The New Dimensions Café

Susan Piver is a graduate of a Buddhist seminary and an authorized meditation instructor in the Shambhala lineage. She has written for Body and Soul, Self, O: The Oprah Magazine, Reader's Digest, and the Shambhala Sun, and has been featured on Oprah, CNN, and Today, and in USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and other national print publications. She is the author of five books, including: How Not to Be Afraid of Your Own Life: Opening Your Heart to Confidence, Intimacy, and Joy (St. Martin's Griffin 2007) and The Wisdom of a Broken Heart: How to Turn the Pain of a Breakup into Healing, Insight, and New Love (Free Press 2010)

Hank Wesselman, Ph.D. is a respected paleoanthropologist who has worked with noted anthropologists around the world including in Ethiopia investigating the mystery of human origins in the Great Rift Valley. Besides his training and scientific work, he is a shamanic student, practitioner, and teacher, now in the 30th year of his apprenticeship. He lives with his wife Jill in Hawaii. In addition to his scientific publications, his seven books on shamanism include: Spiritwalker: Messages from the Future (Bantam 1996), Awakening to the Spirit World: The Shamanic Path of Direct Revelation  (with Sandra Ingerman) (Sounds True 2010), The Bowl of Light: Ancestral Wisdom from a Hawaiian Shaman (Sounds True 2011), The Re-Enchantment: A Shamanic Path to a Life of Wonder (Sounds True 2016)

James Baraz has been teaching meditation since 1978, and the 10 month "Awakening Joy" class since 2003, which can also be taken on-line. Thousands have taken the course. He leads retreats, workshops, and classes in the U.S. and abroad, and is a founding teacher of Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Northern California. He is the co-author with Shoshana Alexander of Awakening Joy: 10 Steps That Will Put You on the Road to Real Happiness (Bantam Books 2010)

Mark Nepo is a poet and philosopher who, for over three decades, has been teaching in the fields of poetry and spirituality. As a cancer survivor, Mark remains committed to the usefulness of daily inner life. He devotes his writing and teaching to the journey of inner transformation and the life of relationship. He is the author of many books including Reduced To Joy (Cleis Press 2013), Seven Thousand Ways To Listen: Staying Close To What Is Sacred (Free Press 2012) and The One Life We’re Given: Finding the Wisdom That Waits in Your heart (Atria Books 2016). His many audio learning courses include: Staying Awake (Sounds True 2012), Holding Nothing Back (Sounds True 2012), More Together Than Alone: Discovering the Power and Spirit of Community in Our Lives and in the World (Atria Books 2018)
Tags: Mark Nepo, fear, divisiveness, courage, isolation, authenticity, scarcity, abundance, the Great Depression, storytelling, Muriel Rukeyser, Oprah Winfrey, Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Tutu, social aneurysms, optimism, Parkland Florida, compassion, Psychology, Philosophy, community, Personal Transformation, Buddhism, Social Change/Politics, Peace/Nonviolence

Lisa Tracy is the author of Objects of Our Affection: Uncovering My Family's Past, One Chair, Pistol, and Pickle Fork at a Time (Bantam 2010). She is a journalist and the former Home & Design editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer. She now lives in Lexington, Virginia, where she teaches creative nonfiction.

Apricot Irving currently lives in the woods outside Portland Oregon, but has lived in Haiti, Indonesia, and the United Kingdom. She returned to Haiti in the spring of 2010 to cover the earthquake for the radio program This American Life. She’s a recipient of the Rona Jaffe Foundation writers award and an Oregon Literary Fellowship. Her renowned oral history project, BoiseVoices.com, is a collaboration between youth and elders to record the stories of the neighborhood in the mist of gentrification. She is the author of The Gospel of Trees: A Memoir. (Simon & Schuster 2018.) 
Tags: Apricot Irving, Memoir, memoirist, family, Haiti, journaling, Childhood, Thich Nhat Hanh, History, Writing, Health & Healing, Parenting

Larry Dossey, M.D. is the executive editor of Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing, and served as co-chair of the Panel on Mind/Body Interventions of the NIH Office of Alternative Medicine. He is the author of numerous articles and books, including: Prayer Is Good Medicine: How to Reap the Healing Benefits of Prayer (HarperOne 1997). The Power of Premonitions: How Knowing the Future Can Shape Our Lives (Dutton 2009). The Energy of Prayer: How to Deepen Your Spiritual Practice (co-author Thich Nhat Hanh) (Parallax Press 2006), The Extraordinary Healing Power of Ordinary Things: Fourteen Natural Steps to Health and Happiness (Harmony 2007), One Mind: How Our Individual Mind Is Part of a Greater Consciousness and Why It Matters (Hay House 2013).

Robert Fuller, Ph.D. is a physicist and former president of Oberlin College. He has consulted with Indira Gandhi, met with Jimmy Carter regarding the President's Commission on World Hunger, and worked to defuse the Cold War in Russia when it was known as the USSR. As Fuller reflected on his career he realized that he had been, at different times in his life, a somebody and a nobody. His periodic sojourns into “Nobodyland” led him to identify rankism - the abuse of the power inherent in rank - and ultimately to write the book Somebodies and Nobodies: Overcoming the Abuse of Rank. He has become a recognized leader of the dignity movement to overcome rankism and keynoted a Dignity for All conference hosted by the President of Bangladesh. His many other accomplishments include co-authoring the text book Mathematics of Classical and Quantum Physics. His books include: Somebodies and Nobodies: Overcoming the Abuse of Rank (New Society Publishers 2003), Dignity for All: How to Create a World without Rankism (co-author Pamela A. Gerloff) (Berrett-Koehler Publishers 2008), Religion and Science: A Beautiful Friendship? (e-book, Smashwords 2012),  (novel) The Rowan Tree (CreateSpace 2013), (children’s book) Theo: The White Squirrel (co-author Claire Sheridan)  (Amazon Digital Services 2016), Questions and Quests: A Short Book Aphorisms (Amazon Digital Services 2017), The Theory of Everybody (Robert Fuller 2017)
Tags: Robert Fuller, rankism, Marshall Plan, indignity, dignity, racism, Truth and Reconciliation Commission, predation, somebodies and nobodies, Social Change/Politics

Alan Watts was a British-born American philosopher, writer, speaker, and counterculture hero, best known as an interpreter of Asian philosophies for a Western audience. He wrote over 25 books and numerous articles applying the teachings of Eastern and Western religion and philosophy to our everyday lives. During the 1960s Watts became well known as a lecturer, writer, and radio and TV personality, both in philosophical and psychological venues and among the youth of the nation, who were disenchanted with the Vietnam War. He was a gifted speaker. He could stand at a podium without notes and deliver a lecture with such lucidity as to leave his audience spellbound. He died in late 1973. In this program we speak with his daughters, Joan and Anne Watts. They are the editors and curators of the book, The Collected Letters of Alan Watts (New World Library 2017)
Tags: Alan Watts, Joan Watts, Anne Watts, Joan & Anne Watts, Joan and Anne Watts, happiness, writing, Gourmet Magazine, organized religion, History