Peter's Podcast

My friend Heather Principe has been described as a journey-woman of the old ways. She studied classical yoga and polarity therapy, which is based on yoga. She was chosen by Cree healer Don Cardinal to learn the tribe’s wisdom and the sweat lodge ceremony — a rare sharing with someone not born in the tribe. She is dedicated to teaching within the paradigm of the Four Directions and the Five Elements, and her work weaves these ancient teachings into a contemporary outlook on science, personal growth and society.

Heather founded The Yoga and Polarity Center in Malverne, New York. She served on the Board of the International Polarity Education Alliance and the International Polarity Board in Switzerland. She has taught at the International Seminary for Interfaith Studies, the Southwest Institute of Healing Arts, and Sivananda Yoga Ashram. Heather co-authored Ahimsa in Communication with Diana Slattery.

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In today's episode, I begin with a talk about getting what you want — and not getting what you want. It leads to a discussion of the Course in Miracles and how the same topics are addressed in yoga.

In the final segment, I play some excerpts from our Psych Rock Kirtan album Shiva Shakti, which is available on BandCamp. It features me and Idgy Dean and you should go download it!

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Namaste.

Jane Stelboum is a yoga teacher and teacher trainer in the Washington, DC metro area, and a Certified Brain Longevity Specialist through the Alzheimer’s Research and Prevention Foundation’s Brain Longevity®Therapy Training. She founded Sarasvate (sar-as-vah-te´) in 2012 in honor of her mother Sarah, whom she lost to Alzheimer’s. The company’s mission is to prevent memory-related diseases like Alzheimer’s and help those already impacted maintain a high quality of life as long as possible. She does this through workshops, caregiving training sessions, speaking engagements and private sessions in which she shares how the tools of yoga (breath, meditation and the physical practice) can positively impact memory and cognitive function. Jane has been a featured speaker at conferences by the Smithsonian Associates, Aging Life Care Association, Alzheimer’s Foundation of America, and many yoga studios, senior living communities and corporate offices throughout the east coast.

We also mention these things in this episode:

Wendy Newton gives us a preview of the new interpretation of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali that she coauthored with Alan Finger.

She mentions the book launch at ISHTA Yoga. You can find out more about Wendy and the Tantra of the Yoga Sutras book at wendynewtonyoga.com

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In today's episode, I speak with a dear friend, Lâle Davidson. Lâle is an author of fiction and nonfiction, and a Distinguished Professor at SUNY Adirondack where she teaches fiction writing, public speaking and composition.

Her stories have appeared in The North American Review, Eclectica, Big Lucks, and The Collagist, among others. Her story “The Opal Maker” was named top fifty of 2015 by Wigleaf, and her fiction chapbook, Strange Appetites won the Adirondack Center for Writing People’s Choice Award in 2016.

I visited her in her home in Saratoga Springs to see the final performance of her latest work, Uprising, a play about the Polish resistance to Nazi occupation in WWII. Lâle wrote Uprising in collaboration with two teenagers, Catie LeCours, and Grace Alberti, who also directed.

My wife, Wendy and Lâle went to Oberlin together, and I’ve known Lâle and her husband Charley Brown and daughter Tess Davidson-Brown for close to 20 years. We often discuss writing, spirituality, and politics and this week Lâle and I are sharing one of our chats with you.

I hope you enjoy it!

You can find out more about Lâle and find her writing at laledavidson.com, and you can view her editorial column at http://blog.timesunion.com/laledavidson/.

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VOTE! In this episode, I begin with an essay on staying noble in one's actions in the face of evil as we face a barrage of political news. I make a few claims in the essay and have links here to support them:

I follow up by taking you to meditation class, where we cover a related topic of getting caught in emotion and do a meditation to help you let go.

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Namaste.

In today’s episode, I get to catch up with Tania Van Pelt. I met Tania in yoga class many years ago, and we bonded around writing and the arts. Tania decided to take her creative future into her own hands by becoming a producer, beginning with a web project she called “The Happiness Series.” I blogged a bit for the Happiness Series and have followed Tania’s work since.

Now a writer, producer, and content creator, Tania has become an expert on diet-related wellness. She is the author of The Ageless Diet: Your Fountain of Youth, and the related AgelessDietLife.com. She empowers people to chart a course through the health and wellness noise and reimagine a life full of nourishment, sustainable vitality and fun. She is currently editing her second book, Sheet Cake Diet, an exploration into the links between depression and inflammation. She has also recently finished production on the first four episodes of her new web-based talk show, “Practical Magic.” It's a different kind of show, about the process of discovering the mystery behind the magic of the etheric, energetic realms. It features conversations with tarot masters, shamans, intuitive healers, psychics, and experts in the healing arts. It will be available on the Happiness Series and Ageless Diet web sites.

I spoke to Tania from her home in Denver. I hope you enjoy our chat.

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In today's episode, I speak with Lindsay Sanwald about our kirtan and her music. Lindsay is the one-woman psychedelic rock musician IDGY DEAN. She has an upcoming single with Run DMC's Darryl McDaniels. She and I created Psych Rock Kirtan, and we met for a chat to discuss our next live kirtan, October 18 at ISHTA Yoga and our recording, which we're mixing as we make this podcast.

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This bonus is an excerpt from my novel, Incarnation and a Cliff Notes-style cheat sheet below in the notes. The book follows a journalist, an actor, a writer, and a programmer whose dreams and desires play out together on the global stage, again and again. Each time, they find meaning as they spin on life's mysterious wheel of fortune.

This is excerpt 8. I am also excerpting the Incarnation Cheat Sheet that lives on my website, below. You can find Incarnation, the book, at Amazon.com.

SPOILER ALERT: Excerpt from the Cheat Sheet

In today's episode, Natalie Roy of the C.R.E.A.T.E. Community joins me to talk about creativity, art, and yoga. Natalie is an actress, author and spiritual teacher. She's performed and taught all over the world on stage and screen. She’s also a 500-hour certified Yoga Teacher and a meditation teacher. Natalie brings together the practices and techniques of meditation, mindfulness and “learned optimism” with the artistic process. She co-founded C.R.E.A.T.E with her best friend Kristin Hanggi, a fellow teacher of spiritually-based creative pursuits and the developer and director of the broadway hit Rock of Ages.

We talk about the opportunities life presents to live each moment as a creative expression. We mention some great books and authors:

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