Humanity is straddling unprecedented, threshold times. This situational crisis is more than climate change. It’s a whole system change. Yet, despite the extreme nature of our situation, we’re also living in a moment of immense possibility. We live in an immense sea of a living universe within a domain of aliveness with new kinds of potentials that are going to emerge. Duane Elgin, Ph.D.(hon) is a visionary futurist, educator, and Citizen-Voice Activist who received the Goi Pace Award in Japan in recognition of his contributions to a global vision that fosters a “more sustainable and spiritual culture”. Duane is currently the Co-director of the Choosing Earth Project. He is the author of many books including Awakening Earth: Exploring the Evolution of Human Culture and Consciousness (William Morrow 1993), Voluntary Simplicity: Toward a Way of Life That Is Outwardly Simple, Inwardly Rich (Harper 2010), The Living Universe: Where Are We? Who Are We? Where Are We Going? (Barrett Koehler Publishers 2009), Promise Ahead: A Vision of Hope and Action for Humanity’s Future the Living Universe (William Morrow 2000) and Choosing Earth: Humanity’s Journey of Initiation through Breakdown and Collapse to Mature Planetary Community (Revised Edition) (Duane Elgin 2022)

Interview Date: 10/20/2023.  Tags: Duane Elgin, initiation, Christopher Alexander, mutual symbiosis, pocket neighborhoods, eco-villages, digital authoritarianism, digital dictatorship, electronic meetings, ETMs, electronic Town Meetings, The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Personal Transformation, Psychology, Community, Social Change/Politics, Ecology/Nature/Environment, Global Culture

Johnson suggests by opening to the possibility of wonder from surprising sources, we recognize that, even in the bleakest of times, beauty is possible. Although that beauty can’t permanently replace our losses, our sorrow, and the dire problems we’re facing, it can break through the walls of powerlessness and melt despair. Trebbe Johnson is the founder and director of the global community Radical Joy for Hard Times, and she’s devoted to finding and making beauty in hurt places. She has camped alone in the Arctic wilderness; studied classical Indian dance; worked as an artist’s model, has been a street sweeper in an English village, and is an award-winning multimedia producer. She’s led wilderness rites of passage and contemplative journeys in clear-cut forests, Ground Zero in New York, in EPA’s toxic Superfund sites, the Sahara Desert, and other places. She participates in Global Earth Exchange—bringing people around the world together to go to places they care about that have been damaged or endangered: share stores, listen to the land, and make a simple gift of beauty for the place out of materials the place itself offers. She is the author of several books including Radical Joy for Hard Times: Finding Meaning and Making Beauty in Earth’s Broken Places. (North Atlantic Books 2018) and Fierce Consciousness: Surviving the Sorrows of Earth and Self (Calliope Books, 2023).

Interview Date: 10/6/2023     Tags: Trebbe Johnson, Michael Meade, The Woman in the Cave, Dylan Thomas, green fuse, grief, beauty, Kim Stanley Robinson, Ministry Of The Future, disbelieving, disbelief, Halaco Plant, hurt places, superfund places, Global Earth Exchange, Personal Transformation, Health & Healing, Ecology/Nature/Environment

What if despite aging, injuries, health conditions and illnesses you could not only return to a state of health you enjoyed previously, but even improve on it? Greer explores feelings and thoughts both conscious and unconscious that are intertwined and can influence your physical health. He encourages us to explore our own health story. Carl Greer, Ph.D., Psy.D. is a practicing clinical psychologist, Jungian analyst, and shamanic practitioner. He teaches at the C.G. Jung Institute of Chicago and is on staff at the Replogle Center for Counseling and Well-Being. He is the author of Change The Story of your Health: Using Shamanic and Jungian Techniques for Healing (Findhorn Press 2017) and Change Your Story, Change Your Life: Using Shamanic and Jungian Tools to Achieve Personal Transformation (Findhorn Press 2014)

Tags: Carl Greer, energy work, energy medicine, inner healer, changes habits, overeating, dieting, losing weight, personal power and weight, shamanic journeys, rituals, sacred ceremonies, fire ceremony, sacred listening, deep listening, depression, anxiety. Health & Healing, Psychology, Shamanism

Being with a person who is close to death may be difficult and confusing. Oftentimes it is mystifying to discern what they are talking about because their speech pattern can sound nonsensical. Lisa Smartt has done extensive research regarding the words spoken by many at this threshold and she advises us to be open to the experience our loved ones are having.She is a linguist, educator, and poet. She’s founder of The Final Words Project, an ongoing study devoted to collecting and interpreting the mysterious language at the end of lives. She lives in Athens, Georgia, and is the author of Words at the Threshold: What We Say as We’re Nearing Death (New World Library 2017)

Tags: Lisa Smartt, nonsensical speech, paradoxical nonsense, signature metaphors, survival of consciousness, life after death, Raymond Moody, end of life care, Maggie Callanan, Patricia Kelly, coma, Death & Dying, Parapsychology, Paranormal

Humans live in a web of relationships, and true healing is always connected to family, community, and culture. Bedrick tells us that there is no symptom that belongs only to the individual, whether that ailment is emotional, spiritual, physical, social or financial. He gives examples of how symptoms are embedded and woven into all culture.

Tags: David Bedrick, process psychology, depth psychology, process oriented psychology, depression, Robin Williams, anti-depressant medication, Maxine Waters, Sioux Nation and Black Hills land, Native Americans, weight, diets, inner critic, Maya Angelou, Judaism, Holocaust, Nagasaki, Hiroshima generation, Nazi Germany, Alzheimer’s, Psychology, Personal Transformation, Self Help, Indigenous Wisdom

Here you’ll learn how to start a circle of your own for honest, safe conversations and cooperation in a divisive world. Hear examples of how to maintain the integrity and mutual support in a circle. Oliver says “You don’t need to go somewhere or pay someone to start your circle. You can do it yourself.” Lauren J Oliver, Ph.D. received her baccalaureate degree from Harvard University and her doctorate in Clinical Psychology from UCLA. She currently provides coaching and organization development consultations for leaders, businesses, organizations, families, and individuals. She was co-founder with Dr. Robert Harrison Simmons of the California nonprofit Support Group Network. She is the author of Circle Culture: Tools for Cooperative Work (Bonnie Burstein) (Circle Culture 2023)

Interview Date: 9/21/2023     Tags: Lauren J Oliver, special needs, Peer Counseling Program, circles, circling, Social Change/Politics, Personal Transformation 

Dogs are the best kind of teachers because they teach us just by being themselves. Wilson describes the undiluted love of a dog when we come home after an absence, “You can have a stressful day but having a dog greet you just changes everything.” Dog and cat companions have much to teach us if we take the time to pay attention and open ourselves enough to listen and learn. Hersch Wilson is an organizational consultant, pilot, former professional dancer, newspaper columnist, and 30-year volunteer firefighter-EMT. He is also a consultant who has worked extensively with leadership teams from a variety of organizations including IBM Japan, the US Postal Service, and the CIA, to name a few. He writes a monthly column on dogs for the Santa Fe New Mexican. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico with his wife Laurie, a daughter, and two dogs, a Great Pyrenees and a Chihuahua-Terrier mix. He is the author of Play to Win!: Choosing Growth Over Fear In Work And Life (coauthor with his late father, Larry Wilson)(Bard Press; Revised Edition 2004), Firefighter Zen: A Field Guide To Thriving In Tough Times (New World Library 2020) and Dog Lessons: Learning the Important Stuff from Our Best Friends (New World Library 2023)

Interview Date: 9/11/2023   Tags: Hersch Wilson, dogs, animal guardians, veterinary care, pet insurance, animal shelters, Animals

Here we explore the legacy of the late Tony Schwartz with his son, Anton. Tony Schwartz created commercials for more than four hundred corporations, five presidential campaigns, and countless social causes. He was hailed as a guru of the newly emerging “electronic media” by Marshall McLuhan. In 2007, the Library of Congress acquired Schwartz’s entire body of work.

Tags: Anton Schwartz, Tony Schwartz, media, communications, Folkway Records, advertising, partipulation, Subaru ad, American Cancer Society ad, focus groups, viral media, bots, fake news, life-long learning, Media, Education, History, Social Change/Politics

Poetry, at its best, takes us beyond our analytical minds and lands us in an embodied experience. It helps us meet the despair which inevitably rises up in the darkest moments. Poetry can cut windows and doors in your despair and give you a way to walk back into the world with others. 

Jane Hirshfield is an award-winning poet, essayist and translator. She's the author of ten books of poetry and two collections of essays. She has edited and co-translated four books presenting the work of world poets from the past. Her books have received the Poetry Center Book Award, the California Book Award, and the Donald Hall-Jane Kenyon Prize in American Poetry. Her poems appear in a wide range of prestigious outlets. A resident of Northern California, she is a chancellor emerita of the Academy of American Poets. She presents her work at literary and interdisciplinary events worldwide. In 2017, in conjunction with the March for Science in Washington DC, she founded Poets for Science, an interactive exhibit of science poems and writing invitation housed at Kent State’s Wick Poetry Center, which has traveled to venues across the country.

Jane Hirshfield has authored many books including The October Palace (HarperCollins 1994), The Lives of the Heart (Harper Collins 1997), Women in Praise of the Sacred (HarperCollins 1994), Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry (Perennial 1998), After (Harper Collins 2006), Given Sugar, Given Salt (Harper Collins 2001), Come, Thief (Knopf 2011), Ten Windows: How Great Poems Transform the World (Alfred A. Knopf 2015), The Beauty: Poems (Alfred A. Knopf 2015), Ledger (Alfred A. Knopf 2020) and The Asking: New and Selected Poems (Alfred A. Knopf 2023)

Interview Date: 9/1/2023   Tags: Jane Hirshfield, Poetry, Hersch Wilson, bryophyta, mosses, kinship of all life, despair, March for Science, beauty, Poetry, Art & Creativity, Ecology/Nature/Environment, Philosophy

Are we living in a material universe or a simulated one? Are we living in a massive, multiplayer, online, role-playing game where our deeds and quests are being kept track of in the “cloud” like an angel recording our lives? If so, who is running the game? And what is the connection between computer science, video game physics, and the great spiritual traditions? Rizwan Virk (known as Riz) is a successful entrepreneur, a video game pioneer, a venture capitalist, and founder of the start-up accelerator Play Labs @ MIT. His interest and expertise ranges from video games, the metaverse, simulation theory, meditation, consciousness, and the intersection of science, science fiction, religion, and philosophy. He’s a graduate of MIT and Stanford and is currently a faculty associate at Arizona State University. He is the author of Zen Entrepreneurship: Walking the Path of the Career Warrior (BayView Labs 2013), Startup Myths and Models: What You Won't Learn in Business School (Columbia Business School Publishing 2020), Treasure Hunt: Follow Your Inner Clues to Find True Success (Watkins Publishing 2017), The Simulation Hypothesis: An MIT Computer Scientist Shows Why AI, Quantum Physics and Eastern Mystics Agree We Are in a Video Game. (Bayview books 2019), Wisdom of a Yogi: Lessons for Modern Seekers from Autobiography of a Yogi (Bayview Books 2023), The Zen Entrepreneur & the Dream: An MIT Grad’s Quest for Success & Enlightenment in Silicon Valley (2023)

Interview Date: 7/14/2023  Tags: Rizwan Virk, Riz Virk, video games, Hindu Vedas, Atari, ChatGPT, reincarnation, dialup computer modems, augmented reality, Nick Bostrom, The Matrix film, Elon Musk, multiple universes, parallel universes, John Wheeler, 20th century physics, consciousness, entanglement, nonlocality, Star Trek Holodecks and replicas, Claude Shannon, Galileo, Schrödinger’s cat, quantum physics, probability wave, optimization, conditional rendering, chaos theory, complexity theory, Stephen Wolfram, quenched disorder, Paramahansa Yogananda, Science, Philosophy, Technology, Spirituality