New Dimensions

In her prequel to the Earthsong series of novels that take place in Neolithic times, Mary Mackey envisions when the matristic and patriarchal cultures clashed. One culture lived in collaborative partnerships with a communal way of governing. The other was a more warlike and aggressive culture. She shares the research on which she bases her stories.Tags: Mary Mackey, Neolithic history, matristic, matriarchy, matriarchal, goddess worshiping, Marija Gimbutas, empathy, compassion, Neolithic graves, Neanderthal, fairytales, Beowulf, Grendel, oral cultures, troubadours, Linear B, Cumaean Sybil, Leonard Shlain, oral tradition, email, conquistadors, Neolithic ceramics and pottery, Kurgan nomads, publishing, Writing, History, Women’s Studies

How we talk to ourselves sets the tone for every experience in our life. Our voice is a powerful guide in releasing emotions, traumas, and difficult memories. It can be dramatically effective in transforming our lives in meaningful ways. As we start speaking to ourselves out loud with kindness and curiosity, our body will loosen up and speak back to us. Vasavi Kumar is a first generation Indian American, a life coach and licensed therapist who holds degrees in social work and special education from Hofstra and Columbia Universities. She runs the Say It out Loud Safe Haven community for coaches, creatives, and entrepreneurs. She is the author of Say It out Loud: Using the Power of Your Voice to Listen to Your Deepest Thoughts and Courageously Pursue Your Dreams. (New World Library 2023)Interview Date: 7/7/2023    Tags: Vasavi Kumar, trigger points, procrastinating, procrastination, Gabor Maté, curiosity, Personal Transformation

Margaret Renkl inspires us to make an “untidy” garden that will nurture our soul and the natural world. She encourages us to fall in love with the natural companions in our lives: the spiders, the hummingbirds, crickets, and racoons, and all the other species who are living right beside us. When we fall in love with them, we can't help but want to save them. Renkl is a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times, where her essays appear weekly. She has been recognized with numerous prestigious awards for her writing. She is the founding editor of Chapter 16, a daily literary publication of Humanities Tennessee. A graduate of Auburn University and the University of South Carolina, she now lives in Nashville. She  is the author of Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss (Milkweed Editions 2019), Graceland, At Last: Notes on Hope and Heartache from the American South. (Milkweed Editions 2021) and The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year (Spiegel and Grau 2023)Interview Date: 6/19/2023     Tags: Margaret Renkl, birding tradition, blue jays, crows, bird language, tadpoles, amphibians, frogs, toads, endocrine disruptors, chemical fertilizers, insecticides, pesticides, monarch butterflies, Methuselah generation, Roundup, glyphosate, pollinator plants, rabbits, manicured lawns, spiders, hummingbirds, walking, Ecology/Nature/Environment, Writing

Mark Nepo shares how we can have direct connection to the attending guiding spirit within. He further suggests that we describe three reliable truths which are our personal foundation to return to as we meet the challenges of daily life. Nepo writes about how the net of relationship distributes our suffering. 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), More Together Than Alone: Discovering the Power and Spirit of Community in Our Lives and in the World (Atria Books 2018), 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) and Falling Down and Getting Up: Discovering Your Inner Resilience and Strength (St. Martins’ Essentials 2023)Interview Date: 6/30/2023  Tags: Mark Nepo, heart mind, head mind, Dante, The Divine Comedy, inner guiding spirit, honor, Indra’s net, fear, inner guide, Philosophy, Personal Transformation, Relationship

Cathy Wild suggests that there is no set formula for the creative process and that it is our natural state, our birthright. She gives advice on the importance of knowing yourself deeply, which sustains the creative process. She also talks about how to cope with resistance and how to remain calm and vulnerable once your gift is presented to the world. She is the author of Wild Ideas: Creativity from the Inside Out (Standing Place Press 2017)Tags: Cathy Wild, highly sensitive people, HSP, creativity, the creative process, body work, PTSD, creative imagination, talk therapy, authenticity, fertile limits, perceptual overload, chaos, chaotic times, overwhelm, resistance, Standing Place, creative spiral, Writing, Art, Creativity, Self Help, Personal Transformation, Writing, Psychology

Orloff says that empaths don’t have the same neurological wiring that other people do and so they tend to absorb things and take on the world’s angst. Her goal is to give people strategies on how to keep empathy open, alive, and growing, while learning how to set very clear boundaries.Tags: Judith Orloff, empaths, intuition, intuitives, highly sensitive people, HSP, Heart meditation, water, eating well, self-care, trust, types of empaths, intuitive empaths, animal empaths, earth empaths, intuitive overload, strengthen inner core, mediumship, empathic teenagers, addiction, overeating, narcissist, energy vampires, energy inventory, victim vampire, no-stop talker vampire, earthing technique, compassion revolution, Health & Healing, Intuition/Psychic, Personal Transformation, Self Help

This is a most unlikely life story of a “hippie” doctor who travels overland to India to aid flood victims, but ends up with an assignment from an Indian guru to be part of a team to successfully eradicate the last bastion of the smallpox epidemic in India. It is a story of an inner spiritual journey coupled with a life of service.Tags: Larry Brilliant, smallpox, India, Radical Doctors, Native American occupation of Alcatraz, Hog Farm Commune, Wavy Gravy, darshan, Neem Karoli Baba, Indira Gandhi, Dr. M.I.D. Sharma, Rahima Banu, S.N. Goenka, R.A. Tata, Russi Modym, History, Health & Healing, Spirituality, Travel

Keepin states that the essence of God resides in the heart; this supreme reality is deeply personal. His work as both a scientist and a seeker of spiritual wisdom reveals that we are witnessing the birth of a vast, unified worldview that unites and cross-fertilizes East and West. This far-ranging conversation also includes a scientific view of consciousness and more.Tags: Will Keepin, God, Divine Love, Satyana Institute, J. Krishnamurti, David Bohm, nondualism, theistic traditions, devotion, nondual path, Bhakti path, Path of love, Path of the heart, path of devotion, Shankara, Advaita Vedanta, Sri Aurobindo, Upanishads, Islam, hadith, Rumi, Urgyen Rinpoche, Dzogchen, Ramana Maharshi, surrender, T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets, implicate order, Bell’s theorem, quantum entanglement, spooky action at a distance, holomovement, fractals, Laniakea, Father Thomas Keating, Jesus, Arjuna, the divine fire in the heart, Spirituality, Peace/Nonviolence, Religion, Science

Here we explore the reclaiming of wonder and hope. We are in need of an upgrade, a new story upon which the mythic foundation of culture rests. Wesselman says, “The old story about who we are, what we’re doing here, and what this world is all about is no longer supporting us . . . [W]e’re in need of a new story.” This is an invitation to co-create with spirit.  Hank Wesselman, Ph.D. (1941-2021) was a respected paleoanthropologist who worked with noted anthropologists around the world including in Ethiopia investigating the mystery of human origins in the Great Rift Valley. Besides his training and scientific work, he was a shamanic student, practitioner, and teacher. In addition to his scientific publications, his seven books on shamanism include The Spiritwalker trilogy (Bantam 1996), Awakening to the Spirit World (co-authored with Sandra Ingerman) (Sounds True 2010), The Bowl of Light: Ancestral Wisdom from a Hawaiian Shaman (Sounds True 2011) and The Re-Enchantment: A Shamanic Path to a Life of Wonder (Sounds True 2016)Interview Date 10/1/2016 Tags: Hank Wesselman, Medicine Person, Shaman, re-enchantment, F. Clark Howell, Don Johanson, Sandra Ingerman, Ghost Dance, Wovoka, Hale Makua, oversoul, dreams, intuition, climate change, Pagan, Rachel Naomi Remen, entelechy, Dalai Lama, deity yoga, mysticism, Shamanism, Dreams, Indigenous Wisdom, Intuition, Psychic, Ecology, Nature, Environment

Casey experienced a literal angel knocking on her door which moved her from the potential of committing suicide to a path of discovering how God is present on the other side of the abyss of depression and despair and shares how she connected with her Higher Power that has served as her guide ever since. Karen Casey, Ph.D. received her doctorate in philosophy with an emphasis on Native American studies. She’s an accomplished author with over two dozen books and is the 2007 winner of the Johnson Institute American Honors Recovery Award for her contribution to the field of recovery. Karen’s focus as a writer and spiritual teacher is to strengthen our connection to a Higher Power, which is the invisible source of inspiration, guidance, strength, and wisdom available to each of us. Her books include Each Day a New Beginning: Daily Meditations for Women (40th anniversary edition, Hazeldon 2022), 52 Ways to Live the Course in Miracles: Cultivate a Simpler, Slower, More Loved-Filled Life. (Conari Press 2016) and Let Go Now: Embraced Detachment As a Path to Freedom (Conari Press 2022)Interview Date: 5/19/2023   Tags: Karen Casey, Al Anon, codependence, alcoholism, AA, Alcoholics Anonymous, Higher Power, isolation, Catherine Ponder, Spirit, ego, nonreisistance, Aesop Fable Hercules and the Apple, kindness, Personal Transformation, Spirituality