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COMMUNICATING THE WISDOM THAT'S CHANGING THE WORLD
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 New Dimensions in Practice Community (NDiP)Is Now Available Engage with New Dimensions Listeners Go to: New Dimensions in Practice Community (NDiP) Editor's Desk: Reaching for Soul by Justine Willis Toms  This past spring David Whyte was in our studio and once more took us on a poetic journey of the soul. (Program 3229). Since then Michael and I have been listening to a CD set by Whyte entitled Midlife and the Great Unknown (Sounds True 2003). We listen for a few minutes and then turn off the CD player and share with one another the insights we are gleaning. He is constantly putting together new phrases that punch us in the gut and crackle at the fierce edges of our being. It's a tremendous gift, especially when you've been together for more than 35 years, as Michael and I have, to find a gem like this that sparks a new and fresh conversation. We are surprising one another with new questions and fresh perceptions.It reminded me to look up some previous interviews we've had with David Whyte and I came across this one that Michael Toms did some years ago in Ireland at the annual International Transpersonal Association conference (program 2479). He had just come out with his book The Heart Aroused: Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America where he proposes a way to transform the practical need to work into an opportunity for spiritual nourishment. Whyte talks of the "middle way" and describes it as living out your life between grief and joy. He says, "The 'middle way' is more like understanding a violin string which is pulled between two points up to concert pitch, so you feel grief and you feel joy to the depths. Our tragedy is that we're always choosing between the two. The poetic tradition says you live out your life between those two points, and that's your bliss, caught right between grief and joy, in the middle." The key is to not be attached to the joy therefore constantly seeking it nor be repelled by the grief therefore ever averting it. Whyte then gave a thrilling example of this. He had us imagine we are coming out of our office with an armful of manila folders. He describes the scene thusly. "You open your door too quickly, you walk into someone in the corridor, the manila folders go all over the floor, and the papers [fly everywhere]—and you lift your arms up, walk towards the person, and say,
For certain I can easily imagine the situation—I've been in many like it and my reactions are predictable. I become tense—the clock is ticking and that's why I hurry in the first place—deadlines are sucking away my joy and equanimity. I bump into someone, papers fly everywhere, I become more tense with guilt at not paying attention and causing myself to "lose" more time—and on and on and on. This is why Whyte suggests we throw up our hands and stand like a tree calling from our passionate soul. "My life is not this steeply sloping hour, in which you see me hurrying. Much stands behind me; I stand before it like a tree; I am only one of the many mouths, and at that, the one that would be still the soonest." Whyte explains, "You see, the burden of human experience at the moment, at least the way we've acculturated it, is that we're constantly wanting to be the notes. So all the notes get pushed together, until we have just a bland 60-cycle hum which, like an old, rusty refrigerator, you only notice when it switches itself off. And you say, 'My God, here's silence, and I don't know what to do with it.'" Michael Toms comments, "It probably comes out of the Western Christian work ethic of the goal-oriented job, that there's some goal to reach. We're looking, particularly if we're trying to follow our bliss, for some 'There' to get to—'Are we there yet?' in the sense of 'Is everything working?' and this poem suggests that it's never always working perfectly. There's always this kind of warp and woof." Whyte responds, "'I am the rest between two notes, which are somehow always in discord.' You see, that's a true poet. A bad poet would say, 'My life is a symphony.' Or 'Your life is a symphony,' and half of you has to leave the room in order to say that. But our life is constantly being lived out between two worlds. This is the real key to the understanding, in that you don't choose either one." Whyte is an agitator, constantly challenging us to move from our precious wombs of comfort and security. His gift to us is to inflame the poetic imagination in our lives as we practice our scales from joy to grief daily. |
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July 2008 Broadcast Schedule
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| The Broadcast Week Beginning Wednesday, July 2-8, 2008
We've all heard that "we are unique", but do we really believe it? Could our uniqueness truly lead us to make a difference in the world with our individual stories? Dawna Markova believes that each of us is a "spot of grace," and she beautifully inspires us as she reads many stories of everyday life that uncover the wisdom each of us carries within. She says, "What I know about grace is that we can create the conditions in which grace can happen. . . And often times a story will do it. There have been societies that have formed without the wheel, but there has never been a society without stories. I think we tell each other stories to remind each other of the possibility of grace." Dawna Markova is the CEO of Professional Thinking Partners and a co-founder of Smartwired.org, an organization devoted to maximizing individual and collective human potential in all areas of life. Internationally known for her groundbreaking research in the fields of learning and perception, she was influential in launching a national movement to help counter America's crisis of violence as a co-creator and co-author of Random Acts of Kindness (Conari Press 200 revised) and the author of I Will Not Die an Unlived Life (Conari Press 2000), The Open Mind: Discovering the 6 Patterns of Natural Intelligence book and audio series (Conari Press 1996), No Enemies Within (Conari Press 1994), and Spot of Grace: Remarkable Stories of How You Do Make a Difference (New World Library 2008). To learn more about the work of Dawna Markova go to www.dawnamarkova.com Topics Explored in this Dialogue:
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The Broadcast Week Beginning Wednesday, July 9-15, 2008
Few things bring as much meaning to our lives as doing work that comes from the heart. But too often our work is thwarted by the institutions we work for. Schools, hospitals, social service agencies, and certainly our government are often driven by factors far removed from true service. As a result, individuals who set out to do meaningful work become broken hearted as they are forced to compromise their ideals again and again. And yet, that heartbreak may hold the key to transforming our lives, our work, even the institutions within which we serve. As educator and activist Parker Palmer says, "If we know how to hold our heartbreak, the heart breaks open into something larger. This tight little fist of a thing called the heart, by being broken open, now has new capacity to hold our own pain and our own joy, and a new capacity to hold the same in the larger world. What we need is more open-hearted people in every line of work, who aren't blinking at the fact that there's pain here, that there's suffering here, but who are also tapping into the heart's energies of transformation." Parker Palmer, Ph.D., is an educator, activist, and a prolific writer. He is founder and senior partner of the Center for Courage and Renewal, a nonprofit dedicated to helping people in the serving professions reclaim integrity and courage in their professional lives. Through the Center, Dr. Palmer offers retreats and workshops to professionals working in education, medicine, religion, business, philanthropy, and social change. His books include Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation (Jossey-Bass 1999), A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life (Jossey-Bass 2004), and the bestseller, The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life (Jossey-Bass 2007). To learn more about the work of Parker Palmer go to www.couragerenewal.org Topics Explored in this Dialogue:
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| The Broadcast Week Beginning Wednesday, July 16-22, 2008
Our lives are filled with holding things together, making things happen, even resisting what is in front of us. We exert our willpower daily. How would it be if we shifted our focus from willpower to being willing? Barbara Leger says, "I saw the universe open to me when I opened to the possibility that maybe I didn't have to do it all, or even that I could do it all." In 1989 Leger traveled to Ukraine when it was still part of the Soviet Union. She was hired as a consultant to business and arrived with many assumptions about how she could be of help, and train people in business. Much to her surprise, it was she who got trained in the deeper meaning of "business with a human face," and the true meaning of conscious partnership. Here she tells the story of how to follow your dreams and allow them to take you on grand adventures. (Hosted by Justine Willis Toms) Barbara Leger is a Science of Mind Minister, and has established the TEMENOS: Center for Self Realization in Cherkasy, Ukraine. The TEMENOS Center sponsors an annual New Thought conference on the Black Sea coast of Crimea, Ukraine. She arrived in Ukraine on Sept 11th, 2001, and as of 2008, the center has over 200 students in accredited classes in 3 locations plus many others attending workshops, lectures and social programs. She has worked with business leaders, youth, and Science of Mind communities. Entering the grandmother phase of her life with a fever of joy and energy, Leger is dedicated to the emergence of a world that works for all (part of the larger Science of Mind vision) and the vision of humanity's growth and well being based on cooperation and harmony. To learn more about the work of Rev. Barbara Leger go to www.scienceofmind.org.ua Topics Explored in this Dialogue:
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The Broadcast Week Beginning Wednesday, July 23-29, 2008
Continuing to consume excessively as a way of life is neither desirable nor possible, if we care about future generations. It seems clear that we need to alter our patterns of consumption in order to preserve and sustain our precious natural resources. David Wann suggests that if we change a few key priorities, many of our material wants will cease to be obsessions. "It's not just that we won't need the next generation of gadgets or clothes, we truly won't even want them," says Wann. Find out how you can live the "good life" by investing in what really matters—the wealth of time, health, meaningful work, and social connections. David Wann is president of the nonprofit Sustainable Futures Society, consulting on energy efficiency, development of compact communities, and other aspects of sustainable development. He's a board member of the Cohousing Association of the U.S., which represents 100 American communities that are "neighborhoods on purpose." And a fellow of the Simplicity Forum, a national association of writers and thinkers on the topic of sensible sustainable lifestyles. In nine books, 25 TV programs and videos, and more than a hundred presentations and speeches, David Wann has helped define the meaning of sustainable lifestyles, designs, technologies, and policies. He's co-author of Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic (Berrett-Koehler, 2001, 2005) and Simple Prosperity: Finding Real Wealth in a Sustainable Lifestyle (St. Martin's Griffin 2007). To learn more about the work of David Wann go to www.davewann.com Topics Explored in this Dialogue:
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| The Broadcast Week Beginning Wednesday, July 30 - August 5, 2008
What if we stopped seeing the demons in our lives – depression, overeating, illness, anger, the list goes on – as enemies to be conquered? Renowned American Buddhist leader, Lama Tsultrim Allione, offers us a powerful and transformative practice that may seem counter-intuitive – nurturing our demons and turning them into allies. She takes us on a fantastic journey of her life as a Buddhist nun, and teaches a gentle process we can use to heal the negativity in our lives. Allione suggests we, "Take the paradigm of feeding rather than fighting our own inner demons." She offers a step-by-step process adapted from the wisdom of Tibet's greatest female spiritual master, Machig Lapdrön, who lived in the 11th century. In the story of Machig, Tsultrim tells us, "The demons were so moved by her fearlessness and by her generosity, compassion, and the stability of her meditation that they said to her, 'Not only will we not harm you, but we will become your protectors and we will protect all of those who follow you.'" (Hosted by Justine Willis Toms) Lama Tsultrim Allione is widely respected as an authentic Western teacher and former Buddhist nun who spent forty years studying with great Tibetan masters. She has appeared on panels with His Holiness the Dalai Lama and is also the author of the ground breaking book, Women of Wisdom (Snow Lion Publications, revised 2000). She is founder of Tara Mandala, a 700-acre Buddhist retreat center in Southwest Colorado, and a leading voice in emerging American Buddhism and contemporary spirituality. She was recognized in Tibet as an incarnation of Machig Lapdrön, the eleventh century yogini on whose teachings her book Feeding Your Demons: Ancient Wisdom for Resolving Inner Conflict (Little, Brown & Co. 2008) is based. To learn more about the work of Tsultrim Allione go to www.taramandala.org Topics Explored in this Dialogue:
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 Parties with a Purpose; Celebrating what's working in our communities, for people, for business and for the environment Nov 8 & 9 in Washington, D.C. and Nov 14 & 15 in San Francisco www.greenfestivals.com |
 Expand Your Consciousness in Optimal Learning Environments www.conferenceworks.com |
 Books for the Evolving Human Spirit www.hamptonroadspub.com |
 Transform the Way You Live and Lead with Purpose, Passion, Energy, and Joy www.getclarity.com |
 Books and Audio to awaken consciousness and global social potential. www.newworldlibrary.com |
 To Help Individuals Realize Their True Relationship with Life Through Higher Self-Studies Guy Finley, Director www.guyfinley.org |
