New Dimensions

If our future is one of limitation, how may we face it with courage to do the best job with what is possible? Even though easy solutions may not be apparent it does not make asking hard questions irrelevant. According to our guests, what are the four hard questions we must be asking at this time.

Robert W Jensen, Ph.D. is professor emeritus in the School of Journalism at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of many books including Plain Radical: Living, Loving and Learning to Leave the Planet Gracefully (2015 Skull Press), The End of Patriarchy: Radical Feminism for Men (Spinifex Press 2017) and The Restless and Relentless Mind of Wes Jackson: Searching for Sustainability (University Press of Kansas 2021)

Wes Jackson, Ph.D.is recognized as a leader in the international sustainable agriculture movement and earned his Ph.D. in genetics. He is cofounder and president emeritus of the Land Institute in Salina, Kansas, and a 1992 MacArthur Fellow. He is the author and co-author of numerous books, including Hogs Are Up: Stories of The Land, With Digressions and New Routes for Agriculture. (University Press of Kansas 2021) and Consulting the Genius of the Place: An Ecological Approach to a New Agriculture (Counterpoint 2011)

Jensen and Jackson are coauthors of An Inconvenient Apocalypse: Environmental Collapse, Climate Change, Climate Crisis, And the Fate Of Humanity. (University of Notre Dame Press 2022)

Interview Date: 8/12/2022     Tags: MP3, Wes Jackson, Robert W Jensen, agriculture, population limits, cascading crises, carrying capacity, technological fundamentalism, techno-optimism, ecosphere, Marty Bender, Sunshine Farm study, William McDonough, Abe Osherhoff, Leland Lorenzen, Jim Koplin, human population, electric cars, Ecology/Nature/Environment, Philosophy, Social Change/Politics, technology

Sound is medicine, according to the research of David Gibson. Every person, emotion, and ailment has a tone. Sound and frequency can be used to influence mental states, enhance human experience, and heal disease. He explains how music therapy is being applied in healthcare. “It’s unbelievable what’s been happening with people just by using sound and music.”

David Gibson is a leader in the field of sound healing and therapy. He’s the founder and director of the Globe Sound and Consciousness Institute in San Francisco which offers an Associates degree in sound healing therapy. He is also the producer of sound healing music and runs the sound therapy center at the Institute offering different types of sound healing treatments. He is a founder of the sound healing research Association designed to help bring sound healing into the mainstream. He is the author of The Complete Guide To Sound Healing (Sound Healing Center 2013) 

Interview Date: 3/8/2016    Tags: David Gibson, music therapy, sound therapy, music, sound, vibration, frequency, tone, ultra sound, brain waves, entrainment, depression, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, pain medication, sound medicine cabinet, disease, illness, sound chairs, sound tables

Our brain forms many automatic neural circuits including those that support our breathing, heartbeat, and digestion. Here we explore how to create new neural circuits that put us in touch with the larger energetic field of infinite intelligence. Joseph Selbie, a dedicated meditator for nearly 50 years, has taught meditation and yoga throughout Europe and the United States. He is a founding member of Ananda, a meditation-based community and spiritual movement inspired by Paramahansa Yogananda. He resides with his wife at the long-standing Ananda Village near Nevada City, California. He is the author of The Yugas: Keys to Understanding, The Physics of God: How the Deepest Theories of Science Explain Religion and How the Deepest Truths of Religion Explain Science (New Page Books 2021) and Break Through the Limits of the Brain: Neuroscience, Inspiration, and Practices to Transform Your Life (New Page Books 2022)

Interview Date: 7/29/2022    Tags: Joseph Selbie, brain science, neural circuits, The Gorilla Experiment, psychedelics, meditation, nonlocality, M-theory, near death experience, Max Planck, Hans-Peter Dürr, introspection, affirmations, hong-sau meditation, Spirituality, Science

As a man born of a Nigerian father and a white mother, Jawando is our guide for the essential gift of mentorship and how staggeringly transformative it can be for an entire community. It’s a reminder of how even a brief encounter of positive mentoring can make all the difference for all our children, most especially those at risk. Will Jawando is an attorney, an activist, a community leader, and a councilmember in Montgomery County Maryland, a diverse community of more than 1 million residents. Called “the progressive leader we need” by the late Congressman John Lewis, Jawando has worked with Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Sherrod Brown, and Pres. Barack Obama. HE is the author of My Seven Black Fathers: A Young Activist’s Memoir of Race, Family, and the Mentors Who Made Him Whole (Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2022).

Interview Date: 7/8/2022    Tags: Will Jawando, Kalfani, Joseph Jacob, Deen Sanwoola, Nigeria, grandmothers, Dean Hoge, NAACP, Barack Obama, affordable housing, low-income housing, mentors, mentoring, mentorship, Social change/politics, Personal Transformation, Men’s studies, Community

As a man born of a Nigerian father and a white mother, Jawando is our guide for the essential gift of mentorship and how staggeringly transformative it can be for an entire community. It’s a reminder of how even a brief encounter of positive mentoring can make all the difference for all our children, most especially those at risk. Will Jawando is an attorney, an activist, a community leader, and a councilmember in Montgomery County Maryland, a diverse community of more than 1 million residents. Called “the progressive leader we need” by the late Congressman John Lewis, Jawando has worked with Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Sherrod Brown, and Pres. Barack Obama. HE is the author of My Seven Black Fathers: A Young Activist’s Memoir of Race, Family, and the Mentors Who Made Him Whole (Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2022).

Interview Date: 7/8/2022   Tags: Will Jawando, Kalfani, Joseph Jacob, Deen Sanwoola, Nigeria, grandmothers, Dean Hoge, NAACP, Barack Obama, affordable housing, low-income housing, mentors, mentoring, mentorship, Social change/politics, Personal Transformation, Men’s studies, Community

Inner and outer storms can be transformational agents. Nepo advises us that we must not skip over pain, breakage, and loss. He goes on to say, “And, we must not drown in it or make a permanent residence of it. We have to find the corridor of aliveness that allows us to process our experience and land in the opening the storm has made in us and around us.” Mark Nepo is a poet and philosopher and a most eloquent spiritual teacher. In 2015, he was given a Life-Achievement Award by AgeNation and in 2016 was named by Watkins: Mind Body Spirit as one of the Most Spiritually Influential Living People. He was part of Oprah Winfrey’s The Life You Want Tour in 2014 and has appeared several times with Oprah on her Super Soul Sunday program on OWN TV. As a cancer survivor, Mark devotes his writing and teaching to the journey of inner transformation and the life of relationship. He is the author of many audio learning projects and over 20 books including Reduced To Joy (Cleis Press 2013), Seven Thousand Ways to Listen: Staying Close To What Is Sacred (Free Press 2012), he One Life We’re Given: Finding the Wisdom That Waits in Your heart (Atria Books 2016), Drinking from the River of Light: The Life of Expression (Sounds True 2019), The Book of Soul: 52 Paths to Living What Matters (St. Martin’s Essentials 2020) and Surviving Storms: Finding the Strength to Meet Adversity (St. Martin's Essentials 2022)

Interview Date: 7/20/2022    Tags: Mark Nepo, Japanese Haiku poet, Masahide, geological storms, lightning strikes, Tempestarii, ethnic diversity, brokenness, spiritual diversity, dissociation, mass shootings, Roman Colosseum gladiatorial shows, Facebook algorithms, fear, denial, Tang Dynasty Tu Fu poet, love, victimhood, betrayal, empathy, George Floyd, Sheena Malhotra, 9-1/2 minutes of collective silence, soul, Personal Transformation, Social Change/Politics

Despite our being connected 24/7 with others, post-modern life is replete with loneliness. Loneliness is not the same as aloneness. Loneliness is when you lack the feeling of being connected with another. Explore how to build fulfilling and deep connections with others and make closeness flourish. Kira Asatryan is a certified relationship coach who provides individual life coaching, relationship coaching, conflict mediation, and couples coaching. Before becoming a relationship coach, she was director of performance marketing for prominent Silicon Valley technology start-ups and cofounded an online marketing consultancy. She lives in San Francisco. Kira Asatryan is the author of Stop Being Lonely: Three Simple Steps to Developing Close Friendships and Deep Relationships (New World Library 2016)

Interview Date: 4/3/2016     Tags: Kira Asatryan, introverted, closeness, caring, intimacy, families, caretaking, loneliness, empathy, inflammation, efficiency, effectiveness, social media, incidental contact, open-ended questions, Arthur Aron, efficiency, effectiveness, Relationships, Psychology, Personal Transformation, Self Help, Health & Healing, Technology

We are in a constant deluge of noise and information and chat whether it is from our email and social media, or the 24-hour news cycles with its constant announcements of breaking news. Even our households can be filled with noise. Here we explore how to lessen both the exterior and interior noise to hear our own intuition and tune in to our creative gifts. Justin Zorn has served as a senior advisor for Policy and Strategy at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. He has also served as a meditation teacher in the U.S. Congress and is a Harvard-and-Oxford-trained specialist in the economics and psychology of wellbeing. Leigh Marz is a collaboration consultant and leadership coach for major universities, nonprofit coalitions, and federal agencies. Marz and Zorn are the cofounders of Astrea Strategies whose purpose is to help businesses, nonprofits, and leaders find creative and enduring solutions in living beyond the noise. They are the co-authors of Golden: The Power of Silence in A World of Noise. (Harper Wave 2022)

Interview Date: 6/30/2022     Tags: Leigh Marz, Justin Zorn, noise, intuition, thinking and talking, Johann Hari, attention, flow, Arlin Bronzaft, Andrew Yang, John Maynard Keynes, market forces, Sheena Malhortra, George Floyd, Joyce DiDonato, Jarvis Masters, San Quentin, Cyrus Habib, Social Change/Politics, Personal Transformation

Approaching and facing some essential life questions and leaving them in a written “ethical will” will benefit our loved ones after we have passed and might be more important than any material things we pass on at our death. It will also be helpful in shedding light on our own deepest beliefs and dreams. Steve Leder is senior Rabbi of Wilshire Boulevard Temple in Los Angeles. After receiving his degree in writing and graduating cum laude from Northwestern University, studying at Trinity College, Oxford University, Leder received a master’s degree in Hebrew letters in 1986 and rabbinical ordination in 1987 from Hebrew Union College. He is the author of many books including The Extraordinary Nature of Ordinary Things (Behrman House 1999), More Money Than God: Living A Rich Life Without Losing Your Soul (Volt Press 2003), More Beautiful Than Before: How Suffering Transforms Us (Hay House 2017), The Beauty of What Remains (Avery 2021) and For You When I Am Gone: Twelve Essential Questions to Tell a Life Story

 Interview Date: 6/20/2022    Tags: Steve Leder, ethical will, living legacy, estate planning, grief, abracadabra, regret, Schopenhauer, Max Planck, compassion, Seventh generation, good and evil, Writing, Personal Transformation, Philosophy

Meade advises us that we must break the spell of normalcy itself and we must accept the presence of uncertainty. However, the good news is that with every ending there is a new beginning. This deep dialogue explores the collective rite of passage we are experiencing and how using the wisdom of myths gives us a roadmap to the renewal of life itself. Michael Meade is a renowned storyteller, author, scholar of mythology, and student of ritual in traditional cultures. He has scoured the world to bring to us meaningful folk tales that tap into ancestral sources of wisdom and acts as a guide to connect them to the stories we are living today. Meade is the founder of Mosaic Multicultural Foundation. He also offers regular Living Myths Podcasts and workshops. He’s the author of many books including Why the World Doesn't End: Tales of Renewal in Times of Loss (GreenfirePress 2012), Fate and Destiny: The Two Agreements of the Soul (GreenFire Press 2012), The Genius Myth (GreenfirePress 2016), Awakening the Soul: A Deep Response to a Troubled World (GreenFire Press 2018) andThe Water of Life: Initiation and the Tempering of the Soul (GreenFire Press 2019)

Interview Date: 6/17/2022   Tags: Michael Meade, Rumi, duality, centering, descent to darkness, myths, creating myths, polarity, darkness and light, love, re-creation of the world, opposites, Sky Woman myth, Mythology, Psychology, Personal Transformation