By Janae Jean

  On November 9, 2020, I had the honor of speaking with award-winning author, teacher, speaker and Akashic Studies expert, Dr. Linda Howe. Dr. Howe has written several definitive books on the Akashic Records, including How to Read the Akashic Records: Accessing the Archive of the Soul and Its Journey, Healing Through the Akashic Records: Using the Power of Your Sacred Wounds to Discover Your Soul’s Perfection, and Discover Your Soul’s Path Through the Akashic Records: Taking Your Life From Ordinary to Extraordinary. Additionally, she has created guided practices available in audiobook or eBook format, for those who wish to dive further into their spiritual awakening and transformation. Her latest book, Inspired Manifesting Through the Akashic Records: Elevate Your Energy and Ignite Your Dreams will be released January 1, 2021, along with a live, online class, Manifesting Your Soul’s Purposes Through the Akashic Records, beginning on January 20, 2021.

Dr. Howe has been working as a spiritual consultant for more than three decades and began working with the Akashic Records in 1994. In 1996, she was certified as an Akashic Records Teacher. Dr. Howe is the originator of the Pathway Prayer Process,© to Access the Heart of the Akashic Records, and founded the Center for Akashic Studies in Chicago in 2001. Since 2010, she has taught a variety of online and in-person courses to students from around the globe. For more information about Dr. Howe’s work, including her classes, books and more, visit www.LindaHowe.com.

The following is just a portion of our conversation. To hear the entire interview and learn more about Linda’s books, work, and spiritual journey, visit www.ConsciousCommunityMagazine.com or subscribe on your favorite podcast provider.

Janae: You’ve written several books on the Akashic Records and have another book coming out next year, Inspired Manifesting Through the Akashic Records. What inspired you to write this book now? Was it due to the pandemic or were you planning on writing the book before the pandemic?

Linda Howe: I’ve been working on this book for five years. I’ve been working and traveling a lot for a couple of years now. I realized that I could not write a book in an airport or a hotel. Last December I made this prayer to the Universe, “Oh my God, I need a break, so I can get this book done.” I had all this urgency in my heart. Lo and behold! The pandemic hit and all travel ceased. One of the silver linings in the great clouds of COVID for me is to have the time and the space to finish this book.

With my first three books, I took the traditional publishing approach through Sounds True and Hay House. With this book, I realized that if I took the traditional approach, it would take a couple of years, and I don’t know that we have that kind of time. So, I’m self-publishing this book so it can be available quickly. We are in times of urgency for good guidance and wisdom.

This pandemic has pushed me to do so many things I swore I was never going to do. I was never going to self-publish or do a teacher training online. Now, I have an international teacher training program all online. I have to laugh! Who knew the world was going to change in this way?

JJ: You mentioned how the world has changed. Thinking about that and with the holidays coming up, how can we sincerely connect with our loved ones this holiday season even though we may be physically further apart?

LH: You know what we’re doing in my house? This year, we are having a virtual Thanksgiving. Everybody’s going to be in their own house and we’re going to put the laptop at the table. We’re going to do a Zoom Thanksgiving. We have to take care of one another and make the connections when we can but not put anyone we love at risk.

JJ: That’s a great way to think about it! Staying home is not just about keeping yourself safe, but it’s an act of love. We’re so lucky to have the Internet as an option right now.

LH: I’ve been teaching online for a long time. About 12 years ago, we started doing these conference calls. It was a little clumsy, but it worked out. We went from that, and it’s just been one step after another. Technology just keeps on; every time we have a moment of inner awareness, the outer world says, “Well here, try this!”

In the ‘90s, the head of the Astara Foundation likened the Akashic Record to the “cosmic internet.” It is like this superhighway of consciousness, of truth. It’s a vibrational archive of every soul and their journey. The opportunity for secular people to work in the Record consciously, deliberately, responsibly, for our own growth and transformation, is unprecedented in the history of human consciousness. We are in the time of awakening spiritual awareness where each one of us is challenged. We have the opportunity to make this connection in a conscious way and to live from the place of awareness of the truth in the goodness of our own soul.

We are the bridge generation. We have a responsibility to ourselves, and to those we love, to learn how to use the spiritual resources that life is giving us.

JJ: Speaking of giving, how can we be both generous givers and gracious receivers this holiday season?

LH: First comes the giving. If you think about breathing, I exhale, then I have room to inhale. If my lungs are full, there can be pure oxygen, but there’s nowhere for it to go. So, what I want to do is give first. These are simultaneous processes. As I give, there is now room for receiving.

Most of the people I work with have a little anxiety about receiving. As we allow ourselves to receive, it’s not just for us. As we receive, we are then in a position to give even more. Understanding the giving and receiving process is really what places us in the circle of life.

There are things that I have that you don’t have, and if I give them to you, you have them. Then someone else can give to me. We are interdependent creatures. We’re all responsible for our own giving and receiving. It’s an independent experience, however, through this independent, autonomous experience of giving and receiving, we then find our natural relationship with other people. We give to people who need what we have and want what we have, and we receive from people who have what we want and need. Then we’ve found our harmony with other human beings.

One of the great opportunities of our time is to experience our oneness with each other, with ourselves, with one another, and with life. It is by consciously giving and receiving that we are participating in the unity of human consciousness, the unity of the human family. It takes the idea of “oneness,” a very popular spiritual idea, and puts it into action. So, as we’re going into the holidays, we want to be thinking about the fact our giving and our receiving are ways that we can experience our oneness with all of humanity, and the great light that is being birthed at this moment in human development.

Janae Jean is a professional music instructor, composer, sound artist, web designer, blogger and writer. She is the founder of Perennial Music and Arts and is passionate about sharing her love of music and arts. Visit www.PerennialMusicAndArts.com and www.JanaeJean.com for more information and to subscribe to her blogs.

By Janae Jean and Spencer Schluter 

We had the pleasure of speaking with Corinne Zupko, Ed.S., author of From Anxiety to Love: A Radical New Approach for Letting Go of Fear and Finding Lasting Peace. Zupko has coached, counseled and educated thousands of people at national and regional conferences, in classes and workshops, and one-on-one. She co-hosts the largest virtual conference about A Course in Miracles through Miracle Share International, an organization which she co-founded. She also hosts the podcast From Anxiety to Love Radio. Zupko also serves as a corporate consultant for mindfulness practices, and she teaches mindfulness and wellness at the College of New Jersey. You can connect to her through fromanxietytolove.com . 

The following article only contains a portion of our conversation, listen to the podcast on our website to hear much more and subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, and/or YouTube. — J.J

Janae: What inspired you to write this book?

Corinne: I was pretty much born anxious. I received my first psychiatrist diagnosis at the age of two, separation anxiety disorder. I was always an anxious child, but once I got to college things got really intense for me, because that was the time I broke down with really debilitating anxiety and panic attacks. Those [attacks] were triggered by the death of a student on campus. I didn’t know this student, but it was a very sudden death. It really freaked me out. After I learned that news, the next morning, I woke up at about three o’clock in the morning in an all-out sweat. My heart was racing. I thought I was dying, and it turns out it was my first panic attack. Then for years, I had out of the blue and out of control panic attack…a high degree of anxiety. Through the help of a number of things, including counseling, and talking a lot with my mom because she was a true spiritual mentor for me. But, the thing that helped me the most was a spiritual pathway called A Course in Miracles. Through all those things, I found my way into really wanting to give back. I ended up becoming a therapist and working with one-on-one clients for many years, but I still had some degree of anxiety that followed me.

In 2009, I had another really debilitating episode of anxiety. When I say debilitating episode, I mean I couldn’t really function. It was hard for me to get off the couch. My stomach was in such a physical knot that it was hard for me to eat because it was spasming all the time. It was at that point that I started to really dive in deeply into my spiritual practice, and I started finding relief. I started noticing that a lot of my anxieties and my fears were falling away, and I knew at that point in time that I had to start writing about what was helping me. The results, from a total of six years, are in the pages of From Anxiety to Love.

Spencer: It’s really interesting that your spiritual practices helped you with that. For hundreds of thousands of years humans used spirituality as a coping mechanism. Now people don’t have that outlet. They go on a medication…stay on it for years… and sometimes, it doesn’t even help them.

JJ: I liked that in your book you pointed out that it’s sometimes necessary to have that medication. It saves people’s lives, especially in crisis situations.

CZ: I’m so glad you brought this point up about how society as a whole has moved away from spirituality and has gone to this strict medical model. Whatever your spiritual practice is, it’s all about coming back into your being, your true self. For me, I truly believe that love is at the center of everything. Learning how to reconnect with that myself, and trust that voice of love within me was huge. Like you said, a pill is not going to take us into ourselves; it’s just like a bandage. For me, it was temporary. I needed it during the very acute debilitating times, but I trusted that my need for it would fall away as I was ready to let it go. A lot of my anxiety was existential. Why the heck are we here? If God is love then how can all this crazy stuff be happening in this world? So, I needed a spiritual remedy; there wasn’t anything medical that would answer those questions for me.

JJ: I like that, in your book, you use the term “Inner Therapist.” Would you like to elaborate on that?

CZ: This Inner Therapist is part of our very own mind that heals, that remembers the truth that we are all united, that we are made of love. A Course in Miracles calls your Inner Therapist your Inner Teacher, Holy Spirit. You can call it your Higher Mind, your Inner Guide, or your Inner Guidance System. It doesn’t matter what you call it, but it’s the idea that there is something outside of this limited, fearful thought system (that we all know so well). As we get connected with this part of our own mind, with our Inner Therapist, we are able to use it for healing…

This process (that I write about in my book) is about finding your willingness to do differently and bringing your willingness to your Inner Therapist, to your Inner Teacher, asking for a miracle which is this sort of shift in perception. This ability to perceive and to experience love again is to hand it over and just trust that you handed it over. That shift is going to come when you’re ready to receive it. This Inner Therapist, for me, has been a key part for me. As I have become better and better at listening to it, which I also call the “Voice of Love,” or your intuition within you, the more I’ve come to identify with that, and the more I’ve found the anxiety issues just fall away. I feel so connected to my sense of being and the Divine Love that’s within me.

Janae Jean serves as editor, social media manager and podcaster for Conscious Community Magazine. She has an M.M. in Computer Music Composition from Johns Hopkins University and a BA in Music/Education from Judson University. Janae is actively researching using electronically generated sounds for healing. Visit janaejean.com and perennialmusicandarts.com for details about Janae’s upcoming classes, lesson information, workshops, shows and projects.

Spencer Schluter is the advertising account manager, social media manager and podcaster for Conscious Community Magazine. His experience includes visual communications, advertising, social media, marketing, public relations and business development. Visit yggstudios.com for more information about his freelance design and consulting work. He is also a master level Reiki and traditional Chinese Qigong practitioner.

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By Janae Jean and Spencer Schluter

For this month’s interview, we had the pleasure to share in conversation with author Megan Griswold. Megan grew up in California in a family that embraced New Age Californian culture. She studied at Barnard College, earned an MA from Yale and later went on to earn a licentiate degree from the Institute of Taoist Education and Acupuncture. She trained in many modalities and has received certifications as a doula, shiatsu practitioner, yoga instructor, personal trainer, and in wilderness medicine, among others. She has worked in many diverse fields including as a mountain instructor, a Classical Five element acupuncturist, a freelance reporter, a commentator for NPR’s All Things Considered and an off-the-grid interior designer. She currently resides primarily in a yurt in Kelly, Wyoming.

Megan is the author of The Book of Help: A Memoir in Remedies where she shares personal recollections from her experiences with many different healing modalities, wellness techniques and spiritual practices. Visit www.MeganGriswold.com and www.LittleMovingSpaces.com for more information about her work. Follow her on social media on Instagram @MeganEatonGriswold, on Facebook @TheBookOfHelp and on Twitter @Megan_Griswold.

The following is a brief excerpt of our in-depth conversation. To find out more about community, acupuncture and alternative medicine, off-the-grid living, how to decide if a healing modality or practitioner is right for you, as well as Megan’s personal healing journey, listen to the entire interview at www.ConsciousCommunityMagazine.com or wherever you listen to podcasts. All 36 episodes of the Conscious Community Podcast are available on Apple Podcasts, Google Play Music, Stitcher, TuneIn, Player.FM, YouTube and other popular podcatchers.

Janae: You describe your book as a memoir of remedies, would you like to elaborate on what that means to you?

Megan Griswold: Yeah. I had a rather unusual upbringing. My family was very immersed in “New Age stuff.” When I was born I was assigned a Christian Science practitioner; by age seven, I asked Santa for my first mantra for Christmas and got one; and by age 12, I was taking weekend workshops. So, I’ve done over 15,000 hours of spiritual and New Age practices organically—not as an experiment. Then I was married, my husband got arrested for soliciting a prostitute who was an undercover cop. That experience put enough pressure of a certain kind that I dove into what I knew to do when I was in pain or having a challenge. That was these alternative experiments. The book reads more like a novel; it starts on the night of his arrest. Every chapter kicks off with the name of that therapy, purpose, cost, equipment needed and humiliation factor (that is my favorite). The book mentions over 200 healing practices, and there are about 100 that provide the lens to tell the story.

Spencer: You mentioned the “humiliation factor.” Are you talking about opening up to your vulnerabilities?

MG: Yeah. I think in a lot of times, whether it’s in a group setting, one-on-one or even with just yourself, you can be embarrassed. I’ve been embarrassed with just me watching. During a silent retreat, the meditation teacher sent me up in the woods to do this stick-mashing exercise alone. I was just so embarrassed to do the whole thing with just myself.

Now, however many years later, I had to do this trailer for the book where I had to reenact some of the activities in the book. So, I had to do the same exercise. I was in the middle of Grand Teton National Park, and I stamped out this little place in the snow and did the stick-smashing exercise. I had to raise sticks over my head and yell like a lunatic. My friend was photographing, and she had an assistant with her who was doing the steady-cam. There was this funny moment when she looked at her assistant and said, “I think I should have told you more about the book.” [Laughs.] I had started in and went berserk, and I thought, “Oh my God! I’ve obviously changed!” This had mortified me years ago by myself, and here I could do it in front of people. Tourists were driving by and filming it; it was ridiculous! In a different moment, I would have definitely been more embarrassed.

JJ: I could see the humiliation factor being a valuable part of the therapy by helping you to get over yourself.

MG: Exactly! I like to name it as humiliating, rather than pretend that it’s not a little uncomfortable to do these types of things.

SS: It is difficult, if not impossible, to go through life totally independent from other human beings. I think the root cause of toxic masculinity is how our culture socializes men not to talk about their feelings. In order to find spiritual engagement, emotional growth, a therapist that works for you, or any of these things that are going to help heal you as a man, you have to acknowledge that you need other people. This applies to women equally. If you want to be independent, not co-dependent, you need to know how to find the right people to help you.

MG: I definitely think that culturally women are encouraged to be curious and looking for insight. I think it’s absolutely true that men aren’t encouraged to do that. Certainly, the challenges I’ve dealt with have to do with being around a wonderful man who wasn’t given the tools he needed to deal with the hand he was dealt.

JJ: Besides writing this book, your website says you reside in a yurt, and you’re an off-the-grid interior designer. Can you tell us a bit about that?

MG: One thing that I find particularly nourishing is being outside in the back country. (I used to be a mountain guide instructor.) While I was working on becoming a full-time writer, I was cultivating other income streams. It turned out I was good at making pretty places and turning them into Airbnb type businesses. I had the opportunity to rent a yurt and then another yurt, in this unintentionally intentional or intentionally unintentional community in the middle of Grand Teton National Park. It’s a little bit like living in New York and stumbling into a rent-controlled apartment. So, after renting a couple yurts in this community, I got to build one. That developed into its own design project, separate from the Airbnb operations that I started. I started to be able to merge my interests and spend all this time outside and erect this beautiful space that’s affordable. The project turned into an online resource for other people who want to curate beautiful places for themselves that are essentially off-the-grid.

JJ: Are you part of a community there?

MG: I knew myself well enough that I knew that I did not want to be completely isolated. I like that we have this interaction in the bathhouse doing dishes or laundry, or that we’re looking out for each other. Somebody will look out for my solar panels or clean them off or vice versa; or I’ll look after somebody’s pup.

I think something interesting happens when we don’t have much insulation. I think with very thin walls, you feel what is going on under the other roofs. It’s like when you sleep outside in tents and you cycle up with the moon. I think you are cycling up with your neighbors and what’s going on with them. You become sensitive to that.

Janae Jean serves as an editor and media consultant Conscious Community Magazine. Visit her blog www.janaejean.com for more about her music composition and sound healing, as well as her tea and ceremony writing. Visit www.perennialmusicandarts.com for about music lessons and arts education.

Spencer Schluter serves as an advertising account manager, social media manager and podcaster for Conscious Community Magazine. Visit www.yggstudios.com for more about his freelance design and consulting work. He is also a master level Reiki and traditional Chinese Qigong practitioner.

By Janae Jean and Spencer Schluter

For this month’s interview and podcast, we spoke with renowned author and lecturer, Edith Hall. Edith is a Professor in the Department of Classics and Centre for Hellenic Studies at King’s College in London, England. While she originally specialized in ancient Greek Literature, her work has expanded to include ancient Greek and Roman history, society and thought. She has published over 20 books. Her most recent book is Aristotle’s Way: How Ancient Wisdom Can Change Your Life, in which she explains how studying Aristotle’s ancient philosophy can help all of us live more fulfilling lives in the modern world.

When Edith is not writing or teaching, she frequently broadcasts on radio and television, consults with professional theaters and lectures internationally. She publishes in academic and mainstream magazines, publications and newspapers. You may follow or contact her via Twitter @EdithMayHall. Visit www.edithhall.co.uk.

The following is a brief excerpt of our in-depth conversation. To find out more about relationships, parenting, happiness, grit, and why it’s not too late to start achieving your dreams, listen to the entire interview at www.ConsciousCommunityMagazine.com or wherever you listen to podcasts. All 35 episodes of the Conscious Community Podcast are available on Apple Podcasts, Google Play Music, Stitcher, TuneIn, Player. FM, YouTube and other popular podcatchers.

Janae: How did you discover Aristotle? Was that at the university?

Edith: Yes. I was at Oxford studying classics and had to write a paper about making decisions in Greek tragedy. My great tutor told me to read the third book of Nicomachean Ethics series. It blew me away. For the first time in my life, I heard a voice that seemed to be describing exactly how I felt about moral dilemmas and my position in the world relative to other people, animals, ethics and everything. So, I got very excited and started to read the rest of this great mind. I was so amazed at how he developed a whole system of thinking; he’s actually the father of logic. It isn’t just about your personal life—your subjective self—everything interconnects. He’s very encouraging; the whole thing is written as if you apply this to your life, you will get happier. It’s a system of secular ethics. There is no god in it, but that doesn’t mean that he was an Atheist. He thought it was completely up to humans to create their own happiness. This spoke to me at that age in a very powerful way, because I had been very lost since I was about 13.

JJ: Your father was an Anglican priest, and growing up you were interested in astrology, Buddhism and Transcendental Meditation. How does Aristotle fit into all of that?

EH: For me, he was the non-mystical answer. He’s very modern. He doesn’t think you will ever be happy if you act out of accordance with your emotions. You’ve got to find a way for reason and emotion to go together at all times. It’s all part of the same system. He’s very holistic. This, for me, was extremely liberating.

JJ: In your writing, you talk about the importance of planning and how planning can lead us to happiness yet many people would think it’s the opposite.

SS: We have a very “instant gratification” society when it comes to self-improvement.

EH: It’s really about how you define “happiness.” Aristotelian happiness is not a passing mood that can be brought on by a “happy meal” or “happy hour.” It can only come from within yourself. It comes from that feeling of being able to look in the mirror and know that you have tried to do your best. If you’ve tried to be the best possible you, worked on your not-so-nice characteristics, recognized what you are really good at, and recognized your strong personal qualities and enhanced those further, then you get a really firm, really Teflon, sense of contentment, even if you have unbelievably bad luck. Aristotle says that he sees that people who are ‘bad’ are almost always really unhappy.

The other thing is Aristotle thinks that everybody is good at something, and that’s absolutely true. It may be parenting, gardening, making other people happy, cracking jokes, violin playing, Ancient Greek literature; it may be (you) discussing deep issues that make them accessible to the public. Happiness is being the best version of you and exercising it, and that’s what you want to do with your whole life. It’s a verb, not a noun. It is a way of doing everything with an approach.

SS: I heard a discussion on public radio about IQ and success. They said that most successful people have high IQs but having a high IQ does not mean you will be successful. The difference between somebody who is successful and one who is not is grit or determination.

EH: The crucial thing here, and this is why I think Aristotle is so helpful if you are a parent or in a job that has parental aspects, is helping the young discover what it is they are very good at. There is no greater gift than someone taking that seriously and talking about that with you. The key to it, if you are an Aristotelian, is what gives them the most pleasure.

SS: But, not in the Hedonistic sense?

EH: No. What I tried to do with my kids was to let them do what they wanted, but I exposed them to as many things as I possibly could. For example, my youngest has just gone to university to study Japanese, and there’s no study of Oriental languages in my family. I thought, “Where on Earth did she get that from?” She told me, “Mummy, don’t you remember you took me to see that manga film, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, when I was eight?” I had completely forgotten that. But she said that was a moment she realized she loved everything about it. When she said that, it really moved me.

This is where I can get a little bit mystical. One of the wonders of the human race is that we seem to have been given such a diverse range of abilities. There is nothing better for me than watching someone who is really excellent at something; anything from cooking to parenting to driving a car well, seeing them enjoying being excellent at what they do. That is where Aristotle says you are getting nearest to God because this is what animals can’t do. Animals are driven by their instincts.

Aristotle invented the idea of the “Hive Mind,” which is why he thought democracy was the best system. He said it’s like a public feast where everybody brought the dish they were best at. He said that’s what an ideal society should be. I think it is miraculous what diverse things excite people. I genuinely get excited by going to a library and reading some old Greek book. Weird, isn’t it? But I do. I’m very lucky that I get to do that for money. Getting to do what you’re really good at is the happiest you can possibly be as a human.

Janae Jean serves as editor, social media manager, recipe columnist and podcaster for Conscious Community Magazine. Visit www.janaejean.com or www.perennialmusicandarts.com for details about her other projects.

Spencer Schluter serves as an advertising account manager, social media manager and podcaster for Conscious Community Magazine. Visit www.yggstudios.com for more about his freelance design and consulting work. He is also a master level Reiki and traditional Chinese Qigong practitioner.

By Janae Jean and Spencer Schluter

For our May interview, we had the pleasure to share a conversation with author Danielle Dulsky. Danielle explores the wild feminine, humanity’s deep and embodied connection to the natural world through writing, multimedia art, motherhood, witchcraft, yoga teaching and energy–healing.

Danielle’s most recent book, The Holy Wild: A Heathen Bible for the Untamed Woman, invites readers to create their own spiritual path with the elements—Earth, Water, Fire, Air and Ether, as well as the feminine archetypes of Maiden, Mother, and Crone. For more about Danielle’s fascinating work, visit DanielleDulsky.com. Follow her on Instagram and Twitter@WolfWomanWitch. You can support her work at www.Patreon.com/DanielleDulsky, and “like” and “follow” her work on Facebook@WolfWomanCircle.

The following is only an excerpt from our interview. Listen for more insights about the Divine Feminine, archetypes, the importance of rituals, motherhood, living in harmony with nature, and more. Subscribe to the Conscious Community Podcast on your favorite podcatcher or listen on www.ConsciousCommunityMagazine.com. Find the Conscious Community Podcast on Twitter@TweetCCPodcast or on Facebook@ConsciousCommunityPodcast.

Janae: In your book, you talk about the feminine archetypes of “Maiden, Mother and Crone.” Do you feel that as women we need to embody all these roles?

Danielle: Yeah, I think that’s it. We are all three, maiden, mother and crone, all the time, even irrespective of gender. We have these masculine and feminine energies that cycle within us. It doesn’t even bother me If you call them by those labels or call them something else. What we are really talking about when we talk about the maiden is our sensuality, the way our emotions cycle, and our kinship with nature. Then the mother archetype is two things. In my book, I talk about the idea of the mother’s twin. There are socially acceptable aspects of the mother archetype because she’s a “doer.” She’s generative; she’s productive. So, she’s very good for capitalism and our existing socioeconomic structures because she’s very busy. But, the mother’s twin is the flipside of the mother, which are the less socially acceptable aspects of the mother archetype, which would be righteous rage, will and activism. She also thinks very holistically. While the masculine equivalent, the Father archetype, thinks very individualistically. So, the mother is very holistic; she’s a creator of community and a storyteller. Finally, the crone archetype is very intuitive. She thinks in terms of the cosmic web. While the Sage archetype, which is the masculine equivalent, will fragment and separate in order to examine, the crone will look at the bigger picture.

JJ: Not to distract us from the discussion of the feminine, but what is the male equivalent of the maiden?

DD: I usually call him the Hunter.

Spencer: In popular culture, as Janae points out, women are often only valued when they are under 25 and for their physical appearance and reproductive qualities. This is toxic for young women and especially toxic for women as they age. As younger people, we need the help of elders and their guidance.

DD: We take the maiden’s power away by oversexualizing her. She’s valued until she’s 25 but valued in this limited physical way. The maiden archetype is much broader. She is very sexual, but she’s also an artist and very present, versus the mother who is a forward thinker. As I said, she’s the one who socially acceptable because she’s always creating something, whether it’s children or something else. She’s “mothering” something. Our crones and sages are locked away in nursing homes or whatever and not valued for all that wisdom they have, so we are in a society where we don’t have access to elders. It is difficult to embrace our inner crones and sages because they are those aspects of our psyches that have been socially devalued in every way. We live with that and see it all the time, so it’s difficult to get past it.

SS: You mentioned that the crone is intuitive, which is something that our society smirks at. I think that leads to a lot of our problems.

DD: Like I always say, “Even witches want proof.” Proof that our intuition is right. When we listen to our intuition, and we were totally right, then we have this incentive to keep listening to it. But, if we don’t even get that chance to listen to our intuition because we are trying to be so logical, then we don’t have the proof that we need! Right? It’s taking those first few steps where we say, “Maybe I should go with my gut and go against the logic and the numbers and just see what happens.”

JJ: What do you think is the significance of ritual? Do you think it’s innate in us?

DD: I do. I think ritual is absolutely everything. I think we need little, mini, what I call “micro–rituals” or “root rituals.” But then, we need larger community rituals where we are acknowledging one of the big holidays, like Yule. Rituals make things important; they mark transitions from different life stages; they are very holy ceremonies, even if they don’t come from some archaic understanding or knowledge. They can be just as important if they are something you co–created with your friend.

I’m not raising my two sons to be witches because I don’t want them to be indoctrinated into religion the way that I was when I was younger. However, I do co–parent with their father, so they do have to go to church on Easter Sunday. So, there’s this majesty that they get from that ritual that they don’t get from these tiny practices that they might be doing with me in our home. That’s not something that can be competed with—the golden candlesticks and the majesty of the Easter celebration in a Catholic Church, right? So, I do think that there is this hunger for ritual and ceremony, particularly in people who may have been raised in religious traditions, and then they come away from it. We still need that ritual container, and it is innate and a human hunger.

JJ: You mentioned that you have sons. How does a mother include this idea of the feminine when raising boys? I think it’s really important for both girls and boys to understand the masculine and feminine.

DD: It’s getting harder! My sons are 9 and 12. When they were younger I didn’t even think about it. They are certainly closer to you when they are younger. So, they knew how to cast a circle and do things that I do in my own practice. I think that my simple answer to your question is to have them outside as much as possible, which is getting more difficult the more screen–based our society becomes. I think that we all have the feminine in us, and it’s just honoring it as much as possible. It’s taking them outside to see these things that they shouldn’t take for granted—the flower blooming or that strawberry you grew.

SS: What is your intention for The Holy Wild?

DD: My biggest intention for the book is to say that the reader’s story is important. There are a lot of opportunities in the book to look at the elements; Earth, Fire, Water, Air and Ether, and the way those elements resonate and resonate with the Divine Feminine, or with certain Goddess archetypes and how that relates to your personal story.

Janae Jean serves as editor, social media manager, recipe columnist and podcaster for Conscious Community Magazine. Visit www.janaejean.com or www.perennialmusicandarts.com for details about her other projects.

Spencer Schluter serves as an advertising account manager, social media manager and podcaster for Conscious Community Magazine. Visit www.yggstudios.com for more about his freelance design and consulting work. He is also a master level Reiki and traditional Chinese Qigong practitioner.

By Janae Jean and Spencer Schluter

Recently, we were joined by Bill Douglas, founder of World Tai Chi and Qigong Day. Bill is the tai chi expert for Dr. Weil’s websites, the author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Tai Chi & Qigong, as well as the host of the DVD, Anthology of Tai Chi & Qigong: The Prescription for the Future. Bill gives presentations worldwide and currently teaches tai chi at the University of Kansas Health Systems and the University of Kansas Medical Center.

The 20th Anniversary World Tai Chi and Qigong Day is on April 27, 2019. In the Chicago area, it will be held at the Theosophical Society in Wheaton, IL. Visit www.worldtaichiday.org.

The following is only an excerpt from our interview. Listen to the entire conversation by subscribing to the Conscious Community Podcast on your favorite podcatcher or by visiting www.ConsciousCommunityMagazine.com. Find the Conscious Community Podcast on Twitter @TweetCCPodcast or on Facebook @Conscious CommunityPodcast.

Janae: You are the founder of World Tai Chi Day, correct?

Bill Douglas: Yes, me and my wife, Angela Wong Douglas.

JJ: What inspired you to create this day? How did you get the word out to tai chi practitioners around the world?

BD: Originally, we were teaching tai chi and qigong in yoga studios. Then we got an offer to teach tai chi at a major medical center in the Kansas City area, the Shawnee Mission Medical Center. During the first eight-week session, we had a bunch of medical professionals who started seeing really amazing results. The pharmacologist saw his high blood pressure go down very significantly. In fact, he got his general practitioner to write him a prescription for tai chi. The surgeon had a whiplash injury that caused chronic pain and limited mobility. After the eight-week session, she not only didn’t have chronic pain but regained full mobility.

This was 20 years ago before I was internet savvy. These medical professionals used their database to look up tai chi medical research and handed me the research. At first, I didn’t know what to do with this research. As I started to see the potential of tai chi and qigong for what the mass of society is dealing with on a physical level, we started sending out this medical research to the media. We thought that the media would pass it on to their readers and viewers. We were stunned that they weren’t interested.

One day, I was sitting in my backyard meditating and had this idea of creating a mass tai chi exhibition that would be so big and visually unusual that it would be hard for the media to resist it. So, we spent several months getting as many people as possible to meet on the south lawn of the Nelson-Atkins Museum here in Kansas City. Then we spent several months doing media work to inundate the local TV and newspapers with press releases to get them to come and cover it. We showed up that day with no idea what was going to happen.

When Angie, our two kids and I pulled up, there was nobody there. Then suddenly people started walking in from all different directions. Within fifteen minutes or so, there were 200 people there. We had 200 people spread out across this beautiful lawn in front of this majestic museum, and we did tai chi. The media showed up in droves—three tv channels and five different newspapers. When we got home, I got a call from one of my assistant teachers who said, “We were on CNN today!” Then we started getting contacted by other tai chi groups who had seen it who said, “We want to do this too!” So, we reserved worldtaichiday.org and decided to make this a world-wide event. That next year, it was in 12 countries and 12 US states.

Angie and I wrote the Complete Idiot’s Guide to Tai Chi and Qigong, and we got the publisher to include a chapter called “World Tai Chi and Qigong Day” with this vision. We didn’t know if it was going to take off or not. That chapter got the word out through people who were reading the book and a lot of them were tai chi teachers. Now it’s in hundreds of cities in over 80 countries on the last Saturday in April.

Spencer: Tai chi and qigong are often regarded as spiritual practices. It has that aspect to it, but it’s also physical exercise. You can get the cardiovascular benefits as well as the benefits you get from seated meditation.

BD: Tai chi and qigong can do those things you mentioned. They can set the stage for really profound spiritual experiences. Over the last 20 years, we’ve been collecting all the breaking medical research on tai chi and qigong. What you find when you immerse yourself in that data is that these mind-body practices have profound health benefits. Dr. Herbert Benson at Harvard wrote The Relaxation Response, which was really the first medical research on meditation. He said that between 60 and 90% of the health issues that bring people to the doctor are caused by stress and are best treated by mind-body practices.

Over the years, I came across a study by Kaiser Permanente. They determined that 70% of illnesses sending people to their doctors were caused by stress. So, I contacted Dr. David Sobel at Kaiser Permanente. He was very familiar with that study and had been interested in mind-body practices. He said that depending on how you looked at that data, it could go as high as 85% of the health issues sending people to their doctors were caused by stress. When you consider that, you realize that we could literally save trillions of dollars, if we move these mind-body practices into society at all levels.

One of the places that it’s insane that it hasn’t already happened on a massive scale is in public education. Every schoolkid, from kindergarten to university, should have a mind-body practice taught to them through health science or physical education. It would literally save trillions of dollars over time and that has the potential of changing the world. If you look it up, you’ll find that ending world starvation would only cost about $30 billion. So, these practices have the potential for changing the world on many levels including that one.

JJ: You’ve also written fiction books and so has our previous guest and tai chi teacher, Monk Yun Rou. You mention in your DVD that there is a relationship between tai chi and creativity. Do you find that you become more creative the more you practice?

BD: This segues with the Taoist concepts of tai chi. If we relax out of the way, there is great possibility waiting to expand through us and part of that is creativity. There was a well-renowned concert pianist from Scotland who had read my book. He was doing a tour of the United States and was going to perform at a university near where I live. So, he contacted me to see if we could get together. He talked about how tai chi had profoundly increased his creativity. I’ve been contacted by various authors with the same comment. When we practice these mindfulness techniqx ues and practice relaxing out of the way, we let go of everything that we are so there is space of this newness to expand through us. In the Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu said, “When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.”

Janae Jean serves as editor, social media manager, recipe columnist and podcaster for Conscious Community Magazine. Visit www.janaejean.com or www.perennialmusicandarts.com for details about her other projects.

Spencer Schluter serves as an advertising account manager, social media manager and podcaster for Conscious Community Magazine. Visit www.yggstudios.com for more about his freelance design and consulting work. He is also a master level Reiki and traditional Chinese Qigong practitioner.

By Janae Jean and Spencer Schluter

For this interview, we had the honor of speaking with the dynamic and engaging Justin McRoberts and Scott Erickson. Justin and Scott collaborated together on the book Prayer: Forty Days of Practice, which features images interspersed with reflections and practices to inspire connection. We spoke with them about how prayer is part of the human experience, uniting and connecting us to the Divine and one another, as well as the arts, sacred spaces and building community.

Justin McRoberts is a musician and songwriter, as well as an experienced speaker and teacher, giving workshops and leading retreats across the country. He has recorded 15 music projects since 1999 and is also the curator and host of the @Sea Podcast and @Sea Events. Justin has also authored two books about the creative life. To learn more, visit www.JustinMcRoberts.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram @JustinMcRoberts.

Scott Erickson is a touring painter, performance speaker and creative priest who mixes autobiography, mythology and aesthetics. His touring one-man show, We Are Not Troubled Guests, is a multimedia storytelling experience. Scott has been a working artist for more than a decade and his work has appeared on CNN, in National Geographic, as well as on Tyler Perry’s Passion Live on Fox TV. Scott draws from his background as an educator and visual communicator in all of his endeavors. He speaks at workshops and retreats across the nation. To learn more about his artwork, current live appearances and to access his downloadable art show, Spiritual Practices, see www.ScottEricksonArt.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram @ScottThePainter.

The following is only an excerpt from our full interview. Listen to the entire conversation by subscribing to the Conscious Community Podcast on your favorite podcatcher app or by visiting www.ConsciousCommunityMagazine.com.

Janae Jean: To start off, can you tell us a bit about your backgrounds? Scott, you are a visual artist, and Justin, you started in music. How did you come to write a book?

Scott Erickson: I’ve been a practicing visual artist for over a decade. When I tell people I’m a visual artist, their first question is usually, “How do you make a living?” So, I respond, “I do a lot of little things to make a little something.” I’m a painter, illustrator; I do art shows; I sell work. I’ve started doing more performance pieces, these multimedia storytelling events. Now I’m an author. So, it’s a lot of projects going on at the same time. But predominantly, I would say a lot of our language and ideas are based in imagery. When we want to have a transformative experience, we have to deal with the inner images that we have that we’re rooting our narratives and conversations in.

Justin McRoberts: I’ve always talked a lot, and since I was a teenager I’ve been using words in some way, shape or form to create moments. I started playing music professionally in ’98. A lot of what would happen is the storytelling element of the shows would just take off. People would comment that they were enjoying the storytelling just as much as the music, and I recognized that I was enjoying that more than the music. Then I started putting things down in blogs…and then on paper.

Spencer Schluter: Are you both coming from a Christian background?

Scott: Depends on what you mean by ‘Christian.’ That can stand for a lot of things in the world that I wouldn’t align with. Spirituality is making what’s invisible visible, and religion is the rituals, rhythms and practices that we develop around that visualization. So, the framework of Protestantism is what I grew up in. It still works for me, but there are aspects of it that I had to let go because those practices didn’t work anymore. I’ve found a renewed depth in a Franciscan spirituality; I’ve found some really helpful practices through the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh.

Justin: Within the context of my Christianity, my more informative voices have been predominantly on the Catholic side, voices like Henri Nouwen or Thomas Merton. Beyond that, some of the more informative texts have been the Tao Te Ching and The Tao of Pooh. The Tao of Pooh was a tremendous book for me, spiritualiy. Depending on what you mean, I will identify as a Christian.

JJ: On the cover of your book, you have this image of a rowboat with hands in the shape of a heart holding it. Where do you find this ‘heart-space’ in prayer and connect to a general sense of love?

Scott: I was having a particularly difficult season financially. It’s not like when you decide to be an artist the Universe is like, “Here’s all the cash you need!” I had anxiety. When you’re self-employed, it feels like every day you should be hustling because you are holding this all together. Take a day of rest? That feels insane in our modern culture. I think visually, so my prayer was, “How should I think about working?” This image came to me. My interpretation of it is: You can waste every day. You can distract yourself and not deal with your life; you can be lazy and not get anywhere. There is work. It’s a rowboat, not a sailboat. A rowboat needs your effort to get going. Also, consider the context you are in; it’s not all up to you. I think a great paradox of any great spiritual or wisdom tradition is that your life is your practice and your formation, but it’s also resting in your becoming. The Sabbath is a rest to say, “it’s not all up to you.” There are other unseen forces helping your life transform. It’s a detox from the opiate of self-employment; I need that detox to approach the next six days. So, that image helps me to remember that. That image is like a doorway, or as we like to say an excavation tool, to that conversation of my life, and that’s what our book was trying to be.

Traditionally, prayer books are five paragraphs to read in the morning that are telling you what prayer is. This book is a one-sentence prayer and an image. These are excavation tools to get to the content. The content is the internal conversation you are having with reality, existence and the Giver of Existence. Our premise is that prayer is not a religious thing; it’s a human activity. We have friends that come from a religious tradition and friends who don’t come from any tradition at all who were telling us, “I have this inclination to pray and I don’t know how to do it.” Our work became putting that together and that’s where the book came from.

Justin: Foundationally, what we hear in prayer is the voice of love. I think that’s actually what the human heart seeks in spiritual practice, seeks in prayer, seeks in meditation. It’s a matter of just “being.” I don’t think anyone just wants to “be.” I think you want to know that it’s more than okay for you to be, that there’s a joyful belonging to the Universe, the world and those around you and that kind of loving reception. Before Jesus did anything that we recognize traditionally as the life of Christ, he’s baptized and he hears the voice of God say, “You’re my son, I love you and I’m proud of you.” I think that’s the essence of prayer. It’s the voice of the Divine saying, “You’re mine, I love you and I like what you’re about.”

Janae Jean serves as editor, social media manager, recipe columnist and podcaster for Conscious Community Magazine. Visit www.janaejean.com or www.perennialmusicandarts.com for details about her other projects.

Spencer Schluter serves as an advertising account manager, social media manager and podcaster for Conscious Community Magazine. Visit www.yggstudios.com for more about his freelance design and consulting work. He is also a master level Reiki and traditional Chinese Qigong practitioner.

by Janae Jean and Spencer Schluter

This month, we had the privilege to speak with Susan Wisehart, M.S., LMFT. Susan is a holistic psychotherapist and author of the book, Soul Visioning: Clear the Past, Create Your Future. She has trained with psychiatrist Brian Weiss, M.D. and with Jungian analyst, Roger Woolger Ph.D. She also is a professional speaker and presenter and will be giving her Soul Visioning workshop along with her husband, David Birr at the Theosophical Society in Wheaton, IL, on Feb. 21 and 23, 2019.

This following is only a short excerpt of our conversation with Susan. Subscribe to the Conscious Community Podcast on your preferred podcatcher to hear the entire conversation. Visit www.SusanWisehart.com for more information on this workshop, scheduling a session with Susan or learn about her book.

Janae: Carl Jung is famous for saying, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” It seems to me (from your book) that you try to help people find these unconscious blocks that have been making decisions for them. One of the first tools you mentioned was learning to trust your intuition. Do you have any advice for people who are trying to learn how to trust their intuition?

Susan: That’s definitely true. There’s a lot of myths of programming that leads us to disbelieve or mistrust intuition. Ninety-five percent of the mind is unconscious. One of the reasons that I wrote the book, Soul Visioning, is that I saw that a lot of the manifestation models show the power of the mind to manifest and create your life, but there were some things that were missing. One of them was what part of the mind is doing the manifesting—what part of the mind is in charge. If it’s not the soul, then the ego can manifest all kinds of things but not necessarily happiness or peace of mind. The second thing that the models were missing is that they do not address the unconscious mind, those programs that are running in the background and hold us back. The language of the soul is the intuition. The more we clear the baggage, the more we remove the blocks to our soul, the more we are in touch with our inner GPS. In my book, I have methods to identify what these sabotaging beliefs are and ways to release them. The clearer we are, the more our personality is aligned with our soul, the more in touch we are with our intuition.

JJ: Yes! I think the first step is learning to love yourself and finding selfless self-love. Do you have any advice for tapping into that part of ourselves?

SW: Our true nature is love. Our true self is our soul. We are each a spark of the Divine. As we become more aware of our patterns and programs that have affected our sense of ourselves and blocked that sense of self; the more we are aware and conscious of these patterns, the more we can clear the blocks to love, because that is our true nature. I do past-life regressions with people to help identify what some of those limiting beliefs and patterns are; hypnotherapy helps to get to the root of that. I think self-awareness is what helps us to understand what’s holding us back. When those are cleared and the sabotaging parts are set aside what’s left is our essence, that sense of connection to the Divine within us.

Spencer: I think sometimes people misunderstand manifestation psychology and think all you need to do is think positive thoughts. The way I look at it is if you’re beating yourself up, you don’t love yourself, you don’t believe in yourself and you don’t have confidence, then you won’t get the things in life you want to get. Once you get the point of self-acceptance and self-love and find your purpose, you have to do the physical steps to reach those goals too.

SW: Yeah, like magical thinking, if I say the affirmations and think positive thoughts and do those kinds of things it’s magically going to show up, and that’s not necessarily the case. If you are in touch with your soul’s guidance, with your intuition guiding you, it will guide you to the steps you need to take. Then you have to follow your soul’s guidance and direction. You can’t think, it’s going to magically show up without me doing anything, so I think that’s absolutely correct.

JJ: It seems like sometimes people will have an experience during therapy or a spiritual or meditative experience and think they can skip doing all of the shadow work, but that doesn’t seem to be true. Can you tell us how you incorporate that into practice?

SW: I think you raised a really good point. I’ve noticed that some New Age thought systems skip steps, focusing on the positive, and sweeping the disowned parts of ourselves under the rug and not really owning those parts. The problem with that is that it affects us unconsciously; it comes through whether we are aware of it or not. If we’re willing to look at the parts of ourselves we don’t like that are hidden and buried, and we do that with compassion, it helps us to be fully authentic and present and to reconnect. Sugarcoating it is like putting deodorant on a garbage pile; eventually the stench is going to come through. A lot of people are afraid to look at their shadow, and feel ashamed of it, but we have to have compassion for ourselves.

JJ: Absolutely! I think what you are getting at is the first step to self-love is loving all the parts of yourself.

SW: Yes. The more you have compassion for disowned parts of yourself, the more compassion you can have for others and their shadow parts.

Janae Jean serves as editor, social media manager, recipe columnist and podcaster for Conscious Community Magazine. Visit www.janaejean.com or www.perennialmusicandarts.com for details about her other projects.

Spencer Schluter serves as an advertising account manager, social media manager and podcaster for Conscious Community Magazine. Visit www.yggstudios.com for more about his freelance design and consulting work. He is also a master level Reiki and traditional Chinese Qigong practitioner.

By Janae Jean and Spencer Schluter

Taoist Monk Yun Rou (formerly Arthur Rosenfeld) was ordained a Taoist monk at the Chun Yang (Pure Yang) Taoist Temple in Guangzhou, China. His writings and teachings promote Taoist philosophy and focus on environmental conservation as well as political and social justice. He hosts the Forbidden Rice Podcast. Additionally, he produced a documentary series about the science behind acupuncture, tai chi and meditation as well as the PBS show, Longevity Tai Chi.

We spoke with him about his latest book, Mad Monk Manifesto: A Prescription for Evolution, Revolution and Global Awakening; Taoist ideas, martial arts, movement as a teacher, healthful living and more. This is an excerpt from our enlightening interview. To listen to the entire conversation, subscribe to the Conscious Community Podcast on your favorite podcatcher app. Visit www.MonkYunRou.com.

Janae: What is Taoism?

Monk Yun Rou: American people are actually more familiar with Taoism than they know they are. They know it as the “philosophy of the Jedi masters.” If you are familiar with Star Wars, you know that there is a band of rebels. They are nature-loving people in robes who live in the forest. The battle portrayed in the Star Wars franchise is very much like the battle that gave rise to Taoism in China. George Lucas presumably drew that conflict from the relationship between two major philosophies of Early China, Confucianism and Taoism.

Confucianism believes in very fixed relationships, familial piety, a great number of rituals and prescriptions for how we should live—rules that must be followed. Taoism says, “No, let’s be bacchanalian revelers in the forest and love nature. Let’s go party for six days in the woods. Then let’s step into a cave and meditate for a week or a month. Then we’ll come out and have some more wine.” Very different ideas!

The Taoist ideas are also familiar to Western people in the California surf culture. Surf culture came from Hawaii and was popularized in the ‘60s and ‘70s. When people talk about “Going with the flow; being in the groove (or the tube;) Tubular dude.” All that stuff is from Taoist thinking.

Spencer: I have a martial arts background. What I think is really interesting is how the physical movements teach hard to grasp, vague and abstract concepts.

MYR: Martial arts being the physical embodiment of philosophical ideas is probably the most important takeaway here. To understand philosophical ideas, you have to integrate them into your life. You have to try them like a recipe. You have to cook it; see how it tastes; see how you feel after eating it and whether it sustains you with good health and longevity. If you do all those things you will have a better understanding of that recipe then somebody who read it in a book. It’s just not the same.

There are a number of Taoist arts, which range from divinatory practices to ritual arts that are mostly about devotion to one deity or another in the religious Taoist pantheon. Philosophical Taoists, like me, don’t necessarily have any supernatural belief. So, we don’t pray to anyone, although we cultivate an attitude of gratitude for the sages that went before and taught us these things and left us these lessons.

The most famous and well-known of the Taoist arts is battlefield martial art we call “tai chi.” I have tai chi students who say, “This is not a martial art. I came for peace and love—and to meditate. I heard it was meditation in motion.” I say, “It’s medication in motion.” All of those things are actually true about tai chi and how it is used in our culture now. But, the truth is it’s very clearly a martial art.

Tai chi arose in the 1600s as a way of fighting, primarily on horseback, but also on foot—but always in the pitch and fever of battle. The very greatest practitioners of tai chi are absolutely the pinnacle of the Chinese martial arts pantheon. They are formidable fighters. But, the majority of people who “play” tai chi in the world are doing it for the health aspects or to better understand philosophical principles in a physical practice.

SS: One aspect of Taoism is the I-Ching. I understand that Bagua is a martial art based on the I-Ching with movements built around the I-Ching hexagrams.

MYR: Let’s talk about the I-Ching for a second; there is some confusion about what it really is. Maybe 3,000 years ago, a duke and his son were involved in some battles and they lost. The father was incarcerated. During that time, the father spent time making a list of all the things he had noticed nature could and did do. A river could flow and then turn on itself; the Earth could shake; seasons change—and on and on and on. He made a catalog of all the different things that the natural world did, and he used certain symbols as a shorthand for the descriptions. It was an exhaustive, brilliant and absolutely stunningly beautiful list. It lent coherence and clarity to the natural world in a way that nobody anywhere on planet Earth had ever done. It was a work of great genius and beauty.

The Tao Te Ching, which came about 500 years later, is a commentary on this list, but the commentary is applied to human beings. It takes a large body of information and narrows it greatly to apply it specifically to people. If you make a catalog of all the things that can happen in nature, you have essentially a lusciously specific deck of cards. Some people would use these characters [the hexagrams] in a divinatory ritual. They would take this purely philosophical work and try to make it practical and use it for fortune-telling. Originally, it was a catalog of nature. The I-Ching was a work of philosophy—not a work of fortune-telling.

JJ: How can we make a better future for our world using these Taoist principles?

MYR: Think of it this way. If you drop a stone into a pond and you watch the ripples spread from that impact and watch those ripples go all the way to the edge of the pond, this is what Mad Monk Manifesto is about. Start with that central point, that change you make in yourself, and watch the effect as it ripples outward.

For example, if one person in your family decides to become vegan and everyone gets together once each year for Thanksgiving, when everyone gets together next year that person will look fitter, healthier and happier than everybody else. At first, everybody else rolls their eyes. Now they’re looking and going, “Boy, I’d like to have her figure. Or, I’d like to have his energy. I wonder if there’s something for me there. I’d like to get off these medications or lose a few pounds.” So, they try a little bit of that for themselves—like starting by only eating chicken—a baby step. The point is we make changes on an individual basis. When enough of us do that, we can change the world!

Janae Jean serves as editor, social media manager, recipe columnist and podcaster for Conscious Community Magazine. Visit www.janaejean.com or www.perennialmusicandarts.com for details about her other projects.

Spencer Schluter is the advertising account manager, social media manager and podcaster for Conscious Community Magazine. Visit www.yggstudios.com for more about his freelance design and consulting work. He is also a master level Reiki and traditional Chinese Qigong practitioner.

By Janae Jean and Spencer Schluter

Bhante Sujatha is a Theravada Buddhist monk from Sri Lanka. He has made it his life’s work to share the teachings of the Buddha and the message of healing through loving kindness. This mission has taken him around the world. When he was only 10 years old, he told his parents he would throw himself off the bridge in his hometown of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, if they did not let him become a monk. Since that time, he has remained certain and determined to live a life dedicated to adding more love to the world and helping people heal their wounded minds.

Bhante has always known he was born to serve humanity and he wakes up every day committed to this cause, teaching meditation and helping people access deeper parts of themselves so they can feel radiant joy and peaceful happiness. With a single robe and some leftover food, Bhante left his home country and eventually found his way to America, where he learned a new language and culture and discovered the aching desire people have for a more meaningful life.

Bhante’s book, Empty, Empty. Happy, Happy, written with Tyler Lewke, is available at www.emptyemptyhappyhappy.com. His biography, My Wish: The Story of a Man Who Brought Happiness to America: The Life Story of Bhante Sujatha by Mary Gustafson, is now available on Amazon. You can learn more about Bhante at www.bhantesujatha.org and find out more about the Blue Lotus Temple at www.bluelotustemple.org. Bhante is also a frequent contributor to The Blue Lotus Buddhist Temple Podcast.

The following is only a small part of our in-depth conversation with Bhante. To hear the rest of our conversation, download or stream the episode. Don’t forget to subscribe, like, review and share the Conscious Community Podcast on your preferred podcatcher app.

Janae Jean: Was coming to America and living with an American family your first time experiencing American holidays?

Bhante: Yeah, actually, I enjoyed Halloween with those two children because I almost became a babysitter. Also, those two children were my first English teachers. That’s how I learned how to speak English. Every holiday, we celebrated. The pumpkin carving, Easter egg hunting, and all that. We really enjoyed Christmas together as a family. Because of that experience I had with them every year, I’m making the Christmas tree here in the temple. We call it “Buddhistmas.” [All laugh.]

Spencer: Is there a festival or holiday in Buddhist tradition every year at this time?

BS: Yeah, we have a few holidays. Every Full Moon in Sri Lanka is a public holiday. That’s the people’s spiritual day. People go to the temple all day. Also, we have the Buddha’s birthday celebration. The three significant things, his birth, his enlightenment, and his death, we are celebrating that same day.

SS: When do you celebrate that?

BS: The Full Moon in May.

SS: One of the things we’ve talked about with several guests is that they have a Day of the Dead, Halloween, at Autumn Harvest time. In many cultures all over the world, there’s a Spring Festival, there’s a Fall Festival, there’s usually a Midwinter Festival and often a Summer Solstice Festival.

BS: Because it is based on the weather—where we live on this planet. But, in our country, we have rainy season retreat for the month. We have rain or hot. That’s it.

SS: Aha, so you don’t have seasons.

BS: We don’t have seasons. We have hot or rain. Monsoons.

JJ: So hot rain?

BS: Right, hot rain. That’s it, we have different holidays independently, but those are the major holidays.

JJ: You do the Loving Kindness Meditation here. Would you explain how someone can incorporate this in their life when they’re in a stressful time such as the holiday season?

BS: We have to think, why is stress coming to us? Because we exist. We all exist. As a family, as a husband, as a wife, we have some conventional guidelines in the society we have to follow. If we are not following them, we are excommunicated, separated from society. That’s what Buddha said, it’s a painful experience. But you exist. If you want to exist, those are the things you have to do. It’s okay. Now we exist in this world, so how are we going to live?

Now we live with those ideas of expectations because life is full of expectations. “Oh, the holidays are coming, I have to give all of those gifts to my family members.” Why? Now people are trying so hard to give. Then they question, “How much? How big? Is it $20 or $30?” So, it’s very confusing. People are worried. I think everything is materialistic in this society. The value is the material. That’s the problem. How much money you spent is the quality. If I give free meditation, people don’t come, because it’s not “quality.” In this society, quality means “how expensive?”

So, I think that’s not the theme of the holiday. Holiday means your heart, how you feel. Also, I think that’s the best gift I can give to somebody. Making them feel better, not giving them a big gift. And so, I go and spend time with them. You can tell, I don’t have that much money to give, but I want to spend time with you. Sometimes, some poor people have one nice meal to enjoy for the holiday, sharing their ideas and thoughts.

When the world becomes so materialistic, then people stress out, then they don’t enjoy the holiday.

JJ: How do we get out of that, how do we find real authentic joy?

BS: We have to be in the middle. The nature of our life is always our emotions pulling us in two different directions. That’s why we have imbalance. Sometimes like, sometimes dislike. That’s how from birth to now we are living our life. So, that’s really bringing us so much stress. We are always in this modern world.

Scientists, doctors, medical professionals, everyone is encouraging people to meditate. When you meditate you will learn how to balance your emotions and keep calm. We call it “The tranquil state of mind. Equal state of mind. Keep even.” That’s why meditation is important. Then we understand the nature of this life, and that everything is subject to change. Everything is impermanent. Now we have a good time in our life, just enjoy it without complaining. We don’t know what will happen tomorrow, but we know what is happening now. All these people are worrying about the future, “What will happen to me?” You can think about your future, but what is the nature of your future? What you plan may happen, or it may not happen. After you understand that, you can plan for your future.

Janae Jean serves as editor, social media manager, recipe columnist and podcaster for Conscious Community Magazine. She has an extensive background in new media and music education. She is also the founder of Perennial Music and Arts, an arts education and healing center based in downtown Geneva, IL. Visit www.janaejean.com and www.perennialmusicandarts.com for details about Janae’s upcoming classes, lesson information, workshops, shows, articles and projects.

Spencer Schluter is the advertising account manager, social media manager and podcaster for Conscious Community Magazine. His experience includes visual communications, advertising, social media, marketing, public relations and business development. Visit www.yggstudios.com for more information about his freelance design and consulting work. He is also a master level Reiki and traditional Chinese Qigong practitioner.