Explore Spirituality

Susan Cross describes herself as a “well-wisher to ravens, bears, bumblebees, rattlesnakes, and coyotes.” She is a burial shroud maker, a rawhide hand drum and rattle builder, a ceremony writer, a gardener, an old mother, a tour driver, a self-proclaimed grief-stricken naturalist drowning her sorrows with single malt scotch, and a weary but wonder-filled pilgrim.Cross has written a number of essays for Spirituality & Health, including her essay “Rethinking Burial: Burial Shrouds and More Ideas” featured in the July/August 2021 print issue. She is also the author of a new book called A Fleeting Presence: Fieldnotes From a Crone.In this episode Rabbi Rami and Cross discuss the presence of the crone in all people— regardless of gender—burials, heritage, the “Disney-fication” of the feminine, and much more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Michelle Cassandra Johnson is an activist, social justice warrior, author, anti-racism consultant and trainer, intuitive healer, and yoga teacher and practitioner. Her new book is Finding Refuge: Heartwork for Healing Collective Grief. Read our review of Finding Refuge from the July/August 2021 issue of Spirituality & Health. Rabbi Rami and Johnson start by defining racism throughout history. They explore ethnocentrism, white privilege, generational trauma, radicalizing yoga, the problematic nature of “color-blindness,” and more.  “We are in physical bodies and yet we are not our bodies. But we need to recognize what our bodies are doing to other bodies as we remember our divinity. … We can hold both of these at the same time.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswati is an acclaimed author, speaker, and spiritual leader initiated into the order of Sanyas in the year 2000 by His Holiness, Swami Chidanand Saraswatiji, one of India’s most revered spiritual leaders. Sadhvi also holds a PhD in psychology. She’s the author of several books including By God's Grace, and Come Home to Yourself.Her newest book is Hollywood to the Himalayas: A Journey of Healing and Transformation. In this episode, Rabbi Rami and Sadhvi discuss encounters with the Divine Mother, coming home to spirituality and to oneself, non-denominational experiences of god, and awakening to a new spiritual quest that feeds the soul. “I had this extraordinary experience, just spontaneously immediately of oneness, and connection, and awakening, and union, and ecstasy, and perfection, perfection of myself, perfection of the universe, perfection of my place in the universe, oneness with this incredible mother goddess. I experienced her, I experienced her presence on every level of my being.”Subscribe to the Spirituality & Health Podcast for free so that you will never miss an episode. Here is how. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

James Jeffrey spent nine years in the British Army, serving in Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan, before attending journalism school in Austin, Texas. Since 2012, he has freelanced in America and the horn of Africa. His work has appeared in Irish Times, The New Humanitarian, CNN, and many more. Read James Jeffrey’s article in the July/August 2021 issue of Spirituality & Health: “How to Bring the Camino Vibe Into Your Life.” In this episode of the Spirituality & Health Podcast, Rabbi Rami and James Jeffrey discuss the Camino De Santiago, an ancient pilgrimage through the landscape of France and Spain, and the concept of walking as a spiritual practice. They explore Jeffrey’s experiences having done the pilgrimage twice and how readers can access the pilgrimage vibe from their own homes via the “mini-pilgrimage.” “On the Camino you can be walking for every day for five weeks, by the third week you really do enter this incredible stage—this repetitive pilgrimage act of walking going all the way back to Abraham—it takes your mind and heart to another place.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Neal Allen is a coach and author of Shapes of Truth: Discover God Inside You, a book that lays out 35 qualities of God that can be experienced by humans as they exist inside each person. In this episode, Rabbi Rami and Allen discuss these qualities, highlighting the “big 5”—joy, strength, will, compassion, and power. They also explore the divine objects or “white pearls” each human has within them, conformity, and the innate capacity of humans to be good. “When I talk about God I’m not quite talking here about the overall God, the God that’s outside you, inside you, that permeates everything … what I write about and talk about is an ability that we have to notice, and discover, and retrieve aspects of God that are particularly useful to us as human beings.” Read the magazine: spiritualityhealth.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kristen Neff is an Associate Professor of Educational Psychology at University of Texas, Austin, specialist in self-compassion research, and author. Her new book is Fierce Self-Compassion: How Women Can Harness Kindness to Speak Up, Claim Their Power, and Thrive.Read Neff’s interview by Spirituality & Health’s Stephen Kiesling in the May/June 2021 issue. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tracee Stanley doesn’t want you to fear rest. Stanley is a yoga Nidra lineage holder, meditation and self-inquiry teacher, and co-founder of the Empowered Wisdom Yoga Nidra School. Her new book is Radiant Rest: Yoga Nidra for Deep Relaxation and Awakened Clarity.Be sure to read Stanley’s essay, “Embrace the Transition” which appears in the May/June 2021 issue of Spirituality & Health.“We have been out of balance for quite some time, and I think that the pandemics—the multiple pandemics—that we find ourselves in right now, whether it be covid, whether it be racism, whether it be climate crisis … they all to me have a thread of not honoring the divine feminine.”In this episode, Rabbi Rami and Stanley discuss yoga Nidra, “the yoga of sleep,” as it connects to the divine feminine, the earth, and the self. They explore the essentiality of the divine feminine and the return to the mother—and how such a return can offer humanity a “new story.”Later they discuss the necessity of yoga Nidra practice in recognizing the Self, and how the practice allows the expansion of Self in the face of oppression.They close out their conversation with the idea that yoga Nidra is the act of total surrender, that the practice of yoga Nidra is counter-culture to the grind mentality, to trauma, and that it is okay to let go and just rest.“Yoga nidra is this process of completely non-doing and releasing of thought—it’s a place of no thought.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Grace Ji-Sun Kim is a Korean-American theologian and Professor of Theology at Earlham School of Religion. She is the author and editor of 20 books, a contributor to Spirituality & Health online and in print (Tune in for her upcoming article in the July/August 2021 issue!), and the host of Madang podcast hosted by The Christian Century. In her recent digital article for Spirituality & Health, “Body Prayer for Every Day,” Kim discusses her mother’s journey with prayer and ways you can engage in whole-body prayer, citing the practices of Julian of Norwich (1343–1416). In this episode, Rabbi Rami and Kim jump around Kim’s work from books to articles as they discuss the intersectionality of identity and religion, why we love labels, and how the Korean language evolves our ability to speak about God. They also dive into Kim’s first book, The Grace of Sophia: A Korean North American Women's Christology—in which they discuss the feminine dimensions of God and the divine feminine. “I hope people will retrieve, and welcome, the feminine dimension of the divine. It’s so liberative, it brings us together. And even in the old testament, it talks about God as the mother hen, and there are feminine images of God. But because we live in a dualistic world, we kind of separate the two, we can't seem to kind of welcome both of them.”They close out their conversation in a discussion of responsible doing as a means to knowing, and how praying with the whole body—beyond just words—can bring you closer to your religion and your understanding of God. Whole-body prayer, Kim explains, is a holistic approach to prayer. “People focus on the speaking aspect of prayer, that is the most highly valued way of prayer—through our speaking—which is also going back to this problem of dualism, we have separated everything up, compartmentalized. ... If we move away from this dualistic way of prayer, we can pray with our bodies, with our hands, with our feet, with our minds, with our words, with our language—it becomes a more holistic approach.” Subscribe to Essential Conversations for free so that you will never miss an episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lyanda Lynn Haupt is a naturalist, writer, educator, and the author of six books, including Mozart's Starling, an account of the composer's relationship with a unique bird who sang a version of his Piano Concerto No. 17 in G major. In her latest work, Rooted: Life at the Crossroads of Science, Nature, and Spirit, Haupt writes about how science, poetry, mysticism, and the traditions of earth-based cultures all point to the truth that we are interconnected and pose the “essential question of how to live on our broken, imperiled, beloved earth.”In this episode, Rabbi Rami and Haupt discuss the scientific reason that being in the natural world is so therapeutic to humans, the “industry” of forest therapy, solitude, and the innate human connection with nature.  “For millennia mystics and poets and earth-based indigenous cultures and children have known that we are at our healthiest, our wisest, our most creative, in our most embodied sense of wellness when we are in the natural world.” They also explore the idea of “shedding” otherness, separateness, elevation, pretense, and comfort in order to become in deeper relationship with the earth and gain an understanding that “we are standing on holy ground.” Haupt and Rabbi Rami close out their conversation with the notion of “fruitful darkness” and why Haupt doesn’t equate darkness to being bad or negative, but rather, a part of the life-bringing cycle.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dr. Peter Lovatt is a dance psychologist, former professional dancer, and current teacher at the Royal Ballet School in London, UK. He is the founder of the Dance Psychology Lab at the University of Hertfordshire and has been a featured speaker alongside Barack Obama, Oprah, and Sir Richard Branson.Rabbi Rami and Dr. Lovatt discuss the universality of dancing within the human condition, how dancing is scientifically proven to improve your mental and physical health, and how dancing is the window to the human soul. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices