The New Dimensions Café

Cynthia Spring is a media producer and for 20 years was deeply involved in local ecology in the San Francisco Bay area. Her most recent book, is a collaboration beyond the veil of death between herself and the late Dr. Francis Vaughan who passed from this life in 2017. Cynthia's books include The Wave and The Drop: Wisdom Stories About Death and Afterlife (Wisdom Circles Publishing 2018) and Seven Questions About Life After Life: Book One (with Frances Vaughan)(Wisdom Circles Publishing 2019)Interview Date: 9/30/2019   Tags: Cynthia Spring, Dr. Frances Vaughan, Matthew McKay, death, Nirvana, soul, loss, grief, other side of death, animal companions that have did, Michael Toms’ Mother’s death story, Grateful Dead, learning doesn’t stop at death, our perilous time in history, Omnipresence, Joseph Campbell, Huston Smith, direct experience, a greater reality, contacting loved ones across the veil, Personal Transformation, Death & Dying, Parapsychology/Paranormal, Intuition/Psychic, social change/Politics

Terry Tempest Williams is a naturalist, environmentalist, and award-winning author. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and her work is widely taught and anthologized around the world. On the 50th Anniversary of the Wilderness Act, Ms. Williams received the Sierra Club’s John Muir Award honoring a distinguished record of leadership in American conservation. She currently is the writer in residence at Harvard Divinity School and divides her time between Cambridge, Massachusetts and Castle Valley, Utah. She is the author of many books including: Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place (Pantheon 1991), Red: Patience and Passion in the Desert (Vintage Books 2002), An Unspoken Hunger: Stories from the Field (Vintage Books 1995), Leap (Vintage 2001), Red: Patience and Passion in the Desert (Vintage Books 2002), The Open Space of Democracy (The Orion Society 2004), Finding Beauty in a Broken World (Pantheon 2008), When Women Were Birds (Sarah Crichton Books: Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2012), The Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America’s National Parks (Sarah Crichton Books, Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2016), Erosion: Essays of Undoing (Sarah Crichton Books, Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2019)Interview Date: 12/13/2019     Tags: Terry Tempest Williams, erosion, public lands, oil and gas industry, coal industry, Bears Ears, seeing, Mormon, Mormonism, Creation Myths, Marie-Louise van Franz, Adam and Eve, Fazal Sheikh, State of Utah, gospel choir, Follow the Drinking Gourd, Big Dipper, Assault on American Lands, hidden violence, Nuclear bombs, uranium tailings, war games in the desert, coal and copper mines. Grand Staircase-Escalante, radioactive waste, President Donald J. Trump, Senator Orrin Hatch, Lamanites, Racism. Book of Mormon, Environmental racism is the outcome of bad stories, Ecology/Nature/Environment, Meditation, Spirituality, Social Change/Politics, Personal Transformation, Peace/Nonviolence, Community, Mythology

Jenny Odell is a multi-disciplinary artist and writer based in Oakland, California who teaches at Stanford University. She has been an artist-in-residence at such places as the San Francisco dump, Facebook, the Internet Archive, and the San Francisco Planning Department, and has exhibited her art all over the world. She is the author of: How To Do Nothing: Resisting The Attention Economy (Melville House Publishing 2019).Interview Date: 8/30/2019     Tags: MP3, Jenny Odell, technodeterminism, age of soylent, The Dump art installation, Recology San Francisco, David Hockney, A Bigger Exhibition, slow art, Ellsworth Kelly,Blue Green Black Red, attention, shallow attention, reactive attention, impatient attention, bird watching, sustained attention, ego-dissolving attention, angry tweet mob, crows, fear, anxiety, bioregion, loneliness, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweet Grass, Social Change/Politics, Art & Creativity, Philosophy, Technology, Money/Economics

John Fullerton is the founder and president of Capital Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to transforming finance and economics to serve life and the planet through “Regenerative Economics”. In 2001, he walked away from a two-decade career at JPMorgan, where he served as Managing Director and oversaw capital markets, derivatives, and investment businesses globally, including acting as Chief Investment Officer for Lab Morgan. LLC. Now, besides his work at Capital Institute, Fullerton is a member of the Club of Rome and currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Savory Institute, dedicated to regenerating the World’s Grasslands. He’s the author of several books including: Regenerative Economics: Revolutionary Thinking for a World in Crisis (2025 New Society Publishers)Faye Cox is the founder of Hourbooks Press, a small independent publisher that creates short books—each designed to be read in about an hour. Hourbooks is dedicated to sharing essential knowledge that fosters positive change in the world. Cox has earned a Master’s degree in English Literature from the University of Oxford and also has training in Expressive Arts Therapy and coaching.Cox and Fullerton collaborated on Regenerative Economics: Creating Conditions for Health & Abundance on a Living Planet. (Hourbooks Press 2025)Interview Date: 10/3/2025     Tags:  Kohn Fullerton, Faye Cox, prosperity, money, principle of design, regenerative economics, Newtonian logic, polycrisis, interconnection, Copernicus, Galileo, quantum entanglement, climate change, Plato’s cave, beyond conservative or liberal capitalism, true wealth, Systems science, Vaclav Havel, Hope, myth of separation, Money/Economics, Ecology/Nature/Environment, Community

Michael Cepress is a multidisciplinary artist celebrated for his dynamic creativity—he is a musician, a storyteller and poet, a craftsman, a designer, and a cultural curator. In addition to his musical talents he has excelled in textile arts and fashion design, with exhibitions of his work showcased internationally. Michael recognizes the boundless potential for good that arises when artistic expression serves and uplifts the greater good, weaving together the varied forms of art into purposeful community action.Interview Date: 9/11/2025      Tags: Michael Cepress, arranging space for creating art, inspiration is fleeting, earning a living as an artist, costuming, tailor, dressing a symphony orchestra, conservative fashion, flamboyant fashion

Françoise Bourzat is a consciousness guide and counselor. She has a master’s degree in Somatic Psychology and is a Certified Hakomi Practitioner. After traveling the world, she became an apprentice to an indigenous Mazatec woman leading healing ceremonies with sacred mushrooms in the high mountains of Southern Mexico. Drawing from years of her close apprenticeship with this Mazatec curandera, as well as her training in other indigenous traditions, Bourzat has developed a comprehensive approach that bridges Western and indigenous modalities. She trains therapists and facilitators and teaches at the California Institute of Integral Studies. She also lectures internationally. She is the co-author with Kristina Hunter of Consciousness Medicine: Indigenous Wisdom, Entheogens, and Expanded States of Consciousness for Healing and Growth. (North Atlantic Books 2019)Interview Date: 7/6/2019     Tags: MP3, Françoise Bourzat, psychedelic mushroom ceremonies, psychedelics, entheogens, hallucinogens, vision quest, sweat lodge, transdance, altered states, psychoanalytic model, somatic work, Hokami, visualization, imagination, 5-rhythm class, Indigenous wisdom, Shamanism, Health & Healing, Psychology, Personal Transformation

Diana "Di" Percy is the founder of the internationally acclaimed Organisation Development Australia, a director of Vogel Percy and past chair of the Dharma School, with experience in psychology, Gestalt Therapy, business, leadership education and governance. She has served as a corporate advisor working with Boards of Directors and CEOs. She is also a poet, leads pilgrimages to oceans and forests and participates in a project she calls, “The New Elders” which centers on the positive development of elders and changing a negative community mindset. She resides in Melbourne, Australia. She is the author of: Becoming an Elder: Practicing the Wisdom Arts.Interview Date: 8/3/2019     Tags: MP3, Diana Percy, Di Percy, elderhood, reevaluating meaning and purpose, perfect your love, Jack Kornfield, courage, hope, Personal Transformation

Mark Nepo is a poet and philosopher and a most eloquent spiritual teacher. In 2015, he was given a Life-Achievement Award by AgeNation and in 2016 was named by Watkins: Mind Body Spirit as one of the Most Spiritually Influential Living People. He was part of Oprah Winfrey’s The Life You Want Tour in 2014 and has appeared several times with Oprah on her Super Soul Sunday program on OWN TV. As a cancer survivor, Mark devotes his writing and teaching to the journey of inner transformation and the life of relationship.He is the author of many audio learning projects and over 20 books including Reduced To Joy (Cleis Press 2013), Seven Thousand Ways To Listen: Staying Close To What Is Sacred (Free Press 2012), The One Life We’re Given: Finding the Wisdom That Waits in Your heart (Atria Books 2016), The Way Under the Way: The Place of True Meeting (Sounds True 2016), Drinking from the River of Light: The Life of Expression (Sounds True 2019)Interview Date: 8/10/2019     Tags: MP3, Mark Nepo, making a living as a poet, poetry, metaphors, waves and undertows, fish breathing with gills, inner spiritual practice, naming things, the three friendships, wisdom of source, river of experience, friendship with each other, personal expression, perfection, Antic Hay, Aldous Huxley, Personal Transformation, Spirituality, Writing, Philosophy, Art & Creativity

Lama Palden Drolma is a licensed psychotherapist, spiritual teacher, and coach. She has studied Buddhism in the Himalayas with some of the preeminent Tibetan masters of the twentieth century, including Kalu Rinpoche, who authorized her to become one of the first Western lamas. She is the founder of thae Sukhasiddhi Foundation, a Tibetan Buddhist center in Fairfax. California.She is the author of Love on Every Breath: Tonglen Meditation for Transforming Pain into Joy (New World Library 2019)Interview Date: 7/16/2019    Tags: MP3, Lama Palden Drolma, Buddhist Meta Meditation, transforming suffering, Tonglen, Niguma, Jetsuma Tenzin Palmo, taking refuge, on the spot meditation, Dilgo Khyentse, Chenrezig, three jewels, Buddha, Sanga, Dharma, sin, Matthew Fox, mantra, Kalu Rinpoche, 16th Karmapa, Meditation, Personal Transformation, Buddhism

Martin Shaw, Ph.D. is a storyteller and mythologist. He’s a wilderness rites-of-passage guide and is internationally regarded as one of the most exciting proponents of the mythic imagination. He tells “prophetic stories” that speak deeply to the challenges we face today, in the world and in our personal lives. He has devised and led the Oral Tradition course at Stanford University, is a visiting fellow at Schumacher College, and the Director of the Westcountry School of Myth, a Learning community in Dartmoor in the far west of the United Kingdom. His books include A Branch from the Lightning Tree: Ecstatic Myth and the Grace in Wildness, (White Cloud Press 2011), Snowy Tower: Parzival and the Wet, Black Branch of Language (White Cloud Press 2014), Scatterlings: Getting Claimed in the Age of Amnesia (White Cloud 2016), The Night Wages: Bidden or Unbidden Initiations Come, (Cista Mystica Press 2019).Interview Date: 6/4/2019    Tags: MP3, Martin Shaw, fairytales, folk tales, monsters, Beowulf, Lindworm, feral, Siberian tale, underworld, naïveté, Baba Yaga, decent, underworld, Robert Bly, efficient initiation rites, grief, innocence, experience, rite of passage, self esteem, Mythology, Philosophy, Personal Transformation