Brenda Shoshanna, Interview #108

Name: Brenda Shoshanna, Ph.d.

Where you live: Manhattan, NY

What you do as a vocation or avocation? I'm a psychologist and speaker. Founder of Compassionate Care During Illness and Loss (Psychological, Emotional and Spiritual Guidance). As an avocation- playwright.

Your two favorite books: The Stranger, by Camus. Teachings of Huang Po

Your two favorite songs: What I did for love...

Why you are interested in spirituality? I've been a Zen practitioner for over thirty years. It's my very life itself, and allows me to see no difference between spirituality and each moment or person I meet.

Your favorite quote: "There is no wisdom or holiness that is ever an excuse for the failure to love in ourselves or others."

Your favorite web sites:
http://www.becomefearless.org/
http://oneorchard.net/

Your hero? My brother, Daniel who live and loves unconditionally.

A spiritual lesson you hope to learn? To become a true woman of no rank, and to know that "wherever I go is my home, in the universe."

A place in the world where you feel spiritually "connected?" The zendo

Enuma Okoro, Interview #107

 Name: Enuma Okoro


Where you live: Raleigh/Durham, NC

What you do as a vocation or avocation? I am a writer, retreat / workshop leader.

Your two favorite books: The Road to Daybreak by Henri Nouwen, and the other book is constantly changing depending on what I am reading at the time!

Your two favorite songs: "A Little Sugar in My Bowl" by Nina Simone and most anything by Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, or Ben Harper.

Why you are interested in spirituality?- Because it is the very fabric of which I am made. I believe we were all created in the image of God. So by nature are very beings hunger to embrace the spiritual life.


Your favorite quote: "I believe the world is beautiful and that poetry, like bread, is for everyone." (from a poem, "Like You" by Roque Dalton

Your favorite web sites: hmmm, I have to think about that one.

Your hero? -Anyone who does something for the greater good of others.

A spiritual lesson you hope to learn? -How to trust God more readily with the desires of my heart, while also learning that our desires might differ.

A place in the world where you feel spiritually "connected?" - I always strive to make that place where ever I happen to find myself....

Websites about Enuma's work:

Recent NPR interview: http://wunc.org/tsot/archive/Reluctant_Pilgrim.mp3/view

http://www.enumaokoro.com/

http://reluctantpilgrim.wordpress.com/

Cathy Rosewell Jonas, Interview #106

Name: Cathy Rosewell Jonas

Where you live: Eugene, Oregon

What you do as a vocation or avocation? Besides my relatively new path as an author, I’ve been a counselor and social worker for the past twenty years. I likely get as much out of these interactions as those I serve, as I get to view life from a variety of perspectives and witness a colorful array of human emotions—tender, serious, sad, humorous, and inspirational. When clients connect to the strengths they already have, or are motivated to make positive changes I am reminded of why I do this work. I also offer some spiritual exploration/meditation groups, and especially enjoy helping serious seekers individually.

Your two favorite books: I will choose one that inspired me on my spiritual path, and one that simply touched my elephant-loving heart: Eckhart Tolle’s “The Power of Now,” and Ralph Helfer’s “Modoc: The true story of the greatest elephant that ever lived.”

Your two favorite songs: Hard question. I listen to a lot of new age and chanting inspired by India’s classical music. But, if I had to choose two of my favorites, I’ll go with “Comfortably Numb” by Pink Floyd, and “Drifting” and “Water Shows the Hidden Heart” by Enya.

Why you are interested in spirituality? Spirituality is an area that I both struggled with and eventually found peace of mind through its mysterious practices. It is my highest desire to be of service and help others find their way home to their own hearts, otherwise known as the Heart of Awareness. I love that spirituality is so diverse. One does not need to follow a certain path, or even call themselves “spiritual” in order to reap the benefits of living life with greater mindfulness and compassion. Because of my own struggles and eventual path to clarity I was inspired to write my book, “Bringing Home the Mountain-Finding the Teacher Within.” I share from the heart what helped me, and the specific teachings and insights that finally ended my intense journey of seeking. At the peak of my seeking one of my teachers told me, “Cathy, its just not that serious!” It’s true. I now try to help others lighten up on their path, as what we are looking for is ever present and is never separate from us. In fact, I’m now sure that God (Consciousness) has a sense of humor!

Your favorite quote: (Oh, I will need to choose two). “The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.” ~Helen Keller.

And,

“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual being having a human experience.” ~Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Your favorite web sites:
http://www.centerforsacredsciences.org/
http://www.sriramanamaharshi.org/
http://www.bestspirituality.com/quotes.htm

Your hero? Mother Teresa, but there are so many others who likely will never be recognized. A hero to me is someone who follows their dreams with unwavering devotion, follows the mysterious calling of the heart, and/or soars to a higher purpose to be of service.

A spiritual lesson you hope to learn? 
Okay I’ve got to admit this one. A little more patience with the divine movement of the Universe. An energetic fire burns within me when a new life adventure is beginning. I used to get this feeling only once a year, but now it is happening more often. So far this fire has led me to write, publish my book, travel to India three times, and even a new job opportunity. I know we are all guided to the experiences we have and to the people we are to meet, but I must admit to some impatience creeping in now and again as I sit in the fire of unknowing waiting for the specific details to manifest.

A place in the world where you feel spiritually "connected?"
 I would change the question to “especially” connected as I always feel spiritually connected to life when I am in nature. My top two heart-opening places of all time are the sacred water fountains in Muktinath, Nepal, and the holy mountain Arunachala in Tiruvannamalai, India.

For more about Cathy:
http://www.cathyrosewelljonas.com/

http://www.freeheartpress.com/

http://bringinghomethemountain.blogspot.com/

http://www.mytb.org/Elephant-Dreamer

Jessica Maxwell, Interview #105

Name: Jessica Maxwell

Where you live: Western Oregon

What you do as a vocation or avocation?
Adventure writer, Author, Spiritual FedEx Girl lecturer!

Your two favorite books:
Peace Like a River Leif Enger


Autobiography of a Yogi Paramahsana Yogananda
Why the Dalai Lama Matters Robert Thurman

Hidden Messages in Water Dr. Masaru Emoto

West with the Night Beryl Markham

The Longest Silence Thomas McGuane

Your two favorite songs:
"The Ganesh Mantra" ("God Music" in Roll Around Heaven...I can sing it in Sanskrit!)

"Open my Eyes That I May See" Clara H. Scott

"Cast Your Fate to the Wind" Vince Gauraldi

"Mozart's Clarinet Concerto"

"How Lovely Are the Messengers" Felix Mendelssohn

"Cajun Waltz" Taj Mahal


"Balm in Gilead" Sweet Honey in the Rock


Why you are interested in spirituality?
After nearly 20 years on The Path, a journey that was not my idea!, spirituality is not an interest; it is a consuming passion.

Once you experience it yourself, and understand that everything you love is born of Spirit, then you can't help but fall in love with the source of it all. And once you really do put Spirit first, as every master in history has urged us to do, then everything changes including your very frequency. This attracts and creates like-frequency people, things and events. In my memoir, Roll Around Heaven, we have a tsunami of on-the-ground evidence that this is so, and that the fundamental glue of the universe is, in fact, love...or a force for whose magnificence we have no word full enough. Glimpses of this fundamental truth are also embedded in the inner-crystals of every geode we call a religion. Even the Dalai Lama says you don't have to become a Buddhist -- "you can reach enlightenment in any religion." If you want to radiate Light...and peace, love, happiness, then put Spirit first, choose purposeful, service-oriented work, honor your body with clean light foods and pure water, take the stairs not the elevator, purify your thoughts and send only uplifting language out of your mouth, and watch your own life begin to tilt strongly toward goodness, support, comfort, and joy...and even waffle recipes that work! Choosing to live this way even helps the everyday snafus that do arise resolve themselves in the most ingenious way. Which says volumes about our culture's current misguided worship of exploding car chase scenes, don't you think?

Your favorite quotes:

"Everyone is our neighbor, no matter what race, creed or colour" Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

"You are here to bless the world." The Holy Pig Farmer

"A church is like a finger pointing to God. After a while, people begin worshipping the finger." Thomas Merton (followed by)

"Humans often use that finger to gouge other people's eyes out" Jean Guiton (French writer)

Your favorite web sites:

http://www.karunamayi.org/

http://ncreview.com/ncrblog/

http://www.spiritualmediablog.com/

http://www.mariagefreres.com/ (I love tea)

Your heroes?

Amma Karunamayi

Yogananda

Robert Thurman

The Holy Pig Farmer

Mr. Rogers

A spiritual lesson you hope to learn?
The Final Understanding

A place in the world where you feel spiritually "connected?"
Bhutan...and sitting on our bed in my Mornings Are Mine daily meditation

(You know: "Chop onions, carry tea water...")

http://www.rollaroundheaven.com/

http://books.simonandschuster.com/Roll-Around-Heaven/Jessica-Maxwell/9781582702360

Graeme Taylor, Interview #104

Name: Graeme Taylor

Where you live: I'm a Canadian, currently living in Brisbane, Australia with Ferie, my Persian-Aussie wife.

What you do as a vocation or avocation?
I used to be an ambulance paramedic, but in 2001 I retired to focus on my life's work, which is supporting the evolution of a just, peaceful and sustainable planetary civilization. The problem with ambulance work is that you can't keep up with spreading mental and physical illness. If we want to make a difference--if we want our children to have lives worth living--then we have to heal the world.

Your two favorite books:
Right now I'm reading two spiritual classics: The Bhagavad Gita and a book of Rumi's poems Delicious Laughter.

Your two favorite songs:
I like a lot of different styles from folk to world music. Bob Marley and Leonard Cohen are two of my favorite singer/songwriters; Amazing Grace is one of my favorite songs.

Why you are interested in spirituality?
I couldn't survive if I didn't believe that the universe was animated by a higher consiousness. My sadness comes from the cruelty I see everywhere: my happiness comes from directly experiencing the divine energy and delighting in the beauty and magic that surrounds us.

Your favorite quote:
Buckminster Fuller said: "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."

Your favorite web sites:
Every day I skim ten news sites plus another dozen websites dealing with everything from technology to spirituality. While there are many excellent websites, I still think that one of the best is our own BEST Futures website (http://www.bestfutures.org/) for original content. Of course, I may be a bit biased...

Your hero?
Mother Amma (Mata Amtrianadamayi). I have never met anyone else capable of such constant, selfless giving and self-sacrifice--quite apart from her utterly amazing, transformational spiritual power. She is a living expression of divine love.

A spiritual lesson you hope to learn?
Surrender--living in the present and accepting and loving the gifts of the moment.

A place in the world where you feel spiritually "connected?"
I love being by the ocean, where the sky and the land and the sea all meet. However, my strongest spiritual experiences have occurred in the presence of fully enlightened masters.

I'm happy to say that my book Evolution's Edge: The Coming Collapse and Transformation of Our World, won the 2009 IPPY Gold Medal for the book "most likely to save the planet". You can read more about my book and my work on our website at http://www.bestfutures.org/

Massimo Pigliucci, Interview #102

Name: Massimo Pigliucci

Where you live: New York City, USA.

What you do as a vocation or avocation?
I am a philosopher, interested in promoting critical thinking among both my students and the general public. While I do not think that reason is the beginning and end of human wisdom, I maintain that there is far too little use of it in human affairs, so a bit more cannot but help.

Your two favorite books:
Only two? Ouch. I guess I will have to go with Bertrand Russell's autobiography, which is an incredibly human account of the personal journey of one of the most interesting people of the 20th century. The second book might be David Hume's Enquiry Into Human Understanding; though written in the 18th century, it is still one of the most compelling pieces of writing about how much of human knowledge rests on fairly shaky foundations.

Your two favorite songs:
John Lennon's Imagine, just listen to the words very carefully. Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, particularly the Ode to Joy; it is one of the most transcendental pieces of music I've ever heard (Does the latter count as a "song"? Well, it does in my book.)

Why you are interested in spirituality?
I am not. I don't think the word picks a meaningful or coherent concept. People mean very different things when they use the word "spirituality," and I don't find talk of spirituality to be particularly useful to improve the human condition. I try to be a decent person, to act ethically, to take care of my loved ones and to contribute as much as I can to make all of us at least slightly better off. I am in awe of nature and of the possibilities of humanity. If you call that "spiritual," then I am spiritual, but I wouldn't use that term.

Your favorite quote:
"I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book." (Groucho Marx)

Your favorite web sites:
The electronic portal of the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/). It certainly isn't "all the news that's fit to print," but it's a fascinating entry into everyday human affairs.

Your hero?
I don't believe in heroes. If we are talking about role models, then the above mentioned David Hume and Bertrand Russell would fit the bill nicely. They were both decent, ethical human beings who tried their best to live a fulfilling life. They used their brains as well as their hearts, and they succeeded and failed just like most of us do - except they were paying attention.

A spiritual lesson you hope to learn?
If you mean a lesson about life, it is that reason and emotion need to be balanced in order to achieve what the ancient Greeks called eudaimonia (loosely translated as "happiness"). But it is a much trickier task than most people think, and as Aristotle said, it really represents a life-long project.

A place in the world where you feel spiritually "connected?"
Whenever I go to downtown Brooklyn to look across the East River. I see the stunning Manhattan skyline, and I am immediately reminded of the great things (and the great horrors) that humanity can do.

Editor's Note: Massimo's blog: http://www.rationallyspeaking.org/
Massimo's web site  http://www.platofootnote.org/ and his new book is: Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science from Bunk

Mark Greiner, Interview #101

Name: Mark Greiner

Where you live: Takoma Park, Maryland (next to Washington, DC)

What you do as a vocation or avocation?
Vocation: contemplative Christian, husband, father, and Presbyterian pastor.

Avocation: playful potter, hiking

Your two favorite books:
Only two?
“Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander” by Thomas Merton
“An Interrupted Life” by Etty Hillesum

Your two favorite songs:
“Berliner Messe” by Arvö Part
“Endless Chain” by Metamora

Why you are interested in spirituality?
Jesus' intimacy with his Abba ( in John 17, the Message version) when he prays:
“I'm saying these things in the world's hearing
So my people can experience my joy completed in them…
I'm praying not only for my disciples today
But also for those who will believe in me
Because of them and their witness about me.
The goal is for all of them to become one heart and mind—
Just as you, Father, are in me and I in you,
So they might be one heart and mind with us.”

Your favorite quote:
     "Give over thine own willing; give over thine own running; give over thine own desiring to know, or to be any thing, and sink down to the seed which God sows in the heart; and let that grow in thee, and be in thee, and breathe in thee, and act in thee, and thou shalt find by sweet experience, that the Lord knows that, and loves and owns that, and will lead it to the inheritance of life, which is his portion. And as thou takest up the cross to thyself, and sufferest that to overspread and become a yoke over thee, thou shalt become renewed, and enjoy life, and everlasting inheritance in that." --Isaac Pennington (1745-1817, a Quaker)

Your favorite web sites:
Eloquence on sustainability, ecology, culture and agriculture.
Essential reading for our day:
http://www.orionmagazine.org/
http://www.landinstitute.org/


News and opinion, leaning left, voicing sanity in the maelstrom:
http://www.democracynow.org/
http://www.commondreams.org/

Biblical Commentary and liturgy: 
http://www.textweek.com/

Contemplative Church extraordinaire:
http://www.consciousharmony.org/

“He who laughs, lasts.” - Mary Pettibone Poole :
http://www.funnytimes.com/

Your hero?
Any human being who freely and fully embraces his or her own life (and community) with its limitations and possibilities.

A spiritual lesson you hope to learn?
Suffering = Pain + Resistance

A place in the world where you feel spiritually "connected?"
Within the creek, near my home, boulders invite me to sit, breathe, smell, listen, and look through the changing seasons. The creek has many moods. The creek connects with everything.

Church website: http://www.takomaparkpc.org/

"Be astonished! Be astounded! For I am doing things
among you that you would not believe if you were told." Habakkuk 1:5