The New Dimensions Café

Will Jawando is an attorney, an activist, a community leader, and a councilmember in Montgomery County Maryland, a diverse community of more than 1 million residents. Called “the progressive leader we need” by the late Congressman John Lewis, Jawanda has worked with Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Sherrod Brown, and Pres. Barack Obama. He is the author of My Seven Black Fathers: A Young Activist’s Memoir of Race, Family, and the Mentors Who Made Him Whole (Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2022)Interview Date: 7/8/2022  Tags: MP3, Will Jawando, Black men, Black boys, Kalfani, mentors, mentoring, fatherhood, mentorship, basketball, Barack Obama, NAACP, Catholic University, Alia Jawando, Coach Wayne Holmes, AmeriCorps program, Wayne Farrell, My Brother’s Keeper, Social change/politics, Personal Transformation, Men’s studies, Community

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), Drinking from the River of Light: The Life of Expression (Sounds True 2019), The Book of Soul: 52 Paths to Living What Matters (St. Martin’s Essentials 2020), Surviving Storms: Finding the Strength to Meet Adversity (St. Martins’ Essentials 2022)Interview Date: 7/20/2022  Tags: Mark Nepo, Japanese Haiku poet, Masahide, storms, suffering, grief, disappointments, loss, broken open, premature baby, incubator, silence, stillness, solitude, global body, injustice, web of interconnection, falling down, getting up, corridor of aliveness, lifeforce, Philosophy, Personal Transformation, Spirituality

Kira Asatryan is a certified relationship coach who provides individual life coaching, relationship coaching, conflict mediation, and couples’ coaching. Before becoming a relationship coach, she was director of performance marketing for prominent Silicon Valley technology start-ups and cofounded an online marketing consultancy. She lives in San Francisco. She is the author of Stop Being Lonely: Three Simple Steps to Developing Close Friendships and Deep Relationships (New World Library 2016)Interview Date: 4/3/2016   Tags: Kira Asatryan, depression, anxiety, loneliness, isolation, friendship, affection, support, respect, appreciation, encouragement, comfort, open ended questions, conversation, communication, feeling lonely in a crowd, Relationships, Psychology, Personal Transformation, Self Help

Justin Zorn has served as a senior advisor for Policy and Strategy at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. He has also served as a meditation teacher in the U.S. Congress and is a Harvard-and-Oxford-trained specialist in the economics and psychology of wellbeing. Leigh Marz is a collaboration consultant and leadership coach for major universities, nonprofit coalitions, and federal agencies. Marz and Zorn are the cofounders of Astrea Strategies whose purpose is to help businesses, nonprofits, and leaders find creative and enduring solutions in living beyond the noise. They are the co-authors of Golden: The Power of Silence in A World of Noise. (Harper Wave 2022)Interview Date: 6/30/2022    Tags: Leigh Marz, Justin Zorn, noise, silence, auditory noise, informational noise, noise in our heads, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Eric Schmidt, mediation retreat, Mindfulness, poet and theologian Pádraig Ó Tuama, Social Change/Politics, Personal Transformation

Michael Meade is a renowned storyteller, author, scholar of mythology, and student of ritual in traditional cultures. He has scoured the world to bring to us meaningful folk tales that tap into ancestral sources of wisdom and acts as a guide to connect them to the stories we are living today. Meade is the founder of Mosaic Multicultural Foundation. He also offers regular Living Myths Podcasts and workshops. He is the author of many books including Why the World Doesn't End: Tales of Renewal in Times of Loss (GreenfirePress 2012), Fate and Destiny: The Two Agreements of the Soul (GreenFire Press 2012) , The Genius Myth (GreenfirePress 2016), Awakening the Soul: A Deep Response to a Troubled World (GreenFire Press 2018) and The Water of Life: Initiation and the Tempering of the Soul (GreenFire Press 2019)Interview Date: 6/17/2022    Tags: Michael Meade, archetype, apocalypse, collapse, renewal, collective darkness, threshold, doorway, liminal times, COVID, prophecy, river of time, inspiration, imagination, letting go, ego, little self, Mnemosyne Greek Goddess of Memory, unseen world, what’s forgotten coming into consciousness, creativity, falling apart, renewal, birth, death, rebirth, Mythology, Psychology, Personal Transformation

Mamphela Ramphele, M.D., Ph.D. is an activist, medical doctor, academic, businesswoman, and global servant. Besides her medical degree, she holds a Ph.D. in Social Anthropology. She was the managing director of the World Bank, and is a trustee of the Nelson Mandela Foundation, as well as chairwoman of the Bishop Desmond Tutu Trust. She also serves as co-president of the Club of Rome, which was founded in 1968 as a nonprofit, informal organization of intellectuals and business leaders whose goal is to identify holistic solutions to complex global issues, and to promote policy initiatives and actions to enable humanity to emerge from multiple planetary emergencies. She is the author of A Passion for Freedom (I.B. Tauris 2014), Conversations with My Sons and Daughters (Penguin 2013) and Dreams, Betrayal and Hope (Penguin Books 2017)Interview Date: 5/22/2022    Tags: Mamphela Ramphele, apartheid, South Africa, political settlement, socio-economic development, Zondo Commission, University of Stellenbosch, Truth and Reconciliation Commission, securicrats, ANC Government, ubuntu, History, Social Change/Politics, philosophy, Education

Debra Silverman holds a master’s degree in Clinical Psychology and has specialized in helping thousands of individuals achieve emotional health and wisdom based on their unique personality and the four elements of water, air, earth, and fire. She combines this work with her expertise in Soul-Centered Astrology. She is a host of an on-line radio program “Tell me a Story.” She works on an individual basis as well as with groups, and is the author of The Missing Element: Inspiring Compassion for the Human Condition (Findhorn Press 2016). She is the author of The Missing Element: Inspiring Compassion for the Human Condition (Findhorn Press 2016)Interview Date: 3/3/2016    Tags: Debra Silverman, personality, water people, air people, fire people, earth people, four elements, fire element, air element, water element, earth element, missing element, shame, Psychology, Self Help, Spirituality, Relationship/Partnership/Sexuality

Andrew Harvey is an internationally acclaimed poet, novelist, translator, mystical scholar, and spiritual teacher. He is the Founder/Director of the Institute of Sacred Activism.Tags: Andrew Harvey, artist, beauty, music, Seymour Bernstein, music of the spheres, Om, primal sound, mystics, Bach, Brahms, Schubert, Beethoven, Mozart, Art, Creativity, Transformation, Philosophy, Spirituality

Lupa is a neo-shaman, artist and sustainability geek. She has been working with animal magic for more than 20 years and has developed a self-created and spirit-directed neoshamanic path. She possesses a master’s degree in counseling Tags: Lupa, totems, bioregion, watershed, moss, ecosystem, soil, desert, backpacking, wilderness, One Square Inch of Silence, seasons, Meditation, Ecology, Nature, Environment

Matthew McKay, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist and professor at The Wright Institute in Berkeley, CA. The Wright Institute offers Masters and PH.D. programs to psychologists as well as providing support and evaluation for the research needs of its students. McKay is also the founder and publisher at New Harbinger Publications.Tags: Matthew McKay, Jordan McKay, afterlife, channeling, channeled writing, mediums, past lives, reincarnation, soul, life between lives, Death & Dying, Intuition, Psychic, Parapsychology, Paranormal, spirituality