|
||||||
|
||||||
|
||||||
|
|
|
|
| ||
|
|
|
| |||
COMMUNICATING THE WISDOM THAT'S CHANGING THE WORLD
| ||||||||||||
| Our Animal Companions by Justine Willis Toms  The lead article in a recent issue of Parade Magazine which one finds with their Sunday newspaper, was entitled "How Much Do Animals Really Know?" I thought this synchronistic because I had just finished a book entitled The Spiritual Life of Animals and Plants by Laurie Conrad (Author House 2002) So, animals and their interior lives was on my mind.In the Parade article one of the questions was whether or not animals have empathy. Laurie Conrad in her book makes a convincing case that animals indeed do care for one another and, even further, that they have a kind of spirituality. Conrad tells many miraculous stories in her book about the animals she's known, from cats and dogs to wasps and mosquitoes. If you are an animal lover like I am, you'll appreciate the following story. Her cats Figaro and Alice have always had a difficult relationship. They were not the kind of friends that would curl up next to one another like we all hope for with our animal companions. She writes, "This one particular night, Alice was ill. She was so sick that she huddled next to me on the rug. This was actually a very trusting and/or brave thing, because Figaro was in my lap above her and she was well within striking distance. Figaro was, in fact, ready to give her a good swipe--his eyes had that glassy, fixed look and he was switching his expressive tail. Alice perhaps trusted Providence and/or me to protect her, or she was too sick to notice. "Seeing the inevitable outcome--yet also knowing the love Figaro's heart held, I appealed to his higher, more spiritual side. I inwardly told him that Alice wasn't feeling well and needed healing. I had to say this several times, and in several different ways. His tail stopped wagging and he began to relax, his body became its usual limp self and I could see he was listening to me. Then he did a surprising thing. He very slowly and carefully extended his left paw and gently put it on Alice's head. And kept it there, as though he were sending her healing by laying on hands, as I so often had done to him when he was injured or sick. His attention seemed clearly on what he was doing, and it truly appeared as though he was giving her all the Love and Healing he could muster. I was extremely pleased and proud of him, and I told him so, and he left his hand there for quite some time, until Alice felt better and walked away. Whether Figaro healed her, or my prayers healed her or both, we'll never know. But Figaro gave Alice his Heart for those minutes, and in the end that is the essence of all Divine healing." The Biologist Rupert Sheldrake has graced our studios on many occasions. In one conversation he talked about challenging traditional scientific assumptions that pets do not warrant serious study. Well-known for his controversial and revolutionary theory of "morphic resonance" and "morphogenetic fields," Sheldrake applied this to the study of animals. He says that keeping dogs and cats are good for your health and that heart attack victims do better when they have a dog or cat and older people have less physical complaints when they have animal companions in the house. A friend told me a surprising story about her African Gray parrot. These birds are considered to be one of the most intelligent of all birds. She read an article about a woman whose African Gray would pull his feathers out whenever she had to go on a trip. Asking a vet about this, it was suggested that she show the bird a calendar before she left, pointing out each day she would be gone and then pointing out the day she would be returning. This seemed pretty far fetched but since nothing else had worked, she thought to give it a try. Just before she left on her trip she brought a large wall calendar to her pet and pointed out each square that represented a day she would be gone. She then marked the day she would return and tacked up the calendar near her bird friend. Much to her surprise, when she returned the feathers were pristine and lovely. No plucking occurred. But, just to prove this was no fluke, one time she got caught in a snow storm and was delayed in Chicago. By the time she got back, the plucking had once more resumed. This story gave my friend Debra the idea to try it on her bird, Pico. She would always take Pico to a friend's house while she was traveling, but this time she added the calendar process. She didn't tell her friend about it and upon her return to pick up the bird her friend said, "You know Pico did the strangest thing this morning. He kept saying 'Where's Debra, where's Debra?' as if he knew you were coming back today." I know you all have many stories you can tell as well. These loving companions enrich our lives beyond measure. |
||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||
September Broadcast Schedule
|
| The Broadcast Week Beginning Wednesday, September 5-11, 2007
William Poy Lee's family comes from a small village in China where they lived for a thousand years before immigrating to San Francisco. Poy Lee was born in San Francisco and grew up in its Chinatown. Were it not for his mother, he may have become lost between cultures and places. Poy Lee describes how he found his identity in his ancestral past and how his discovery of a culture's values and traditions offer wisdom and insight to his adopted country at the present time. He recognizes and honors his mother's part in guiding him to this discovery. His experience gives us insight into the immigration experience and demonstrates the power of living universal values. Poy Lee's Toisanese mother made eight promises to her mother before coming to the United States. The first seven were related to culture and family, but the eighth shaped her life and her son's. Poy Lee says, "It is the Eighth Promise to live with compassion toward all that I think of as the ever-living promise. The one for all of one's days." William Poy Lee graduated with a degree in Architecture from UC Berkeley and completed his Juris Doctor from Hastings College of Law, University of California. He has been a licensed California attorney since 1979 and has enjoyed a career in international banking. He is the author of The Eighth Promise: An American Son's Tribute To His Toisanese Mother (Rodale Press 2007).
|
The Broadcast Week Beginning Wednesday, September 12-18, 2007
As a college student in the late 1940s, when the cultural norm for women was to get married and have babies, Barbara Marx Hubbard was already on the scent of looking for the best ideas to guide our future. She formed a series of questions that for more than five decades has led her quest, "What is the direction of humanity? Where are we evolving towards? What is my purpose in it?" In her research through history she realized that when a culture lost an image of its own future, which was positive to that culture, and they didn't believe in themselves anymore, the culture declined. Speaking about radical new possibilities in a growing edge of response to the planetary crisis, Hubbard sees humanity moving towards ever greater coherence and conscious evolution. Pointing to examples of how the world has been changed by incredible statements she says,"A very powerful, incredible statement that has a truth deeper than the evidence of the moment" has changed the course of history. Dr. Barbara Marx Hubbard is a pioneer in the field of conscious evolution and is the President of the Foundation for Conscious Evolution. Some of Hubbard's books include, The Hunger of Eve: One Woman's Odyssey Toward the Future (Stackpole Books 1976), Revelation: Our Crisis is a Birth (Nataraj Publishing 1995), Conscious Evolution: Awakening the Power of Our Social Potential (New World Library 1998), Emergence: The Shift from Ego to Essence (Hampton Roads 2001), and 52 Codes to Conscious Self Evolution, (now in beta testing phase to develop a deepening "Communion of Pioneering Souls."). She is also the creator of the upcoming seven part, documentary DVD series Humanity Ascending: A New Way Through Together, the first part, "Our Story,." is now available. (Hosted by Craig Hamilton)
|
||||
| The Broadcast Week Beginning Wednesday, September 19-25, 2007
The key to unlocking the secret to happiness is to recognize that true happiness is not locked up in a hidden vault. Happiness is at the heart of our very nature. Everything we need, we already have as pure potential within our mind. The problem is that our awareness permits the experience of thought and emotion, which are like clouds that obscure the clear sky. Happiness lies in the recognition of the sky. Meditation techniques give us the ability to notice the clouds while seeing the sky. "The meaning of meditation", he teaches "is to recognize our own pure inner nature and allow our own possibility, quality, and well being to manifest. It's not like you try to change and then become a better person. It looks like you have changed your life, but it is just recognition." Born in Nepal, Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche is considered a prodigy among the masters of Tibetan Buddhism. His honest accounts of his own personal difficulties have endeared him to thousands of Buddhist and non-Buddhist students across the world. He is deeply versed in the practical and philosophical disciplines of the ancient traditions of Tibetan Buddhism as well as being adept in the practical issues and details of modern culture. He teaches throughout the world and is the author with Eric Swanson of The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret & Science of Happiness (Harmony Books 2007)
|
The Broadcast Week Beginning Wednesday, September 26-October 2, 2007
Physicist F. David Peat is one of the most interesting and innovative thinkers of our time. In this reflective look at the synchronicities of his life, Peat reminisces about his friendship with colleagues like fellow physicist David Bohm, brain researcher Roger Penrose, sculptor Anish Kapoor and high school physics teacher Dicky Blink. Peat's life is a kaleidoscope of meaningful coincidences in which people and ideas came to him as if by magic. He points out there is something deeper at work in the universe and in our personal lives than chance or even rational thought. "We are much more than our cognitive strategies," he insists. Through his stories he explores the relationship between science, art, creativity, and culture. His interaction with native peoples has led him to the conclusion that the future has an ancient heart. F. David Peat has a PhD in theoretical physics and is the author of over twenty books including Pathways of Chance (Pari Books 2006, 2007), Blackfoot Physics (Weiser Books, 2006), and From Certainty to Uncertainty: the Story of Science and Ideas in the Twentieth Century (Joseph Henry Press 2006). Peat is the founder of the Pari Center for New Learning in Northern Italy.
|
| www.Speakingcircles.com | www.wie.org |
