Ways 2 Wellness Podcast

Josh Traub is a grandfather who grew up in West Marin surrounded by one of Earth's greatest creations: trees. At age five he recalls his first introduction to what it meant for a tree to belong to a forest community.

As Josh grew from boy to man, he deepened his relationship with the trees of Marin: the old-growth Coastal Redwoods of Roy's Redwoods, the sprawling Valley Oaks of San Geronimo Valley, and the thousands of second-growth Redwoods in Samuel P. Taylor Park. Working his first job on a trail crew at Point Reyes National Seashore, he met ancient California Bay Laurels, sacred Elderberry trees, and streamside Willows that welcomed spawning salmon home.

Josh joined the ranks of tree care professionals, learning to climb 150-foot Blue Gum Eucalyptus with chainsaws and arm-thick ropes—dangerous work that sometimes claimed lives. He mastered the gentler craft of pruning American Elms along Ross's Shady Lane, only to witness their demise from Dutch Elm disease. Later, he observed the emergence of Sudden Oak Death threatening California Tan Oaks—possibly another species extinction event.

Transitioning from the woods to farming, Josh raised his two daughters while working an organic farm at the base of Mount Barnabe. He became a school gardener, planting his first tree—a California Buckeye—alongside elementary students. Eventually moving into carpentry to support his growing teenage daughters, Josh discovered an intimate new relationship with trees through wood itself: milling Monterey Cypress, harvesting Bishop Pine logs, building with old-growth timbers that revealed wood's exquisite beauty.

Though carpentry provided good livelihood, Josh carried an unrealized dream that would eventually call him toward his next chapter.

To learn more about Tamara's work: https://tamarawolfson.com

Tamara speaks with Gary Muszynski, an award-winning percussionist and composer, discussing his journey in music, focusing on the handpan, its origins, and its role in creating meditative experiences. He emphasizes the healing power of music, its ability to unlock memories, and the importance of improvisation in creating emotional connections. Gary also shares insights into his personal journey and the influences that shaped his music, highlighting the cultural significance of global music.

Gary Muszynski is an award-winning percussionist, composer, bandleader, recording artist, and producer. He creates genre-defying, original music that combines world folk traditions, infused with an improvisational sensibility with a healing vibe. He refers to his music as global medicine music.

Gary has performed and recorded with some of the great musical luminaries of our times, including Bobby McFerrin, legendary Cuban pianist Omar Sosa, virtuoso cellist and co-founder of the Turtle Island Quartet Mark Summer, Brazilian guitar master Romero Lubambo, world-funk-jazz bassist Kai Eckhardt (John McLaughlin) and pianist Frank Martin (Sting). Bay Area venues include the Freight and Salvage, SF Jazz, the Zellerbach stage for TEDxBerkeley, and Peri Park in Fairfax.

Gary's last album, Roots & Wings (Medicine Music), won the top honor at the prestigious Global Music Awards in 2021 and can be accessed through Gary's website, oneworldmusic.com.

Gary's new album, The Journey Home (Songs of Longing & Belonging) is now avilable on all streaming platforms and won the Gold Medal at the Global Music Awards in Sept 2024.

To learn more about Tamara's work: https://tamarawolfson.com

Tamara discusses resilience with coach Emily Schafer, head women's basketball coach at College of Marin.

Schaefer previously served as the assistant coach for the women's basketball program at Norte Dame de Namur University for four seasons. In that role, she was the recruiting and academic coordinator. She was instrumental in the Argonauts success during the 2016-17 season, which led to the first Pacific West Conference post-season tournament appearance in program history. During her tenure at NDNU, Schaefer created curriculum and served as an instructor for Kinesiology department and was the Director of Compliance and Student Services.

To learn more about Tamara's work: https://tamarawolfson.com

China Galland, M.A., is the award-winning author of several non-fiction works including Galland's non-fiction work, The Bond Between Women, A Journey to Fierce Compassion (Riverhead/Penguin), was chosen as one of the best five books on Spirituality by the annual "Books For a Better Life Award" when it was published in 1999.

Race has been an abiding concern in Galland's work since she published her first non-fiction piece in 1977 on the kidnapping of an African American gardener by a white woman in the middle of one of the wealthiest neighborhood in Dallas, Highland Park. The police brought the gardener down out of her attic where he had been blindfolded and kept in chains. That was 1939.

Galland also teaches and lectures nationally and internationally. She has been a Professor in Residence at the Center for the Arts, Religion, and Education at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA, the largest consortium of Christian schools of theology in the U.S, as well as a Research Associate at the Center for Women and Religion. New curriculum in theology grew out of her graduate level intensive course, "Art, Darkness, and the Womb of God." Her book and curriculum grew out of her pioneering work on images of the Divine Feminine cross-culturally, especially the forms that are dark and/or black. She has been affiliated with the Graduate Theological Union for over 20 years. CARE/GTU initially sponsored her Keepers of Love work as a project of the Center for Art, Religion, and Education. Galland also created the Images of Divinity Research Project at the GTU's Center for Women and Religion in the 1990s.

A riveting storyteller and public speaker, Galland has lectured at Harvard University, Columbia, Cornell, Bowling Green University, and Prescott College among others. She's led pilgrimages to the Divine Feminine in Nepal, India, France and Spain, appeared on "Good Morning America," Bloomberg TV, PBS, NPR, and PRI's "To the Best of Our Knowledge." She's also written for the Washington Post, Outside Magazine, and a host of other non-fiction venues nationally. She's the author of six award-winning non-fiction books.

Galland has been awarded a Hedgebrook Women Writer's Residency by the Hedgebrook Institute on Whidbey Island, WA. as well as prizes for both non-fiction and fiction by the California Arts Council. She was given the national "Courage of Conscience Award" by the Peace Abbey of Sherburne, MA, in 2010 at the Harvard Foundation where she was presenting excerpts from the documentary film, Resurrecting Love, and reading from her book, Love Cemetery, Unburying the Secret History of Slaves for the Harvard Foundation's annual Writers and Film series.

A former river guide, Galland also co-founded the national non-profit organization, "Women in the Wilderness," dedicated to growing women's leadership through outdoor experiences. Her first non-fiction book, Women in the Wilderness, was published by Harper & Row (New York).

Galland was also the first woman Assistant to the City Manager in Dallas, Texas, and ran the Citizen Assistance office for the City of Dallas. Prior to her work with the city of Dallas, she taught English Literature at Boston College.

Galland was married to the playwright, performer, and co-founder of the former Traveling Jewish Theater, Corey Fischer. She has three children, the youngest of whom, Ben Galland, she just produced the documentary film RESURRECTING LOVE. The 76-minute documentary grew out of her most recent book, Love Cemetery, which Bill Moyers described as "Riveting!" Sue Monk Kidd said that Galland introduced her to the Black Madonna.

Resurrecting Love has been invited to participate in the Morehouse College 6th Annual Human Rights Film Festival in Atlanta, GA, September 17th-21st.

Galland will be joined there by her son, Ben Galland, the director, and co-producers Barry Opper and Alexis Yancey. Opper is also known for his work in Africa on the documentary film, Slingshot, as well as his years of work in feature films. Yancey has just been inducted into the Black Journalists Hall of Fame in Chicago.

To learn more about China's work: https://www.chinagalland.org

To learn more about Tamara's work: https://tamarawolfson.com

Julie Motz is an internationally known healer, author, and teacher who pioneered the practice of energy healing in the operating room. She shares her journey from being a documentary filmmaker to becoming an energy healer and working alongside surgeons in heart transplant surgery. Julie discusses the power of emotions and how they are stored in different organs of the body. She also shares two of her poems that capture the essence of her work and the healing process.

To learn more about Tamara and her work, visit: https://tamarawolfson.com

Marianne describes herself as an eclectic and experiential practitioner in the field of learning. Her academic studies include master's degrees in transpersonal psychology and mindfulness-based psychotherapy and a doctoral degree in transformative learning and change in human systems. Integral to her work has been her training with Stanislav Grof – she completed the Grof Transpersonal Training in 2001, is a certified Grof® Breathwork facilitator, and has facilitated holotropic breathwork in the US, UK, Europe, Kenya, and India. She is certified as a facilitator of Bert Hellinger's systemic constellation work and is also trained as a massage therapist. Marianne is a member of the faculty at the Academy for the Love of Learning where, for the past 22 years she has been intimately involved with the development of the core curriculum and helping to establish the Academy's pedagogy. To learn more about Grof® Breathwork: https://grof-legacy-training-usa.mykajabi.com

To learn more about Tamara and her work, visit: https://tamarawolfson.com

Judy Tuwaletstiwa is a visual artist, writer and teacher. Her work resides in private and museum collections nationally and internationally. After earning Degrees in English Literature from U.C. Berkeley and Harvard University, she discovered the power of visual art to connect us to the deepest part of ourselves. She has spent her life exploring and expressing this, using different media.

Her work has been presented in exhibitions around the U.S., and is held in several permanent collections, including that of the Corning Museum of Glass, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston and the National Museum of Women in the Arts. She has held residencies at Pilchuck Glass School, Bullseye Glass Resource Center in Santa Fe , the Corning Museum of Glass and the Tamarind Institute.

She is the author of Mapping Water published in 2008, and more recently the artist book Glass.

Pilchuck Glass School: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilchuck_Glass_School

Corning Museum of Glass: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corning_Museum_of_Glass

Tamarind Institute: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamarind_Institute

Mapping Water: https://www.radiusbooks.org/all-books/p/judy-tuwaletstiwa-mapping-water

Glass: https://www.radiusbooks.org/all-books/p/judy-tuwaletstiwa-glass

To learn more about Tamara and her work, visit: https://tamarawolfson.com

In this episode, Tamara speaks with Rebekah Wheeler, RN, CNM, MPH, a practicing hospital birth midwife and a birth trauma specialist. She has worked as a birth professional for almost 20 years, supporting people through fertility, pregnancy, birth and postpartum.

Tamara also interviews two women who share their experiences with maternal trauma during birth. These interviews are examples of real-life trauma and Rebekah offers a global, comprehensive overview of the issues and strategies for addressing these crisis.

To learn more about Rebekah's work or schedule a consultation, visit: https://www.rebekahwheelerhealing.com

To learn more about Tamara work, visit: https://tamarawolfson.com

Art Granoff practices and teaches the Holotropoic World View, moving towards wholeness.

He focuses on Stan Grof's consciousness research blended with archetypal astrology, providing a framework for self realization and healing.

He's a professional archetypal astrologer.

To learn more about Art's work and schedule a reading: www.referenceastrology.com

To learn more about Tamara's work: https://tamarawolfson.com

Mindee Jeffery spent 15 years educating staff, customers, and vendors on the importance and benefits of organic certification at Good Earth Natural Foods in Marin County, California. She was pivotal to the process of evolving food standards for Good Earth. During that time, she was active and influential in the Independent Natural Food Retailers Association (INFRA). She delivered presentations on organic fundamentals, labeling attribute systems and developments in GMO technology to retailers from all over the country at INFRA's annual conferences.

Mindee Jeffery represented Retailers to the California Organic Products Advisory Committee (COPAC) for five years. During her tenure as the Chairperson, Mindee Jeffery worked with the California Department of Food and Agriculture to re-imagine COPAC's relationship to the State Organic Program, brought about by significant change to the regulatory framework.

Over the past couple of years, Mindee worked directly with INFRA and Eastside Food Co-op in Minneapolis, Minnesota, gaining perspective on the natural foods retail business landscape. Mindee has returned to Good Earth and is currently working as the Organic Activism and Education Coordinator. She also manages a joint venture compost program for Good Earth and Tara Firma Farms.

Mindee Jeffery graduated from Sonoma State University with a degree in Literature with an emphasis in Critical Theory. She spent many years in the San Geronimo Valley coaching young women's basketball teams.

To learn more about Tamara's work visit: tamarawolfson.com