Sounds of SAND

Osprey Orielle Lake is the Founder and Executive Director of Women’s Earth & Climate Action Network, International (WECAN). She works nationally and internationally with grassroots, Indigenous and business leaders, policy-makers and scientists to promote climate justice, resilient communities, and a just transition to a clean energy future. Osprey is Co-chair of International Advocacy for the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature and the visionary behind the International Women's Earth and Climate Summit, which brought together 100 women leaders from around the world to draft and implement a Women's Climate Action Agenda. She teaches international climate trainings and directs WECAN’s advocacy work in areas such as Women for Forests, Rights of Nature and UN Forums. She has served on the board of the Praxis Peace Institute and on the Steering Committee for The UN Women’s Major Group for the Rio+20 Earth Summit. Awards include the National Women’s History Project Honoree, Taking The Lead To Save Our Planet, and the Woman Of The Year Outstanding Achievement Award from the California Federation Of Business And Professional Women.  Osprey is the author of the award-winning book, Uprisings for the Earth: Reconnecting Culture with Nature.Her new book is The Story is in Our Bones: How Worldviews and Climate Justice Can Remake a World in Crisis Topics: 00:00 — Introduction 08:05 — Path to the Book 14:42 — Moderns and Ancient Science 20:24 — Integrative and Interconnected Ways Forward  25:28 — Gaza and the Polycrisis 35:28 — Composting Cultural Toxins 42:00 — Remembering How to Listen 45:40 — Stories of Resilience Support the mission of SAND the production of this podcast by becoming a SAND Member.

A recording of excerpts from a live SAND Community Gathering hosted by Zaya and Maurizio Benazzo. In these times of unbearable anguish, as the already beleaguered Palestinian community is being massacred and starved before our astonished eyes, our own grieving flows into the sea of human suffering and we remember that we belong to each other. Mirabai Starr is an award-winning author of creative non-fiction and contemporary translations of sacred literature. She taught Philosophy and World Religions at the University of New Mexico-Taos for 20 years and now teaches and speaks internationally on contemplative practice and inter-spiritual dialog. A certified bereavement counselor, Mirabai helps mourners harness the transformational power of loss. Her latest book, WILD MERCY: Living the Fierce & Tender Wisdom of the Women Mystics, was named one of the “Best Books of 2019”. She lives with her extended family in the mountains of northern New Mexico. Mona Haydar is a young Muslim Syrian-American poet, musician, workshop leader and speaker who gained global recognition through her “Ask A Muslim” project and the viral hip-hop music video “Hijabi (Wrap My Hijab).” Her debut EP “Barbarican” addresses global patriarchy, orientalism, immigration policy, white supremacy, and suicide. A Master’s graduate in Theology from Union Theological Seminary, Mona speaks at churches, synagogues, universities and international forums, engaging audiences on art, Islam, feminism, hip hop, theology, and interfaith dialogue. Topics   00:00 — Introduction 06:52 — Mirabai’s Introduction 16:42 — Mona’s Introduction 21:06 — Interfaith Teachings on Grief 32:40 — Islamic Teachings on Grief 41:58 — The Grief of Loss 50:11 — Closing Prayer 55:58 — Song from Desiree Dawson & Mona Hayder Support the mission of SAND the production of this podcast by becoming a SAND Member: Also mentioned in this episode is SAND’s Fundraiser to help relocate a family from the Genocide in Gaza.

Taoist practitioner, Mattias Daly, discusses the core principles of Taoism, the path of Inner Alchemy, and the importance of heart practice. Topics include energies of Inner Alchemy, Chan Buddhism, and navigating the Polycrisis. Daly provides insights into translating Taoist texts and the intricate processes of Daoist alchemy.

Resilience expert and trauma therapist Peter A. Levine shares his personal journey of resolving childhood trauma, touching on topics such as writing about trauma, uncovering layers of trauma, intimate relationships, encounters with past life trauma, ancestral healing, and connections to ancient healing practices. The podcast explores the power of storytelling, Indigenous healing, and the importance of communal healing and unity.

Reem (DRĖĖĖMY) Abdou is a native Egyptian international interdisciplinary sound artist, embodiment and meditation guide, curator, cultural worker, and community building founder of the inclusive global impact agency for women+ & BIPOC holistic artists: The Collective BAE. As an intentional DJ and spoken word poet, her work harnesses music, movement, and meditation to activate real shifts at the intersection of transformational creativity, social and healing justice, and ecosystem consciousness. Links: www.dreeemy.com instagram.com/dreeemy www.collectivebae.com   Upcoming projects: Join The BAE (RE)MEMBERSHIPS: An Ecology of Care for Conscious Creatives. We'll be launching a full training course this May. The release of the 2nd EP: SALTWATERS in the Mother & Water project. It will be released this May. Topics: 00:00 — Introduction 03:00 — Ancestry & Dream work 06:45 — Communities 11:19 — Bass Yoga 17:19 — Gradients & Binaries 23:17 — Ecologies of Care 32:33 — Sacred Activism 36:51 — Post-COVID Shift 45:31 — Egyptian Lineage 53:44 — Upcoming Projects Support the mission of SAND the production of this podcast by becoming a SAND Member:

Rev Deborah L Johnson (Rev D) is a dynamic organizer, strategist, facilitator, public speaker, andspoken word artist, known for her ability to bring clarity to complex and emotionally chargedissues with humor and compassion. As an organizational consultant specializing in culturaldiversity, she serves the public, private, non-profit, and military sectors. Her clients haveincluded, MCA Universal, ATT, Apple Inc, Hewlett Packard, Kaiser Permanente, US Coast GuardAcademy, Ford Foundation, SBC Communications, UCSF, Prudential, and Kodak. Rev Deborah isa successful co-litigant in two landmark civil rights cases in California. The first resulted in theinclusion of sexual orientation in the state’s Civil Rights Bill in 1984 setting a national precedent,while the second staved off repeal of the state’s Domestic Partnership in 2005. For her social justice work, she has been featured in numerous books and films including Showtime’s Jumpin’ The Broom and has received many lifetime achievement awards including induction into the Board of Preachers at the MLK Jr. Chapel of Morehouse College. RevD's Upcoming Courses: Yes to OnenessThe 6-session “YES to Oneness” workshop is preventative medicine for divisiveness. Guided by divine downloads from my books The Sacred YES and Your Deepest Intent, we’ll go on a spiritually transformative experience.  How to DepolarizeThe 3-session “How to Depolarize” workshop provides diagnostic techniques and treatment plans for divisiveness. It is an interactive skills building practicum based on my 40+ years as a movement organizer, corporate DEI consultant, spiritual leader, and successful co-litigant in two landmark civil rights cases. This workshop expands upon the concepts I recently presented at Harvard Divinity School.   Topics: 0:00 — Introduction  2:51 — Reconnecting Post-Pandemic 4:29 — Keeping Hope Alive 7:41 — On Nonduality 12:27 — Balancing Social Justice 19:59 — Everything is in Vibrations of Possibilities 25:58 — Interfaith / Omnifaith Exploration 33:14 — Reconnecting to our Natural State 40:06 — Knowing Truth 45:10 — Advice for Burnout and Connection 50:42 — Learning and Growing in Community Support the mission of SAND the production of this podcast by becoming a SAND Member

A recording of excerpts from a SAND Community Gathering hosted by Zaya and Maurizio Benazzo. Trauma has a way of separating us from parts of ourselves. Painful experiences cause protective parts to take over, isolating our inner wounds in an effort to help us survive. Yet, avoiding our emotional injuries rarely leads to true healing. In this conversation, Internal Family System (IFS) founder Richard Schwartz outlined how to transform our relationship with the wounded parts holding our unresolved injuries. Richard C. Schwartz, PhD, is the creator of Internal Family Systems, a highly effective, evidence-based therapeutic model that de-pathologizes the multi-part personality. His IFS Institute offers training for professionals and the general public. He is currently on the faculty of Harvard Medical School, and has published five books, including No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model. Dick lives with his wife Jeanne near Chicago, close to his three daughters and his growing number of grandchildren. Topics: 00:00 – Introduction 02:00 –  Intro to Internal Family System (IFS) 16:48 – IFS work with Maurizio 29:16 – Ancestor and Legacy Work 38:12 – Altered States of Consciousness in IFS Work 44:20 – Exiled Parts That Become Cultural Patterns Support the mission of SAND the production of this podcast by becoming a SAND Member.

Daniel Maté, a composer and co-author of 'The Myth of Normal,' joins his father, Dr. Gabor Maté, a trauma expert, along with breathing specialist Betsy Polatin. They discuss the emotional turmoil caused by the crisis in Gaza, emphasizing the importance of compassionate communication across differing beliefs. Listeners are guided through meditative practices to ground their emotions during these heavy conversations. The duo reflects on personal experiences and stresses the need for understanding history and emotional complexity in order to foster meaningful dialogue and connection.

Mauro Zappaterra, MD/PhD from Harvard, discusses alternative healing, sound therapy, and CSF guided meditation. Explores holistic medicine, chronic pain, and the merging of science, spirituality, and regenerative medicine. Shares insights on balancing nervous systems for health and the power of integrating therapies for healing.

"This is a spiritual test, this is a spiritual war, as much as it is a material one. People say, ‘As above, so below.’ How we are interfacing with the physical realities of this moment, the ways that we are leveraging our daily energy are either making us complicit with life's desecration or helping us to affirm life and the spirit of resistance. The battle that we are in is right now!"— Layla K. Feghali on the violence in Gaza, Sounds of SAND, Ep. #76We are now over four months into a worsening genocide in Gaza — with over 30,000 murdered and over 2 million now enduring military-enforced famine enacted by Israel, the US, and their global allies. There is no way a 90-minute teaching can impact the depth of sorrow, injustice, betrayal, and state-sponsored violence unfolding in Palestine. And yet, we share a moral obligation to resist the life-desecrating forces at work. In this gathering, our three guests share of their personal attempts as Earth-honoring ritualists and educators to embody core values and take tangible action in a time of genocide. Calls to Action to Support these GoFundMe Campaigns:  SAND’s GoFundMe to help Amina & her family Layla Feghali’s connection to Ahmed Al Munirawi’s campaign Layla Feghali’s connection to Reem Shaheen’s campaign   Guests:Daniel Foor is a doctor of psychology, experienced ritualist, and the author of Ancestral Medicine: Rituals for Personal and Family Healing. He is a practicing Muslim and initiate in the Òrìṣà tradition of Yoruba-speaking West Africa who has also learned from Mahayan Buddhism and the older ways of his English and German ancestors. Daniel was a U.S. Fulbright scholar in Cairo, Egypt as a student of Arabic language, and he is passionate about generational healing and training leaders and change makers in the intersections of cultural healing, animist ethics, and applied ritual arts. He lives with his wife and daughters near his adoptive home of Granada, Spain in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Taya Mâ Shere is a ritual artist embracing embodied, earth-honoring devotion as liberatory spiritual practice. She serves as a professor of Organic Multi-Religious Ritual at Starr King School for the Ministry and co-weaves Makam Shekhina, a Jewish and Sufi Muslim multi-religious community committed to counter-oppressive spiritual practice. Taya Mâ hosts the acclaimed podcast, Jewish Ancestral Healing and The Sarah & Hajar Series: Sacred Practice and Possibility at the Intersections of Judaism and Islam. She is currently tending Ceasefire movement chaplaincy and From the Deep, an emergent mystery school of earth-reverent ritual and counter-oppressive devotion. She co-founded the Kohenet movement and  is co-author of The Hebrew Priestess: Ancient and New Visions of Jewish Women’s Spiritual Leadership. Her five albums of sacred chant have been heralded as “cutting-edge mystic medicine music.”Layla K. Feghali is an ethnobotanist, cultural worker, and author who lives between her ancestral village in Lebanon and her diasporic home in California, where she was born and raised. Her dedication is the stewardship of our earth’s eco-cultural integrity and the many layers of relational restoration, systemic reckoning, and healing that entails. Feghali offers a line of plantcestral medicine and other culturally-rooted offerings, with an emphasis on Southwest Asia and its diasporas. Her recent book, The Land in Our Bones, documents cultural herbal and healing knowledge from Syria to the Sinai, while interrogating colonialism and its lingering wounds on the culture of our displaced world.   Topics:   00:00:00 — Introduction 00:05:43 — Daniel Foor 00:21:44 — Taya Mâ Shere 00:35:44 — Layla K. Feghali 01:00:28 — Guided Practice 01:10:22 — Questions from the Event Chat 01:20:29 — Yeye Luisha Teish 01:23:48 — Closing Statements   Support the mission of SAND the production of this podcast by becoming a SAND Member