Spirit Matters

Mark Nepo returns to Spirit Matters for a conversation about spirituality in the second half of life. Mark is a poet, a spiritual teacher, and a bestselling author of some 26 books, including You Don't Have to Do it Alone: The Power of Friendship; Falling Down and Getting Up; Finding the Strength to Meet Adversity; and best-known of all, The Book of Awakening, which has sold more than a million copies worldwide over the last 20 years. Mark has won numerous awards, has appeared on several national television shows, including Oprah's, and has made personal appearances throughout the world - all devoted to the journey of inner transformation and the life of relationship. His latest book, the one we talk about here, is The Fifth Season: Creativity in the Second Half of Life, which, he says, celebrates "living from the inside of the one life we’re given." Learn more about Mark here.

Tirzah Firestone is an author, a Jungian psychotherapist, and a rabbi. She has been a leader in the international Jewish Renewal movement and a

Rodger Kamenetz is an award-winning poet, author and teacher. He has authored nine books of poetry and several nonfiction books, including (not in chronological order) The History of Last Night’s Dream, which earned him an interview with Oprah Winfrey on her “Soul Series” program; Burnt Books; Stalking Elijah, which won the National Jewish Book Award; and his best known book, The Jew in the Lotus, about an historic dialogue between the Dalai Lama and a group of rabbis that became an international bestseller and prompted a reevaluation of Judaism in the light of Buddhist thought. He is also the founder of Natural Dreamwork, an approach to using dreams for spiritual growth. Now he's written a new book, Seeing Into the Life of Things, which is about the use of imagination in the spiritual life. We spoke mainly about that book, but also about many other intriguing and practical topics.

Professor Stephen G. Post is one of the world’s leading scholars on altruism, love, compassion, and the science of giving. A professor

He is also the author of several books, including God and Love on Route 80 and the best-selling Why Good Things Happen to Good

This is the second episode in which Spirit Matter's host, Philip Goldberg, moves to the other side of the interview table. The occasion is the publication of his latest book, Karmic Relief: Harnessing the Laws of Cause and Effect for a Joyful, Meaningful Life. In it, he dives into what karma is, what it is not, and all the practical implications of understanding the laws of karma. His interlocutor this time is Beryl Bender⁠, who has been teaching yoga and meditation since 1971 and has been training yoga teachers through her school, The Hard & The Soft Yoga Institute, for nearly 50 years. She’s also the best-selling author of several books on yoga, including ⁠Power Yoga⁠; ⁠Beyond Bower Yoga⁠; and ⁠Yoga for Warriors: Basic Training for Strength, Resilience, and Peace of Mind. She also co-founded the Give Back Yoga Foundation has been a leader in addressing the relationship between yoga practice and activism and service. [Listen as well to an earlier interview about the book with Rabbi Rami Shapiro interviewing Phil.]

⁠

Paul Muller-Ortega was a distinguished professor of the Indic religious traditions who retired from academia in 2006 and founded his school, Blue Throat Yoga. Since then, to quote from his website, “Paul has been teaching practices of deep meditation and the theories of meditation studies. His primary theoretical focus is founded on the teachings of lineages of the Śakta-Śaiva Tantra, particularly as brought forward by the extraordinary medieval siddha guru, Rājānaka Abhinavagupta. Paul is particularly committed to  bringing forward deeply authentic and highly

Dr. Yvonne Kason is a retired family physician, psychotherapist, and faculty member at the University of Toronto. She is also an internationally known expert on near-death experiences, kundalini awakening, and other spiritually transformative experiences (STEs). In 1990, she became the first Canadian MD to specialize in researching and counseling patients with diverse types of STEs, a term she coined in 1994. She is past-president of the International Association for Near-Death Studies and the current president of the organization she founded, Spiritual Awakenings International (SAI). SAI is a nonprofit organization dedicated to raising

Judith Carlisle, Ph.D., has a masters degree in Management Information Systems and a doctorate in Computer Information Systems from the University of Arizona. She also earned a masters degree in Yoga Studies from the first-of-its-kind program started by a previous guest on Spirit Matters, Christopher Key Chapple, at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. Judith, who began practicing yoga with her grandmother as a young child, is now an adjunct professor in that same Yoga Studies program, She also teaches at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. Her teaching integrates the rigorous exploration of yogic and Buddhist texts, philosophies, and history with practices from the Dharmic traditions, e.g. Yoga and Buddhism. Her teaching is dedicated to supporting students and practitioners as they seek to understand how yoga study and practice support personal and worldly transformation, enlightenment, and

Jacob Kyle is a scholar, educator, yoga teacher, meditation teacher, and writer. He holds a master of philosophy degree in classical Indian religions from Oxford University, an MA in philosophy from the New School for Social Research, an MS in political theory from the London School of