Future Primitive

Darrell Blair is a Buddhist practitioner and a homeless activist. His aim is to cultivate the homeless potential within the homeless population.
He can be contacted at bdarrell299 @ gmail.com.
Darrell speaks with Joanna about part of his lifetime journey, and his project of an ecovillage by and for homeless people.

”I Can’t Sit Still”, original music by Evarusnik

Susan Marie Scavo and Bill St.Cyr are founding members and co-executive directors of North of Eden. They are master dreamwork analysts who received their training from Marc Bregman and Christa Lancaster, the founders of North of Eden Archetypal Dreamwork. They co-lead the Center for Archetypal Dreamwork Analyst Training Program and the North of Eden Teacher Training Program and have led dreamwork retreat groups at the North of Eden Retreat Center since 2004, as well as at premier retreat centers in the United States, Canada, and Europe.

Among other presentations, Susan Marie and Bill have presented Archetypal Dreamwork at the annual conference of the International Association for the Study of Dreams and at the first Symposium for the Study of Myth sponsored by the Joseph Campbell Society and Pacifica Graduate Institute.

Susan Marie is the co-founder, director, and senior editor of North of Eden Press, and she and Bill have contributed to books by Marc Bregman and Christa Lancaster, co-founders of North of Eden Archetypal Dreamwork. Susan Marie is the co-founder and co-editor of deLuge, an online literary and arts journal devoted to Archetypal Dreamwork. Bill leads the North of Eden Submit a Dream program, in which analysts-in-training respond to online dream submissions.

Susan and Bill speak with Joanna about their initiation into Archetypal Dreamwork and how the work is done; aligning with the soul; life beyond trauma; owning the projections in a relationship; the evolving soul, among other topics.

”I Can’t Sit Still”, original music by Evarusnik

Philip Shepherd has a passion for adventure and exploration that has guided him for most of his life. At 18 it took him from his native Canada to cycle alone around the world through Europe, the Middle East, Iran, India and Japan. But that trip, adventurous as it was, merely expressed a commitment to a more crucial adventure – coming to understand the subtle and often hidden aspects of our culture that affect us all, compromising our sense of self, our connection with the living world, our freedom of expression, and our creative engagement with the present.

As a young teenager, Philip could feel that influence pulling at him like an undertow to conform to given limits of thinking, understanding, values and body awareness, and felt he could resist its pull only if he understood it. That prompted him to study classical Noh Theater in Japan, design and build several houses, co-found an arts magazine, “Onion”, co-found an interdisciplinary theater company, teach workshops on embodied thinking and spontaneous creativity, write two internationally produced plays and a CBC documentary, and earn a reputation as a corporate coach. In 2001 Philip began to write “New Self, New World”, and over the next nine years worked on it continuously to pull all the strands of his understanding together, and challenge the 10,000-year-old story of our culture, which tells us what it means to be human.

Philip speaks with Joanna about the reconnection with the body’s energetic intelligence; world-centered self-knowledge; gut feeling, vulnerability; surfers of presence; partnering with the world; rooted in the mindful earth; the brain in the belly; immersed in the wild peace; the participatory dimension of consciousness.

”I Can’t Sit Still”, original music by Evarusnik
http://www.evarusnik.com/Home.html

Hillary Keeney, Ph.D., is a distinguished scholar, author, and practitioner of creative transformation and improvisational performance. Co-Founder and Director of THE KEENEY CENTER FOR SEIKI JUTSU, she is presently Distinguished Visiting Professor in Psychology, Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla (BUAP), Mexico and Adjunct Faculty in the Creative Systemic Studies doctoral concentration at the University of Louisiana. Having begun her career in the non-profit sector doing community and social justice work, she now advances the art of change in a wide variety of venues, from the therapeutic clinic to the social service agency, classroom, and theatre.  Hillary’s most recent books (co-authored with Bradford Keeney) include “Circular Therapeutics: Giving Therapy a Healing Heart”, “A Master Class in the Art of Performing Change”, and “Creative Therapeutic Technique”.
Bradford Keeney, Ph.D., is an internationally renowned traditional healer, creative therapist, cybernetician, anthropologist of cultural healing traditions, and improvisational performer. He is presently Professor and Hanna Spyker Eminent Scholars Chair, University of Louisiana, Monroe, and has served as a professor, founder, and director of clinical doctoral programs in numerous universities. He is the originator of several orientations to psychotherapy including improvisational therapy, resource focused therapy, and creative therapy. He is the author of 40 books including THE BUSHMAN WAY OF TRACKING GOD, which won the prestigious Silver Nautilus national book award.

Hillary and Brad Keeney speak with Joanna with open-hearted, contagious enthusiasm about their book “Circular Therapeutics: Giving Therapy a Healing Heart”, the upcoming two-year mentorship dedicated to promoting and advancing the wisdom of the world’s oldest ways of spiritual healing and renewal, and the open mysteries of the soulful Life Force

”I Can’t Sit Still”, original music by Evarusnik
http://www.evarusnik.com/Home.html

Bill Pfeiffer aka «Sky Otter» is the founder of Sacred Earth Network  which  implemented leading edge visions for almost 20 years. In that time, Bill made Russia a “second home” having traveled there 42 times – -giving him a rare cross-cultural perspective. He has 25 years of experience in Re-evaluation Counseling and Vipassana meditation, and has undergone extensive training with Siberian shamans as well as with Joanna Macy and John Perkins. He has also spent much time in the US Southwest learning about Native medicine ways and the crucial importance of the petroglyphs and pictographs.
Bill brings to all his work a dynamic mixture of open heartedness, sensitivity, and a fierce determination for a peaceful, sustainable future. He has been living in the forests of Nichewaug (Petersham) Massachusetts for 18 years.

He is the author of the forthcoming book “Wild Earth, Wild Soul: A Manual for Ecstatic Culture”.

http://billpfeiffer.org/

Bill speaks with Joanna about the attunement to planetary intelligence; “ancient future perception”; creating ecstatic culture together; experiencing our greater body; micelia and dendrites; a neuro-holographic miracle; travels in Siberia; honoring the elders; ecstatic kindness; petroglyphs, a cosmic language…

”I Can’t Sit Still”, original music by Evarusnik
http://www.evarusnik.com/Home.html

Richard Doyle earned his Ph.D. in Rhetoric at UC Berkeley. He was the Mellon Post Doctoral Fellow in History and Social Science of the Life Sciences at MIT in 1993. Professor of Rhetoric, Doyle holds appointments in English, Science Technology & Society and the College of Information Science and Technology at Penn State University and was Visiting Associate Professor at UC Berkeley, Department of Rhetoric in 2003.
Doyle teaches courses in the history and rhetoric of emerging technosciences – sustainability, space colonization, biotechnology, nanotechnology, psychedelic science, information technologies, biometrics – and the cultural and literary contexts from which they sprout.

Professor Doyle is the author of: “On Beyond Living: Rhetorical Transformations of the Life Sciences” (Stanford, 1997) and “Wetwares:Experiments in PostVital Living” ( Minnesota, 2003) – in a putative trilogy about emerging transhuman knowledges. Continuing his collaborative work on the “transhuman imperative”, Doyle (aka mobius) has now completed the trilogy with a scholarly book about archaic and contemporary psychedelic media technologies and the evolution of mind: Darwin’s Pharmacy: Sex, Plants, and the Evolution of Noosphere. Other current projects include a book, “Admixtures: Dialogues After Genomics” with Anthropologist Mark Shriver.  With Shriver Doyle founded the The Penn State Center for Altered Consciousness, investigating the genetics and phenomenology of legally altered consciousness with the help of a flotation tank.

More about mobius’ work and teaching can be found by browsing his web site.

Joanna and Richard talk about personal awareness of the Divine, a vast sense of belonging; a question as powerful as LSD; the love affair with everything; a curious assignment from ayahuasca…

”I Can’t Sit Still”, original music by Evarusnik
http://www.evarusnik.com/Home.html

Kingsley L. Dennis, PhD, is a sociologist, researcher, and writer. He is the author of “New Consciousness for a New World” (2011); as well as “The Struggle for Your Mind: Conscious Evolution & The Battle to Control How We Think” (2012). He co-authored “After the Car” (Polity, 2009), which examines post-peak oil societies and mobility. He is also the co-editor of “The New Science & Spirituality Reader” (2012) He is now collaborating with the new paradigm Giordano Bruno GlobalShift University, a co-initiator of the Worldshift Movement and co-founder of WorldShift International. His latest book is “Breaking the Spell: An Exploration of Human Perception”.

Kingsley is the author of numerous articles on complexity theory, social technologies, new media communications, and conscious evolution. He currently lives in Andalusia in Spain and is working on new book material. He continues to research, write, travel, grow his own vegetables, and seeks answers to many questions.

http://www.kingsleydennis.com/

Kingsley speaks with Joanna about the transitioning process we are experiencing; increasing of the “global empathic mind”; breaking the spell of conditioning; a new energy/consciousness; the inner homeland; our inherent belonging to the Earth/Cosmos…

Back by popular demand

Charles Eisenstein is a teacher, speaker, and writer focusing on themes of civilization, consciousness, money, and human cultural evolution. His writings on the web magazine Reality Sandwich have generated a vast online following; he speaks frequently at conferences and other events, and gives numerous interviews on radio and podcasts. Eisenstein graduated from Yale University in 1989 with a degree in Mathematics and Philosophy, and spent the next ten years as a Chinese-English translator.  His latest book is “Sacred Economics”.

http://charleseisenstein.net/

Charles speaks with Joanna about the divine masculine and the exploration of a new masculinity; the space between stories; changing the perception of scarcity; the intimacy and simplicity of transitioning; the dance of language and context; the new meaning of money; “the technologies of reunion”…

music: “Xoriak” (from “Xoriek”) by Mikel Laboa

Stephen Harrod Buhner is an Earth poet and the award-winning author of fifteen books on nature, indigenous cultures, the environment, and herbal medicine. Stephen lectures yearly throughout the United States on herbal medicine, the sacredness of plants, the intelligence of Nature, and the states of mind necessary for successful habitation of Earth.

His most recent works are: “Ensouling Language: On the Art of Nonfiction and the Writer’s Life”; “The Secret Teachings of Plants: The Intelligence of the Heart in the Direct Perception of Nature”; “Pine Pollen: Ancient Medicine for a Modern World”;”Herbal Antibiotics, Second Edition, Revised, Expanded, Updated: Natural Alternatives for Drug-Resistant Bacteria”; “Healing Lyme Coinfections: Complementary and Alternative Treatments for Bartonella and Mycoplasma”; “Herbal Antivirals: Natural Treatments for Emerging and Resistant Viral Infections”.

http://www.gaianstudies.org/index.html

Stephen speaks with Joanna about the connection between death & nature; the ecological function of entheogens; “everything is alive, intelligent and communicating”; reclaiming your feeling sense; the ecstatic journey into the heart of the world; the inherent genius of human beings…

Cecile Lipworth is the Managing Director/Campaigns Director of V-Day.

Founded by Eve Ensler, V-Day is a global movement of grassroots activists dedicated to generating broader attention and funds to stop violence against women and girls, including rape, battery, incest, female genital mutilation (FGM) and sex slavery.

On V-Day’s 15th Anniversary, 14 February 2013, we are inviting ONE BILLION women and those who love them to WALK OUT, DANCE, RISE UP, and DEMAND an end to this violence. ONE BILLION RISING will move the earth, activating women and men across every country. V-Day wants the world to see our collective strength, our numbers, our solidarity across borders.

http://onebillionrising.org/

“Break the Chain”, music by Tena Clark and Tim Heintz

Edith Turner is an anthropologist engaged in the study of ritual, religion and consciousness. She has been researching the field of symbol and ritual for 58 years, formerly in collaboration with Victor Turner. Edith Turner has researched traditional healing and its ritual implications, initiations in Africa, celebrations and festivals in the Americas, Europe, and the far north, and pilgrimage in Central America, Europe, and Asia.
Author of many books, among them: ” Heart of Lightness: The Life of an Anthropologist”, “Among the Healers: Stories of Spiritual and Ritual Healing Around the World”, and her latest “Communitas: The Anthropology of Collective Joy”.

http://anthropology.virginia.edu/faculty/profile/elt9w

Edith speaks with Joanna about what unites us; religions as experience; the reality of spirits; expanding the paradigm of reality;  the spiritual human potential; “the heart of lightness”; the organicity of spiritual traditions; communitas: collective joy; aging & complexity; remembering Victor Turner; a detective of the Spirit…

Erik Andrade is spoken word artist and community activist from New Bedford. He works with New Bedford youth through People Acting in Community Endeavor (PACE) YouthBuild New Bedford, as the AmeriCorps Program Coordinator and co-facilitator of the Sustainability, Leadership Development and Social Justice Workshops. Erik is the founding member of La Soul Renaissance and the Overflowing Cup Project. La Soul Renaissance is a local spoken word and hip hop venue which focuses on social justice issues and spirituality. The Overflowing Cup Project is an artist circle that works to encourage, recover and inspire creativity through a collective process. Erik is also a mentor and member of the Connecting for Change Youth Committee.

http://www.marioninstitute.org/connecting-for-change/events/erik-andrade

original music by Evarusnik

http://www.evarusnik.com/Home.html

Marsha Scarbrough is the author of the prize-winning book “Medicine Dance: One Woman’s Healing Journey into the World of Native American Sweat Lodges, Drumming Meditations and Dance Fasts”.  She’s also a freelance journalist with over 75 articles published in a wide variety of national magazines.  Beyond this she’s a graduate of the Director’s Guild of America’s prestigious Assistant Directors Training program and she spent 17 years scheduling, planning, and running the sets of major feature films, prime television series, movies of the week, and network sitcoms.  Along the way, Marsha traveled with Buddhist teacher Joan Halifax, danced with movement guru Gabrielle Roth, earned a brown belt in karate from martial arts legend Tak Kubota, practiced in healing ceremonies with Native American mystic Beautiful Painted Arrow Joseph Rael, and produced workshops from Nigerian master drummer and ceremonial leader Ayo Adeyemi.

http://www.marshascarbrough.com/

Marsha speaks with Joanna about her book “Medicine Dance: One woman’s healing journey into the world of Native American sweatlodges, drumming meditations and dance fasts”: healing ceremonies; a healing shift of perception;  freedom from fear; balance and the dance of energy/vibrations; drumming for answers; the resurgence of the First People; the teaching in the land; sex & intimacy; falling in love with the land…

original music by Evarusnik

http://www.evarusnik.com/Home.html

Speakers at Connecting For Change (2012)

Evon Peter, former Neetsaii Gwich’in Chief of Arctic Village, is devoted to supporting leadership development, wellness, and a balanced life. He is a writer at the Tundra Post, Chief Executive at Gwanzhii, and has over fifteen years experience working with Indigenous youth, organizations, and tribes implementing culturally based approaches. Over the past several years, he has focused substantially on healing and prevention of suicide among Alaska Native peoples. Evon loves the land, cultural food his people hunt and gather, music, to steam bath, his family, and storytelling (mostly the listening part :). He resides with his wife, Enei Begaye Peter, and four children in Fairbanks, Alaska.
http://www.marioninstitute.org/connecting-for-change/events/evon-peter
 www.evonpeter.com
www.gwanzhii.com

Evon speaks with Joanna about healing the deepest suffering; indigenous resilience; global warming in Alaska; healers and leaders of the future…

original music by Evarusnik

http://www.evarusnik.com/Home.html

Lee Irwin is a Professor in the Religious Studies Department at the College of Charleston where he teaches world religions with an emphasis on Native American traditions, western esotericism, hermeticism, contemporary spirituality, mystical cosmology, and transpersonal religious experience as related to dreams and visions. He is the Vice President of the Association for the Study of Esotericism (ASE) and a board member of the Sophia Institute and the Institute for Dream Studies. He has been a workshop leader and group facilitator for over twenty years, particularly in the areas of visionary cosmology and the development of the sacred human. He is the author of many books and articles, including: “The Dream Seekers”, “Visionary Worlds”, “Awakening to Spirit: On Life, Illumination, and Being”, “The Alchemy of Soul”, and “Coming Down From Above: Prophecy, Resistance, and Renewal in Native American Religions”.

http://religiousstudies.cofc.edu/about/faculty-staff-listing/irwin-lee.php

http://www.scribd.com/Lee_Irwin_2984/shelf

Lee speaks with Joanna about ecology and spiritual traditions; being in attunement with Gaia; the many ways of relating to the Earth; positive visions of the future; the mystery of the human soul and World soul; co-creating a beautiful world; the personal quest; the visionary “waking lucidity”; a practice of dream yoga; an invitation to personal transformation…

original music by Evarusnik

http://www.evarusnik.com/Home.html

Speakers at Connecting for Change (2012)

Mother and wife Ameena Matthews has dedicated her life and career as a Community Activist for Peace Building and Social Change. In 2006, Ameena Matthews joined Ceasefire, an award winning scientific public health model that has been proven to reduce shootings and killings. In this capacity, for the past six years, she has used her experience and knowledge in her neighborhoods, to seek out and build relationships with troubled youths who are susceptible to the social norms of violence that still exist on the streets.

Duration time: 21:38

http://www.marioninstitute.org/connecting-for-change/events/ameena-matthews
http://cureviolence.org/

Speakers at Connecting For Change (2012)

Arn Chorn-Pond, founder of Cambodian Living Arts,

is a Cambodian-American refugee and was featured in the Emmy-nominated documentary,”The Flute Player”. He is an internationally recognized human rights leader, speaker, and trainer. A former Director of Youth Programs for the Cambodian Mutual Assistance Association in Lowell, Massachussets, Arn served as a special advisor on Cambodian affairs for Clear Path International in early 2001. Arn currently resides in Cambodia, where he continues to be chief advocate of Cambodian Living Arts supporting elder Cambodian musicians and artists to pass on their invaluable practices to the younger generation.

Patricia McCormick is the author of five critically acclaimed books, including “Sold”, an investigation into child trafficking and finalist for the National Book Award, and “Never Fall Down”, which chronicles the survival of Arn Chorn Pond, an 11-year-old boy who survived the Khmer Rouge by playing music in the Killing Fields.

Duration time: 10:00

http://www.marioninstitute.org/cambodian-living-arts
http://patriciamccormick.com/

Michael Baldwin is the founder of Baldwin Brothers, Inc. in 1974, an investment advisor firm with over $800 million under management. Previously, he worked at Morgan Guaranty. In addition to his duties as President of Baldwin Brothers, Michael is also a trustee of the Nathaniel Saltonstall Arts Fund, The Garfield Foundation, and Northeast Growth Fund. Michael is also the founder of the Marion Institute, a non-profit organization, dedicated to teaching about alternative medicine and sustainability and he is co-founder of the Buddhayana Foundation. Michael has a BA from Harvard University.

http://www.marioninstitute.org/

http://www.baldwinbrothersinc.com/

Michael speaks with Joanna about discovery and healing; kindness and positive change; philanthropy and empathy; restoring the feeling of community; “Connecting for Change”…

original music by Evarusnik

http://www.evarusnik.com/Home.html

A talk by Joanna Harcourt-Smith at the Women’s Visionary Congress at the IONS Retreat Center, Petaluma, California (July 27-29, 2012).

The Women’s Visionary Congress (WVC) is a gathering of visionary women healers, scholars, activists and artists who study consciousness and altered states. The WVC supports the transfer of knowledge among women who apply the insights of their research and spiritual path. We gather annually on beautiful land in Northern California to renew our community of adventurers and visionaries, and hold one-day salons in many places.
http://visionarycongress.org/
Joanna talks about her escape from a repressive environment; her life-changing encounter and love relationship with Timothy Leary; her struggle to free Leary from prison; her healing journey towards sanity/wholeness; sanity is relationship; “I’m here to connect”; LSD, spirituality, beauty…; “I belong with you and you belong with me”…

Charles Eisenstein is a teacher, speaker, and writer focusing on themes of civilization, consciousness, money, and human cultural evolution. His writings on the web magazine Reality Sandwich have generated a vast online following; he speaks frequently at conferences and other events, and gives numerous interviews on radio and podcasts. Eisenstein graduated from Yale University in 1989 with a degree in Mathematics and Philosophy, and spent the next ten years as a Chinese-English translator.  His latest book is “Sacred Economics”.

http://charleseisenstein.net/

Charles speaks with Joanna about the divine masculine and the exploration of a new masculinity; the space between stories; changing the perception of scarcity; the intimacy and simplicity of transitioning; the dance of language and context; the new meaning of money; “the technologies of reunion”…

music: “Xoriak” (from “Xoriek”) by Mikel Laboa

Depth psychologist Craig Chalquist, MS PhD,  is a core faculty member in East-West Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies, a former core (now adjunct) faculty in the Department of Consciousness Studies at John F. Kennedy University, and on the Board of Directors for Holos Institute. He is the author of “Terrapsychology: Re-engaging the Soul of Place” (2007), “Deep California” (2008), “Storied Lives” (2009), and co-editor of with Linda Buzzell, MFT, of “Ecotherapy: Healing with Nature in Mind” (2009). He is also a Master Gardener through a partnership of the University of California with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

http://www.chalquist.com/

Craig speaks with Joanna about the psychlogical effects of climate change; a new perception of planet Earth; a healing dream about the future; “the media fast”; “eradigms”: archetypal worldviews; shadow work and eco-psychology; Jung’s “Red Book”: the Faustian ego;  eco-resilience circles…

Ken “Bear Hawk” Cohen, author of the critically acclaimed classic, Honoring the Medicine: The Essential Guide to Native American Healing (Random House, 2003), is a a health educator, a traditional healer, and scholar of indigenous medicine. He is the recipient of the Alyce and Elmer Green Award for Innovation and Lifetime Achievement in Energy Medicine. Although best known for his pioneering work in Chinese healing arts (qigong), he has followed the “red road” of Native American wisdom as his personal spiritual path for more than thirty years.

http://www.sacredearthcircle.com/index.html

Ken speaks with Joanna about Indigenous and Nature-based spirituality; similarities of ancient healing traditions; listening to the language of Spirit; indigenous European spirituality; the original Native American values; health, spirituality and Nature; the strong role of women in Native American culture; holistic healing…

music: “End” (from Ibero-Caucasian Style”) by The Shin

Marc Bregman founded Archetypal Dreamwork in 1973, is the Co-Founder and Co-Director of North of Eden and The Center for Archetypal Dreamwork and is on the North of Eden Executive Committee. Marc is a master Archetypal Dreamwork Therapist, in practice since 1973, a teacher and a trainer of teachers. He is the author of The Deep Well Tapes, The Secret of the Pomegranate, Sex, Trauma and Conjunctio and Hubris of the Heavens: Archetypal Dreamwork and Rudyharian Astrology.
Christa Lancaster is the Co-Founder and Co-Director of North of Eden and The Center for Archetypal Dreamwork and is on the North of Eden Executive Committee. Christa is a master Archetypal Dreamwork therapist, in practice since 1991, a teacher and trainer of teachers. She is the co-author with Marc Bregman of The Deep Well Tapes: Sex, Trauma and Conjunctio – it includes her spiritual memoir of her journey through this work called Vessel.
http://www.northofeden.com/
Christa and Marc speak with Joanna about “Flesh Off the Bone: Dream Descent through Past Life Trauma”; Jung’s Red Book; remembering the Cathar siege; Mary Magdalene and the inner Feminine; trauma and recovering the girl; the larger context of the past; alchemy: the inner/outer transformation; guidance from dreams…

music: “The Mysterious Fish Named Kun” (from “Three Organic Experiences”) by Aglaia

The Fairy & Human Relations Congress is an annual event in the North Central Cascades in Washington State, dedicated to promoting communication and co-creation with the Intelligence of Nature.
www.fairycongress.com

Matthew Sherrill was our special correspondant at the 2012 Fairy & Human Relations Congress. Matthew is a transpersonal spiritual guide and Energy healer.

Orion Foxwood is a conjurer in the Southern folk tradition, a traditional witch and a founding elder of the Foxwood Temple of the Old religion in Maryland, and the founder of a Faery Seership apprenticeship program. For over 20 years, he has lectured extensively on magical practices and spiritual development. He is the author of The Faery Teachings and The Tree of Enchantment. His most recent book A Candle and the Crossroads: A Book of Appalachian Conjure and Southern-Rootwork will be published in Nov’ 12.
www.orionfoxwood.com

Orion speaks with Matthew about “re-naturing” ourselves; the web that shapes us; the intelligent rhythms of life….

Moss Magill is an award winning playwright and poet, as well as an Ovate student in the Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids. He is also the co-founder of the Circle of Coll Druidic Seed Group in Seattle. Moss spends his time between Seattle and Port Townsend, Washington where he is a professional trainer, writer, and artist.
circleofcoll.org

Moss speaks with Matthew about the “tree walks”: practical inspirations for peace; “slow down, we can’t hear you;” finding peace inside the conflict; the heart connection…

Morgan Brent (MT Xen) has a PhD in anthropology, however he left academia after engagements with herbal healing traditions clued him into a vast Gaian intelligence, with which he became conversant, and soon allied with its purposes. He now specializes in the prescriptive teachings (Gaian dharma) of medicinal plants, aka ‘Nature’s plan to save the humans’. In service to this guidance, he writes articles and essays, births, collects, and strings together songs into malas of embodied story telling, and makes medicines of all kinds, among them events both large (Singing Alive Gatherings, now in their 6th year), and small (Creation-Song circles). These events are all about sharing songs (and prayers, chants, blessings, and song om) of personal and planetary renewal ~ which he considers food for a spiritually hungry world.
www.tribesofcreation.com

Morgan speaks with Matthew about entheogens; the “Gaian immune system;” ayahuasca and planetary awakening; cultural midwifes and the deeper, transpersonal levels of imagination…

The Fairy & Human Relations Congress is an annual event in the North Central Cascades in Washington State, dedicated to promoting communication and co-creation with the Intelligence of Nature.
www.fairycongress.com

Matthew Sherrill was our special correspondant at the 2012 Fairy & Human Relations Congress. Matthew is a transpersonal spiritual guide and Energy healer.

Deborah Koff-Chapin is an artist, vocalist, author, teacher, independent publisher. She is the originator of the process of Touch Drawing and the author of “Drawing Out Your Soul” and “The Touch Drawing Facilitator Workbook”. She has produced multi-media educational media including a video, audio CD’s and Touch Drawing materials kits. Each summer since 1997, she has convened the Annual Touch Drawing Gathering, which attracts an international community of Touch Drawing practitioners and facilitators. Deborah lives with her husband, architect Ross Chapin, on an island in Puget Sound. Together they co-founded a multi-modal sacred arts circle, which has been ongoing since its inception in 1983.

http://www.touchdrawing.com/

Deborah speaks with Matthew about the imaginal journey with touchdrawing; bridging the past and the future through art; and Gaian inspiration of this art approach…

Michael Dunning was born in Glasgow, Scotland. He experienced a ten-year period of healing and a shamanic initiation through Nature, that took place under the vast enclosure of a yew tree. Michael believes that the yew tree was once regarded by the indigenous and pre-Celtic shaman-healers (Druids) as a great source of occult knowledge holding the keys to an an ancient and embryonic language of healing and rejuvenation. Michael teaches in US and UK. In 2009 he founded the Sacred Yew Institute. The institute offers a two-year professional training in Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy as well as workshops and lectures on the history of the yew tree, Yewshamanism and Occult -Embryology. In 2012 Michael will be introducing The Essence of the Five Trees Teachings. These teachings will bring all the elements of his work with the yew and the Elemental beings in Scotland together for the first time.

www.yewshamanism.com

Michael speaks with Matthew about his initiatic experience with the yew tree; “the embryonic Tree of Life;” filogenetic recapitulation; “the mother of all trees;” and “the chambers of the unborn”…

Hillary S. Webb, PhD., is the Managing Editor of Anthropology of Consciousness, the peer-reviewed journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Consciousness and the former Research Director at The Monroe Institute. Having received her undergraduate degree in Journalism from New York University, Dr. Webb went on to earn an MA in Consciousness Studies from Goddard College and a PhD in Psychology from Saybrook University. She is the author of “Exploring Shamanism, Traveling Between the Worlds: Conversations with Contemporary Shamans,” and “Yanantin and Masintin in the Andean World: Complementary Dualism in Modern Peru.” She lives in Southern Maine.

www.hillaryswebb.com

Hillary speaks with Joanna about the Andean concept of “Yanantin”(complementary opposites), she reads a fascinating fragment from her latest book; a different view on the past and the future; healing & shamanism; “Tinkuy:” testing the boundaries; a deep experience of awe; cultural cross-pollination; the dynamic balance of life; limitless consciousness…

Music: “Plegaria a los Dioses Montaña” by Manuelcha Prado

Tim Ward is an author, publisher, teacher, and traveler. He has written five books about his travels through Thailand, India, China, Tibet, Greece and Southern Europe, and most recently East Africa, among them: Savage Breast: One Man’s Search for the Goddess, What Buddha Never Taught, and Zombies on Kilimanjaro: A Father/Son Journey Above the Clouds. His stories have appeared in 13 anthologies, including Traveler’s Tales Best Travel Writing 2006, 2010, 2011 and 2012. Tim is also the publisher of Changemakers Books, an imprint of John Hunt Publishing, dedicated to books on personal and global transformation. Together with John Hunt, Tim wrote The Author’s Guide to Publishing and Marketing, a book to help new authors succeed. Tim also co-owns a global training business, Intermedia Communications Training, with his wife and business partner, Teresa Erickson. They teach scientists, economists and development experts how to communicate effectively.

www.zombiesonkilimanjaro.com

Tim speaks with Joanna about the alchemy of the feminine and masculine; “post-patriarchal masculine;” healing the father/son relationship; the light of the shadow; memes: the spread of ideas; truth and storytelling; the magic of stories, masculine rite of passage; mountain climbing as shamanic vision quest; crafting new, soul-awakening narratives; loving the paradox…

Music: “O papa” (from “Sinbad en Galicia“) by Emilio Cao

Stephen Karcher, Ph.D., is one of today’s most creative and controversial writers and practitioners in the field of Yijing studies, divination and myth. He is an internationally recognized scholar, translator and initiated diviner, teaching and lecturing on the Yijing and other divination systems in the US, Great Britain, France, Spain, Switzerland and South Africa. As Research Director of the Eranos Foundation in Ascona, Switzerland (1988-1996), he pioneered a depth psychological approach to divination. A prolific author, he has published many books and articles in the field of comparative mythology, divination, depth psychology and religious experience; among them, The Kuan Yin Oracle: The Voice of the Goddess of Compassion and Total I Ching: Myths for Change

www.stephenkarcher.com

Joanna speaks with Stephen about Kuan Yin, communication with the unseen world, “the rainmaker story,” divination and meaning, rediscovering the original I Ching, “the animals of the psyche,” psychoactive language, the healing way: bringing the opposites together…

Music: “In Thoughts of an Old Friend” (from “The Sound of Silk and Bamboo“) by Louis Chen & Friends, Ya Dong

Khepe-Ra Maat-Het Heru is one of the original members of The The E.S.H.U. Collective, a grassroots transformational leadership system based in Spiritual Warriorship established in 1997. Through her work with ESHU she has consulted with various programs such as The Marion Institute, The Massachusetts Commission for National and Community Service, YouthBuild USA, NeighborWorks America, Youth Recreation Counsel of Bermuda, Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate youth program of The Lake Traverse Reservation, Global Passageways first international rites of passage Hilo, Hawaii and many more. In 2010 ESHU and Green Jobs of The Marion Institute created POWER as an eco-warrior training model. Khepe-Ra is a skilled and passionate educator, artist, visionary and spiritual warrior. She has been a keynote speaker for The Bioneers Conference, a presenter/performer at YouthBuild USA’s 20th and 30th national anniversary days of action in D.C., and facilitated National Youth Symposiums and Community Leadership Institutes and others over the last fifteen years. She is an active member and supporter of the Decolonize/Occupy movements.

www.marioninstitute.org/about-us/marion-institute-team

Khepe-Ra speaks with Joanna about developing an intimate relationship with the Elements and Spirit, spirituality and leadership development, the “spiritual warrior” project, “holographic kinetics,” the voice of the feminine, connecting to the Earth, freedom and spiritual activism, coming into sacred space with each other…

Music: ‘Breathing,” (from EarthLight) by A Tree Within

Requa Tolbert is a psychiatric nurse, psychedelic researcher and medicine artist who lives in the desert Southwest with her beloved, George. From 1980 to 1985, George Greer and his wife, Requa Tolbert, conducted over 100 MDMA therapeutic sessions for 80 individuals; this is the largest published study of the use of MDMA in a therapeutic setting.

www.stormridercards.com

Requa speaks with Joanna about the card deck and the book she has created – “The Stormrider Calling Cards;” “the medicine of the moment”; water as the blood of life; “healer, heal thyself;” the alchemical medicines; ceremony, community and the divine feminine…

Music: “Soso Soso” (from “Mushroom Ceremonies of the Mazatec Indians“) by María Sabina

Marja de Vries studied biology and ecology and worked more than 10 years as fabric artist. Looking for answers to the question “How can we, human beings, live in harmony with nature?” she visited several indigenous people and developed intuitive communication with nature.

Since 2003 she is fully dedicated to contribute to a worldwide tranformation and the creation of a world in which everything and everyone can live in harmony with all and everything. Because the way we teach and educate – together with the way we raise our children – plays a key role here, her focus was first mainly on the tranformation of learning and educations, so it will be more in line with who we and our children in essence are. Since the publication of her book The Whole Elephant Revealed in Dutch in 2007, of which already 10.000 copies are sold, she is an often asked for speaker and is invited by many different organisations to give a presentation. Most often she is asked to talk about the universal laws, but recently also about ‘Societies in Balance’ the subject of her second book she is still working on.

www.marjadevries.nl

Marja speaks with Joanna about the principles of order, harmony and dynamic balance in Nature; restoring the dymanic balance between the masculine and the feminine; human being and Nature in a holistic worldview; “the original instructions;” wisdom traditions and the universal laws; epigenetics and quantum entanglement; different levels of reality; conscious evolution…

Music: “La Selva” (field recording) by Francisco López

Jeffrey John Kripal, Ph.D., is the J. Newton Rayzor Professor of Philosophy and Religious Thought (and Chairman of the Department of Religious Studies) at Rice University in Houston, Texas. His work includes the study of comparative erotics and ethics in mystical literature, American countercultural translations of Asian religions, and the history of Western esotericism from gnosticism to New Age religions. He is also one of the leading scholars at the Esalen Institute’s Center for Theory and Research. He is the author – among other books – of: “The Serpent’s Gift: Gnostic Reflections on the Study of Religion”; “Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion”; “Authors of the Impossible: The Paranormal and the Sacred”; and his latest book “Mutants and Mystics: Science Fiction, Superhero Comics, and the Paranormal” (2011).

kripal.rice.edu

Jeffrey speaks with Joanna about the relationship between sexuality and mystical states – a western taboo, the “paranormal” as symbolic of emerging realities, “authorization:” taking responsibility for our cultural stories; his transpersonal life-changing experience in Calcutta; the essence of the Gnostic message; and mystics and superheroes…

Music: “El Contador de Historias/The Storyteller” (from Nierika) by Jorge Reyes.

Dr. Robert K.C. Forman is a professor of comparative religions, (CUNY), and founder of the Forge Institute. He routinely gives lectures, trainings and workshops around the world. He was the co-founder and is executive editor of The Journal of Consciousness Studies, which has become the principle journal in the field. He is also the author of ten scholarly books on spirituality, mysticism, consciousness and world religions. His latest book is Enlightenment Ain’t What It’s Cracked Up To Be: A Journey of Discovery, Snow and Jazz in the Soul.

Robert speaks with Joanna about the soulful simplicity and beauty of everyday Enlightenment, the challenge and blessing of truth-telling, the relationship between psychology and spirituality, “spacious honesty”…

http://enlightenmentaint.com/
http://godeepertogether.com/

Music: “Words of Truth” (from “The Garden Of Mirrors“) by Stephan Micus

Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D., is an educator and political scientist focusing on the transformation of diplomacy and international conflicts. Merle recently held an appointment as Guest Scientist and Affiliate at the Center for Nonlinear Studies at Los Alamos National Laboratory, investigating the application of Complexity science to peaceful coexistence among diverse identity groups.After finishing her graduate work she was detailed to The White House Office of Public Liaison under President Carter. She has led Track Two diplomatic negotiations in Central America, Northern Ireland, and the Middle East, and more recently on nuclear disarmorment and nuclear non-proliferation She is a former Advisor to the Kellogg National Leadership Program of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and presents training workshops in complexity thinking for social change. She has been a member of two committees of the National Academy of Sciences. She is a Lindisfane Fellow and member of the Board of the Upaya Zen Center, where she teaches in the Buddhist Chaplaincy certification program.

Merle speaks with Joanna about what is complexity (“a science of surprise”), systemic humility; adaptability in complexity theory: “robustness;” new methods of peacemaking; Israel-Iran conflict; Nobel’s women initiative; contemplative imagination: storying the future; “Gross National Happiness;” Occupy Wall Street as an emergent process; the “shared leadership model”…

Music: “Blossom” from Nuzha (Promenade), by Adel Samameh, Naziha Assoz, Eyal Sela, Asaf Sirkis

Jan is a pragmatic dreamer and licensed psychotherapist, in practice for over 25 years. She is the director of Holos Institute where she provides most of the individual and group supervision, oversees clinical policies and operations, and organizes the public educational programs. Her work is based upon her faith in the inherent wisdom each being carries within. She believes that healing is a process of coming into an active relationship with that wisdom. She calls upon metaphors and archetypal patterns of nature to mirror the inherent wholeness of each person.

Jan’s psychotherapy practice is informed by many years of traditional study in self-psychology, family systems and Jungian depth psychology. She received her BA in psychology from Rutgers University, completing her graduate study at the New School for Social Research and the University of San Francisco. She has also studied at the San Francisco Jung Institute, and trained in Ericksonian hypnotherapy, EMDR, Imago couples therapy, Process Acupressure, and a number of private studies with indigenous healers. Alongside her professional training, Jan has a lifetime of intuitive experiences and a personal spiritual practice which includes the study of integral yoga, mindfulness meditation, shamanism and earth-based wisdom traditions.

www.holosinstitute.net

Jan speaks with Joanna about evolutionary spirituality; outdoor therapy: re-connecting with the healing Psyche of Nature; love: letting the Life Force flow…; latest developments in eco-psychology, the cathartic power of beauty…

Music: “Tejido de Sueños (Tissue of Dreams)” from Niérika, by Jorge Reyes

Joan Halifax is a Zen Buddhist Roshi, anthropologist, ecologist, civil rights activist, hospice caregiver, and the author of several books on Buddhism and Spirituality. She currently serves as abbot and guiding teacher of Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico, a Zen Peacemaker community which she founded in 1990. In the 1970s she collaborated on LSD research projects with her ex-husband Stanislav Grof, in addition to other collaborative efforts with Joseph Campbell and Alan Lomax. She is founder of the Ojai Foundation in California, which she led from 1979 to 1989. As a socially engaged Buddhist, Halifax has done extensive work with the dying through her Project on Being with Dying (which she founded). She is on the board of directors of the Mind and Life Institute, a non-profit organization dedicated in exploring the relationship of science and Buddhism.

Roshi Joan speaks with Joanna about aging and death, engaged Buddhism and systemic activism, personal and social transformation, the historic significance of LSD as a Dharma door, embodied compassion with dying people, speaking truth to power…

Music: “Song without words to Bohdana Pivnenko, I.-Elegy”  (from Fleeting Melodies) by Valentin Silvestrov {Bohdana Pivnenko (violin) and Valeriy Matiukhin (piano) }

Rev. Cynthia Brix is an interfaith minister and Co-Director of Satyana Institute. Cynthia is co-director of the Gender Reconciliation International project, and co-founder of the Women’s Spiritual Mastery project. She was formerly a campus minister at the University of Colorado for United Ministries of Higher Education, and she led meditation workshops at regional and national Unitarian Universalist conferences. Cynthia co-chaired the Race Relations Committee for the City of Muncie, Indiana, and later initiated an interfaith project to address racial tensions at the University of Colorado-Boulder. She is a long-time student of Eknath Easwaran’s Passage Meditation. She earned her master’s of divinity from Iliff School of Theology (2006) and her master’s degree in wellness management and applied gerontology from Ball State University (1999). Cynthia is contributing author of Divine Duality: The Power of Reconciliation between Women and Men (Hohm Press, 2007), and co-author of Women Healing Women (Hohm Press, 2009).

William Keepin is co-founder and Co-Director of Satyana Institute. Will founded the Gender Reconciliation International project (also called Power of Reconciliation), which has organized more than 75 intensive gatherings in seven countries for healing and reconciliation between women and men. A mathematical physicist with thirty scientific publications on sustainable energy and global warming, he presented testimony to European and Australian parliaments and the US House of Representatives, and became a whistleblower in nuclear science policy. Will began practicing silent meditation in 1982, trained extensively in spiritual traditions East and West, holds an M.A. degree in East-West psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies, and has facilitated Holotropic Breathwork for 20 years (Grof Transpersonal Training). He is a Fellow of the Findhorn Foundation. Will is author of Divine Duality: The Power of Reconciliation between Women and Men (Hohm Press, 2007), co-author of Women Healing Women (Hohm Press, 2009), and his new book is “Song of the Earth: The Emerging Synthesis of Spiritual and Scientific Worldviews” (Permanent Publications, London, UK, 2012).

www.satyana.org

www.genderreconciliationinternational.org

Will Keepin and Rev. Cynthia Brix speak with Joanna about the different facets of their work, the common roots of abuse of the earth and women, , archetypal wounding, reclaiming the sacredness of the Earth, group healing of men and women together, increasing numbers of men healing the inner femenine, “Divine Duality”, transformation through truth-sharing, “healing the gender wound in the human family.”

Music: “Aza Izy Izay” – Mireille & Tselonina (18 World Network Madagascar. World Network Series)

Kingsley Dennis, PhD, is a sociologist, researcher, and writer. He is the author of numerous articles on complexity theory, social technologies, new media communications, and conscious evolution. He co-authored After the Car (Polity, 2009), which examines post-peak oil societies and mobility. He is the author of the forthcoming book New Consciousness for a New World (2011); as well as “The Struggle for Your Mind: Conscious Evolution & The Battle to Control How We Think” (2012). Kingsley worked in the Sociology Dept. at Lancaster University, UK, and is now a visiting fellow at the Centre for Mobilities Research (CeMoRe) at Lancaster Uni. He is now collaborating with the new paradigm Giordano Bruno GlobalShift University, a co-initiator of the Worldshift Movement and co-founder of WorldShift International.

www.kingsleydennis.com

Kingsley Dennis speaks with Joanna about “Worldshift International;” is it time for breakdown or breakthrough? … social change and the field effect of consciousness; biophysics:our bodies as fields of light; the binding energy of love; a language beyond words; a message for young people; “The Struggle for Your Mind;” trusting our intuition and finding meaning…

Music: “Banga Banga” (from African Rhythms), Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Aka Pygmies

Geoff Oelsner has built a following as a performer both of his own songs and of poems which he sometimes sets to music or chants and recites to the accompaniment of guitar, harmonica, dulcimer, autoharp, harmonium, and the shruti box (a drone instrument from India). He has released 2 CD’s of original songs, Morning Branches and Ordinary Mystery with musician friends, including Kelly Mulhollan and Leslie. Geoff has published a collection of his poetry, Native Joy: poems songs visions dreams (1963-2003) (2003, Trafford) and his work has been featured in several other books, including Writing Poetry from the Inside Out by Sandford Lyne (Sourcebooks Inc., 2007). His new book, A Country Where All Colors Are Sacred and Alive, A Memoir of Non-Ordinary Experience and Collaboration with Nature (2012) is now available from Lorian Press.

A Buddhist meditator since 1974, Geoff founded the Buddhist Meditation and Spiritual Support Group in 1995. As a licensed certified social worker in private practice of psychotherapy in Arkansas since 1982, Geoff also utilizes poetry therapy with selected clients in psychotherapy. He is committed to sharing the healing and inspirational power of poetry, music, and story with the community.

A long time environmental activist and researcher, Geoff co-authored a book titled Fighting Radiation and Chemical Pollutants with Foods, Herbs,and Vitamins (1992). He is presently involved in several environmental initiatives, including the Psi-Sci Alliance project, which brings together established climate scientists with highly qualified intuitives to innovate new approaches to addressing and ameliorating climate change.

www.geoffoelsner.com

Geoff Oelsner speaks with Joanna about his deep love and connection with the natural world, transpersonal experiences in Nature, the emergence of a spiritual form of environmental activism…

Music: “The Sacred Hoop” (from Morning Branches) by Geoff Oelsner.

Ruth Zaporah is a New Mexico based performance artist, director and teacher. She is internationally known for her innovative work in performance and performance training, particularly in the field of physical theater improvisation. Zaporah spends much of her time on tour, performing and leading trainings both nationally and internationally. She is a two-time recipient of National Endowment Choreography Fellowships. She is the author of “Action Theater: The Improvisation of Presence”.

http://www.actiontheater.com/index.htm

Ruth speaks with Joanna about Action Theater – an improvisational training process developed by her; the dance of the imaginal and the body, presence and relation to the world, acceptance, “emotional seasoning,” coming back to the body … among other topics.

Music: “Codona” (from The Codona Trilogy) by Don Cherry, Nana Vasconcelos, Colin Walcott