both because it’s unfair, but most of the people that I would meet, Walmart workers, they would stay that they were standing up for somebody else, for somebody who was elder in the store, somebody who wasn’t okay.

Marianne Manilov:        One of the most popular things that went through the network really strongly for example was a guy in Florida who was an elderly man and had pain in his legs, and was a greeter, and wanted a stool by the door, and Walmart wouldn’t give it to him. And it went like fire through the national network, because there are many people who are elderly and even grandfathers, fathers, mothers working there, and just the inhumanity of it. Another part of the network was mothers who were pregnant who were lifting heavy items and having miscarriages in the store who came together and changed that policy and they also sued. And I think for me what I saw in that was a network of people who dug in and really loved each other at a level across religion, across race, across gender, across all sorts of lines. And the moment I knew in the Walmart movement that it was going to make history, which it did, it won a billion dollars for a half million workers, and new policies on pregnancy, and new policies on part-time workers.

Marianne Manilov:        The moment I knew that the Walmart workers were going to make history was really this moment when there was a Christian worker from Texas who was black who wrote a note on Facebook, I guess a lot of the workers were keeping in touch during the day over Facebook and private groups, but he wrote a note to one of the guy that was sort of running the LGBT circle, and of course as a born-again Christian, LGBT that isn’t a border that you would normally see cross. One was black, one was white. And he wrote a note just saying, “I love you pookie.” And I remember taking a screenshot of it and thinking this love has crossed so many places, and it’s so deep because they know what they face. At Walmart if you want to get a second job you can’t do it, because at night if you ask for only daytime or only night time hours, and you want to go to school, if you’re not available all the hours, they cut your hours. So it’s just an impossible situation that forces people to stay in poverty, and it’s our largest employer.

Marianne Manilov:        So it’s very helpless. And most of the people there are on stamps. So it’s a really difficult situation, and to have that kind of love, to see people who are seeing each other as leaders, and to see people who are constantly telling each other how much they see the greatness in each other was a big piece of what built that movement.

Rosemary Pritzker:        In the process of creating Engage, Marianne studied many different networks made up of small groups. Then, she used that information to create her own small group curriculum that helps them find their purpose, bond with each other, and take action together on an issue they care about so that everyone becomes a leader. This curriculum can be used in virtually any movement across a spectrum of issues such as yoga studios and yoga related service projects, the Slow Food movement, Walmart workers, and others. When she engages with one of these movements, she begins by listening deeply to the network of leaders and then helping them come together to create what they want to take on. Then she gathers the tech and field organizers to do those things together, so that their efforts are both online and on the ground. We talked about how in order to get people to take significant action, they first need to feel deep connection, which is why she studied long-term circles.

Marianne Manilov:        I look at each network with a beginner’s mind and trying to see who is here, how are they already connecting, where there is already love, and how does that guide me to build more? When I came into the Walmart workers network, what I really did was look at what they were already inclined to do and then we tried to build more of that. I do think that I mostly looked and tried to listen and see what was truly transformative already and then to build more of that.

Rosemary Pritzker:        So what was it like going into the Saddleback Church and what were you doing there?

Marianne Manilov:        Well, we didn’t just go into Saddleback, we went into several megachurches around the country to learn why people were really, and how they were structured to be mobilized to be really engaged in something larger than themselves. And what we found is that in these big evangelical churches the way that people connected was more in a small group. So what we saw at the time was these two models particularly, Saddleback was one of the churches. And they had a model where they just said we’re going to put everyone in small groups and some of those small groups will fail, but we’re going to start moving them through sort of how to be together. And Saddleback has broken up and has like 22 services between Friday night and Sunday where you could be part of the Hawaiian group, or you could play part of the singles group, or you could be part of sort of the deep bible group and all of these are different small groups that are cultural groups. And then, you’re also part of the larger church.

Marianne Manilov:        And the movement has a lot to learn from that. And there was another church in Chicago called Willow Creek that had the opposite model where it would really train its leaders for a long time and then put into small circles where they would deeply be responsible for people’s journeys. And within that there were other people, churches that we studied, sort along a spectrum. And I think that’s an interesting question. Do you just allow people to naturally come from online on to the ground and are they going to be engaged? And some of that will fail, we see that a lot of times when people come out and they start their own events or whatever that is some of those groups stay together and others don’t. And really our theory was that people could go as far as the small in the small circle as their leader will go. And so there is some real connection between leader networks and depth of community. So how people can hold space for each other, what skills they have.

Marianne Manilov:        And I think studying the megachurch has allowed me to see different models of that, but you can also see it in book clubs, in AA groups, right. Why do some AA groups go on for 25 years and others last for two months and they go under? It’s the same cuticulum. Why do some book groups, they’ve been together and those people are there for each other and their lives? It’s way more than book groups, or even the groups that do floats for example in New Orleans, they were some of the first responders to Katrina, some of the most tied together groups who build floats every year. So we really see that a depth of community makes a huge difference in how people stay together and I would say how they also do political organizing. And since there isn’t a big effort to build depth of community and depth of understanding that we do generally in movement building, some groups do it, it’s a big problem because isolation and fear allows for people to be separated and for policies and systems to continue that harm our communities.

Rosemary Pritzker:        I asked Marianne about Jeremy Pastor, an activist who had an enormous impact on her life. He was one of the founders of Burma Humanitarian Mission. A human rights and advocacy organization focused on providing medical services and education in Burma. Jeremy and Marianne also worked closely with an organization called EarthRights International, founded by a Burmese man named Ka Hsaw Wa. A member of the Karen ethnic group and recipient of the Goldman Environmental Prize and the Reebok Human Rights award.

Marianne Manilov:        One of the people who had a great influence on teaching me to become a leader who puts care and love at the center of what they do is an organizer named Jeremy Pastor, who died of prostate cancer. But, we went into Burma together when I had been working with EarthRights and wanted to learn more about the frontline people struggle with a group of backpacking medics to bring medical supplies to people who, indigenous people who were being threatened by war and we literally trekked into Burma by boat and by foot through the mountain ranges. And it was very emotionally, and physical, and spiritual trip for me. It was enormously difficult. And Jeremy walked behind me, he was sort of talking to me through some of what I was seeing and some of you know the pain of what was in these villages and we would have to meet outside, and literally in the dark, and people were getting medical care. And there was also we had to run, there was armed situations going on there. And he really walked me through it and helped me.

Marianne Manilov:        When we came back to the United States, I went into the hospital with dysentery, and he went into a different hospital and they told him that actually he had no blood in his body and he was quite sick. We couldn’t figure it out. I mean, we had been on this trekking up and down these mountains. It turned out he had this rare form of cancer. And he fought a really hard fight, but died two years later. And in the journey towards his death he taught me a lot about, there was a community of people who came together to take care of him. And it taught me about deep care and he also really wanted me to believe in life after death. I didn’t at the time, I thought, you know, when we die that was it. He would say to me like, “You need to believe in life after death.” And I said, “Well, you know, you can come back or whatever.” And he said, “I will.” And we would have sort of a joking bet, and I said to him “Don’t come back in my dreams and disturb me.” And he said, “Okay. I won’t,” he said, “I’ll bring you people.” People that were born on my birthday, because his wife was as well.

Marianne Manilov:        He also was like, “And I’m going to force you to be involved in this Free Tibet movement,” because, at that year the Chinese Olympics was coming to San Francisco, and he really wanted me and a bunch of people to do a protest. And I was like there are a 100 people who want to care for you and do stuff, like why me? There is a lot of the Free Tibet people, it’s just not my issue. And after he passed, I went to this screen for all launch. Van Jones was starting an organization and at the end of that three day conference, Majora Carter, who is a very famous black environmental justice organizer, came up to me and said, “I’m coming to San Francisco next week, and I need your help.” And she said, “I don’t know why you, but something just said that to me.” And I said, “Okay.” She said, “I’m coming to San Francisco because I am an Olympic torch bearer.’ And I said, ‘Okay”. She said, “I’m an Olympic torch bearer for Coca-Cola,” and she said, “The first time they called me I said, ‘no’. The second time they called me, I said, ‘I already said no.’ And the third time they called me I thought there might be some people that I was meaning to speak for. So I have decided to be an Olympic torch bearer and to pull out a Tibet flag as a protest. And I need your help”

Marianne Manilov:        And I literally looked up and said under my breath, I think I said, “Fuck you,” and she said, “What did you say?” And I really knew that Jeremy had set it up. So she came and we did this massive protest that was on the international news. And Chinese paramilitary knocked her down. It was incredible, but I spend like days with her and we even put on the press leads release contact Jeremy Pastor. And a part of me was thinking he was sending me a message, but another part was like, “Hmm”. And so about two months later I was writing in my journal. You know, this doesn’t mean that he can communicate with me, because who knows? And that day Majora’s husband called me and said, “Marianne we just Facebook friended you, and we are coming your way in about a few weeks. We would like to have dinner, but the strangest thing when we joined you on FB we noticed that you share a birthday, you and Majora were both born on the same day.”

Marianne Manilov:        For me, I know that Jeremy and since that time I feel like I cannot just communicate or hear Jeremy but hear others. And I think as you’ve said. And there are many cultures this is something and the connection not just to each other but to people who are in our past and to our elders who are constantly around us. And actually that’s what most cultures have. We have lost al of that connection. It’s the connection to our root that holds us, to everyone who is ever been part of our life or part of our journey and to each other, that’s a lot of loss, no wonder why we feel so sad and alone all the time.

Rosemary Pritzker:        Well, Chartwell Dutiro, my mbira mentor from Zimbabwe, I did an interview with Chartwell that’s going to come out soon in which he talks about this about how in his culture that Shona tribe of Zimbabwe, the mbira’s purpose is to call on the ancestors. And they believe that we’re surrounded by our ancestors all the time, they’re still there. They don’t have bodies anymore, but they’re still here, and they’re trying to help us, guide us etc. And if we don’t communicate, then we’re going to end up having a lot of problems. I think that that’s a belief that a lot of other indigenous cultures have a similar belief around that like not knowing who your ancestors were and having some kind of relationship with them is like not going to bode well. You need them. We need each other. We need our family. We need our ancestors.

Marianne Manilov:        I agree. I think we’ve gone to an extreme of disconnection that is literally making us spiritually sick and I think it’s also making us politically sick. And whether that’s othering Trump voters or othering each other even thinking, “Oh that person doesn’t understand me,” and not really taking the time to work through it. It’s a big challenge in our time. I think we’re in a time in our country where we’re having a hard time understanding that there really is a big economic shift, that a lot of people are in poverty and they’re very hungry. And so instead of joining together collectively to look at things like local economy or guaranteed income, there is a story in America that everyone is on their own and if they just work hard enough they will make it. And it’s not a true story. And instead of saying we need to shift our story, we’re spiritually sick because we want to look away, we want to pretend that it’s not happening and so instead we just say that everyone is alone. And then even people who have enough are hurting because somehow we’re not all trying to get free together and there is something that we know is not right about that. We know it.

Marianne Manilov:        And it can’t be that there is one group of people working at google and Facebook 90 hours a week and trading in their lives so they can be millionaires and open foundations and have private planes. And then, another group of people that’s working at Walmart and doesn’t have enough groceries for their kids, and that’s our country. I think both sides know that that they’re sick. And there is some way that we need to come together and fix that. And instead of doing that, we’re having some … We’re seeing the fear side. And in the election of President Trump and the othering side. And everyone is othering everyone. And I’m hoping that what comes next is the love side, at least I’m going to try and be part of that movement for love.

Rosemary Pritzker:        How do we do that? What does that look like?

Marianne Manilov:        I think it looks like a million things. It looks like as simple as people bringing each other soup. It looks like noticing where in our communities there are people in poverty and maybe deciding to be in that space with each other. I think it looks like big things like the student movement that came together on gun violence since the shooting in Parkland that’s willing to be connected to Black Lives Matter, to immigration, to all of these issues. It’s all intertwined. So the challenge becomes how can you do some things simple, local, and sustainable with a group of people you love? And if that’s the only question you ask, how do I do something that I’m called to do, that’s simple and sustainable and helps in a way that I see is connected to building more love and connection, then that has to be the practice. We just need to be in a space where we understand that love is not something that’s optional. In a time of hate and fear, love is one of the most potent things that we can do in movement building.

Marianne Manilov:        It isn’t to say you shouldn’t be making the phone calls or knocking on doors, it’s to say you should be doing that with people you really love.

Rosemary Pritzker:        To learn more about Marianne, visit her website Engagenet.org. The link is in the show notes.

Rosemary Pritzker:        Thank you for listening to A Show of Hearts. If you enjoyed what you heard, please subscribe on iTunes and share it with your favorite people. Visit our website ashowofhearts.com where you can sign up for emails and explore all our episodes in depth. Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @ashowofhearts. Remember to choose courage even when it’s scary. And join me in igniting the world with our hearts.

Rosemary Pritzker:        (singing)

The post Gun Violence and Movement Building from the Heart with Marianne Manilov appeared first on A Show of Hearts.