Sharif Abdullah
Sharif Abdullah, JD, is an author and advocate for inclusivity and the social/spiritual transformation of society. Sharif is a transformationist, working to align our global human societies with our common spiritual values. His vision and work for a world that works for all beings stems from his spiritual awareness and his experiences in over a hundred distinct cultures in over forty countries. Sharif is founder and director of Commonway Institute. His books include The Power of One: Authentic Leadership in Turbulent Times, the award-winning Creating a World That Works for All and Seven Seeds for a New Society. Sharif is a graduate-level adjunct professor of conflict resolution at Portland State University, a senior advisor to Sarvodaya in Sri Lanka and is the recipient of numerous awards and recognitions.
Patch Adams
Patch Adams is best known for his work as a medical doctor and a clown and as a social activist who has devoted forty-two years to changing America’s health care system. He believes that laughter, joy and creativity are an integral part of the healing process. The Gesundheit Institute is a project in holistic medical care based on the belief that one cannot separate the health of the individual from the health of the family, the community, the world and the health care system itself. Patch created a hospital—free for all people—that will be fully modern at 10 percent of the cost. The cleaning person and the surgeon will make the same salary—$300/month—and all permanent staff will live there as a communal village, eliminating 85 percent of the environmental footprint.
Sri Mata Amritanandamayi Devi
Spiritual leader, humanitarian and visionary Sri Mata Amritanandamayi Devi, known throughout the world simply as “Amma,” has served the world-community for decades, imparting wisdom, strength and inspiration. Through her extraordinary acts of love, inner strength and self-sacrifice, Amma has endeared herself to millions and inspired thousands to follow in her path of selfless service. Receiving Amma’s embrace, many feel inspired to offer selfless service to those in need. In this way, this simple yet powerful act as a mother’s embrace—has become both catalyst and symbol for the growing international network of humanitarian initiatives known as “Embracing the World.”®
Arjuna Ardagh
Arjuna Ardagh is an Awakening Coach, writer and public speaker. He has trained more than 1,300 people to become facilitators of Awakening. He is the author of seven books, including the 2005 No. 1 national bestseller The Translucent Revolution, featured in O, the Oprah Winfrey magazine. His latest book,Better than Sex, is the complete introduction to Awakening Coaching. He has been a speaker at conferences all over the world and has appeared on TV, radio and in print media in twelve countries. He is a member of the Transformational Leadership Council. He lives with his wife, Chameli Ardagh, and their two teenage sons in California.
Chameli Ardagh
Chameli Ardagh is a passionate practitioner of embodied feminine spirituality and the founder of the Awakening Women Institute. She is the initiator of an international network of Women’s Temple Groups and the author of two books on feminine spirituality and embodiment.
Kenny Ausubel
Kenny Ausubel is an award-winning social entrepreneur, author, journalist and filmmaker. His work has long been at the forefront of the environmental, health and progressive social-change movements. He is the CEO and cofounder of Bioneers, an educational nonprofit that highlights breakthrough solutions for restoring people and planet, and co-founded the biodiversity organic company Seeds of Change. His film Hoxsey: When Healing Becomes a Crime (which won a “Best Censored Stories” journalism award) played in theaters, on HBO and international TV and at a special screening for members of Congress which was featured on National Public Radio. Kenny has written and edited several books, including Dreaming the Future: Reimagining Civilization in the Age of Nature.
Carolyn Baker
Carolyn Baker, Ph.D., is the author of Collapsing Consciously: Transformative Truths For Turbulent Times, Sacred Demise: Walking The Spiritual Path Of Industrial Civilization’s Collapse and Navigating The Coming Chaos: A Handbook For Inner Transition. She lives in Boulder, Colo., where she works with Transition Colorado. A former psychotherapist, she offers life coaching for people who want to live more resiliently in the present as they prepare for the future.
Margaret Behan
Red Spider Woman—“Ba nee uth sai”—is Margaret Behan’s Arapahoe name; her Cheyenne name is “Ma’ee Vehoe ga’ee.” Her mother’s people are Southern Cheyenne, who are keepers of the Sacred Arrows. Her father’s people are Northern Cheyenne and they are keepers of the Sacred Medicine Hat. Her father’s mother was Arapahoe, the keepers of the Sacred Pipe Watonga. Margaret spent her childhood in Oklahoma, and went on to mission and government boarding schools. Her career has been making storyteller dolls out of natural clay that represent figures from stories and legends and expresses their great love for each other and their people.
Robyn Benson
For twenty-one years, Dr. Robyn Benson, DOM, has been the mother of two and an adventure enthusiast, world traveler, speaker and author who loves to help and inspire each and every patient to achieve optimal, radiant and sustainable health. In addition to building Santa Fe Soul, a twenty-first-century health care center that is the home of twenty-five practitioners and has a vision that is locally focused and globally expressed, Robyn is now onto what she calls her legacy: the creation of a movement to change the face of health care, the Self-Care Revolution.
www.santafesoul.com
www.jointheselfcarerevolution.com
Steve Bhaerman
Steve Bhaerman is an internationally known author, humorist and workshop leader. For more than twenty-five years, he has written and performed as Swami Beyondananda, the “Cosmic Comic.” Swami’s comedy has been described both as “comedy disguised as wisdom” and “wisdom disguised as comedy.” Noted author Marianne Williamson has called him “the Mark Twain of our generation.” Since 2005, Steve has written a political blog with a spiritual perspective, “Notes From the Trail.” His latest book, written with cellular biologist Bruce H. Lipton, Ph.D., is Spontaneous Evolution: Our Positive Future and a Way to Get There From Here.
Tessa Bielecki
Tessa Bielecki was a Carmelite monk for almost forty years, co-founded the Spiritual Life Institute and served as Mother Abbess of the contemplative community until 2005. She teaches at Colorado College, gives lectures and retreats, participates in East-West dialogues and writes. She is the author of three books on St. Teresa of Avila, and recently recorded Teresa of Avila: The Book of My Life for Shambhala Audio and Wild at Heart: Radical Teachings of the Christian Mystics for Sounds True. Her great passion is the desert. She lives alone in a log cabin in Crestone, Colo., in the spirit of the ancient Fathers and Mothers of the Desert, and co-founded the Desert Foundation with Father Dave Denny in 2005.
Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi
Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi is a Theravada Buddhist monk from New York City. He was ordained in Sri Lanka in 1972 and lived in Asia for twenty-four years. For eighteen years he was editor for the Buddhist Publication Society in Kandy. Ven. Bodhi has many important publications to his credit, the most recent being a full translation of the Anguttara Nikaya, Numerical Discourses of the Buddha. In 2008, he founded Buddhist Global Relief, a nonprofit providing hunger relief and education in countries suffering from chronic poverty and malnutrition. He is president of the Buddhist Association of the United States and lives at Chuang Yen Monastery in Carmel, N.Y.
George Boeree
George Boeree is a retired psychology professor at Shippensburg University, Pa., where he taught personality theories and the history of psychology, among other topics. Born in the Netherlands, he grew up on Long Island, N.Y. He is married to Judith Kovarik and has three grown daughters and two grandchildren.
Gregg Braden
New York Times bestselling author Gregg Braden is internationally renowned as a pioneer in bridging science and spirituality. Following a successful career as a computer geologist for Phillips Petroleum during the 1970s energy crisis, he worked as a senior computer systems designer with Martin Marietta Defense Systems during the last years of the Cold War. In 1991 he became the first technical operations manager for Cisco Systems, where he led the development of the global support team that insures the reliability of today’s internet. For more than 25 years, Gregg has searched high mountain villages, remote monasteries and forgotten texts to uncover their timeless secrets. His work is now featured on the History Channel, the Discovery Channel, the Sci Fi Channel, ABC and NBC. To date, Gregg’s discoveries have led to such paradigm-shattering books as: The Isaiah Effect, The God Code, The Divine Matrix and Fractal Time. His latest book is Deep Truth: Igniting the Origin of Our Origin, History, Destiny and Fate. Gregg’s work is published in 17 languages and 33 countries and shows us beyond any reasonable doubt that the key to our future lies in the wisdom of our past.
Rev. Cynthia Brix
Rev. Cynthia Brix is a contemplative interfaith minister and co-director of Satyana Institute. She is cofounder of the Gender Reconciliation International project, which conducts training programs for reconciliation between women and men in South Africa, Australia, India, Colombia and North America. Cynthia is co-author of Women Healing Women and a contributing author of Divine Duality: The Power of Reconciliation Between Women and Men. Cynthia organized an international conference in Italy that brought women spiritual leaders together and produced a DVD from this conference titled Cultivating Women’s Spiritual Mastery.
Jeff Brown
A former criminal lawyer and psychotherapist, Jeff Brown is the author of Soulshaping: A Journey of Self-Creation and Ascending with Both Feet on the Ground. He is also the author of the viral blog Apologies to the Divine Feminine and the producer and key journeyer in the award-winning spiritual documentary Karmageddon, which also stars Ram Dass, Seane Corn, Wah!, David Life, Deva Premal and Miten. Jeff’s newest book, Love It Forward, endorsed by bestselling authors Andrew Harvey and Caroline Myss, is another book of impactful quotes and writings, with a strong emphasis on love and relationship.
Adam Bucko
Adam Bucko is a co-author of Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Vision for a New Generation. An activist and spiritual director to many of New York’s homeless youth, he is a cofounder of the Reciprocity Foundation, empowering homeless youth to break the cycle of poverty and HAB, a contemplative fellowship focused on training young people in radical spirituality and sacred activism. He collaborates with spiritual leaders across religious traditions and mentors young people, helping them discover a spiritual life in the twenty-first century and how to live deeply from the heart in service of compassion and justice. Adam is a recipient of several awards, and his work has appeared on ABC News, CBS and NBC, and in the New York Daily News and the National Catholic Reporter as well as Ode, Yoga International and Sojourner magazines.
Sita Jamieson Caddle
Sita has been chanting in the United States for the past 25 years and has led chanting evenings in Singapore, Bali and India. She started within the Hindu tradition of Kirtan and expanded out to all traditions to reach broader audiences. She blends sacred poetry into her evenings, weaving a tapestry of chant and spoken word that is powerful and celebratory. Sita is a teacher in the art of chanting and her classes allow people to become more fluid in their own ability to sing. She also works with sound as a healing modality combined with energy work to create a complete healing session. A native of Ireland, Sita feels her voice comes out of her Celtic roots; its full resonance expresses an ancient, earthy form of song. She is a disciple of Neem Karoli Baba and has performed with Krishna Das, Ram Dass and Baghavan Das.
Mariana Caplan
Mariana Caplan, Ph.D., MFT, is a psychotherapist, yogi and the author of six books in the fields of psychology and spirituality, including the award-winning Eyes Wide Open: Cultivating Discernment on the Spiritual Path, the seminal Halfway Up the Mountain: The Error of Premature Claims to Enlightenment and The Guru Question: The Perils and Rewards of Choosing a Spiritual Teacher. As a psychotherapist, she specializes in using somatic approaches to therapy to support spiritual practitioners and teachers of all traditions and religions to heal trauma and thrive, as well as working with complex spiritual traumas within spiritual communities. As a yogi, she founded and teaches the Yoga & Psyche Method, which integrates the insights of somatic psychology, trauma research, neuroscience and yogic practices.
George Cappannelli
George Cappannelli is a writer, sculptor, Emmy-Award-winning producer/director, corporate and political consultant and cofounder of AgeNation, a media and events company dedicated to informing, inspiring and engaging people in critical challenges and opportunities of the second half of life. His nonfiction books include Say Yes To Change, Authenticity, I Dream of A New America, It’s About Time and Do Not Go Quietly: A Guide To Living Consciously & Aging Wisely For People Who Weren’t Born Yesterday. His consulting clients include some of the country’s leading Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, nonprofits and U.S. senators and presidential candidates.
Sedena Cappannelli
Sedena is the co-founder of AgeNation, a digital media company supporting people ages forty and over to live more conscious and engaging lives. She is recognized nationally as a speaker, award-winning author and Enlivened Ageing and wellness consultant. In her talks and programs, Sedena combines personal development, energy management and corporate strategies to help individuals and organizations create greater balance, vitality, productivity and purpose, and includes practical wisdom from her books Say Yes To Change, Authenticity and the bestseller Do Not Go Quietly. She is also the creator of P.E.P.—Personal Energy Program, a groundbreaking personal wellness DVD.
Daniel Craig
Daniel Craig is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine in Santa Fe, N.M., who practices in a community acupuncture clinic. He served in the Regular Army and Army National Guard from 1981 through 1993 and did one tour in Iraq/Kuwait during Operation Desert Storm. Daniel is a member of Veterans For Peace—Joan Duffy Chapter in Santa Fe. He has a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s degree in oriental medicine. He is a native New Mexican.
Elizabeth Cunningham
Elizabeth Cunningham is best known as the author of The Maeve Chronicles, a series of award-winning novels featuring the feisty Celtic Magdalen, who is no one’s disciple. Also a counselor in private practice, she recently moved from the east side of New York’s Hudson River to the west.
www.elizabethcunninghamwrites.com
Chris Deckker
Musician, artist and visionary entrepreneur Chris Deckker has been involved in the arts and entertainment industry for over thirty years. His extensive experience spans every level of the industry, from artistic to business. He is the cofounder of one of the United Kingdom’s most successful underground electronic music clubs, “Return to the Source” and record label, which gained international recognition in the ’90s, and is the founder of the electronic music group Medicine Drum, which was signed to Virgin Records USA. In 1997 he founded “Earthdance International—The Global Festival for Peace,” which has grown to become the world’s biggest synchronized dance event with over three hundred and fifty locations in sixty-five countries involved each year. Originally aimed at supporting Tibet, Earthdance has been described by the office of his Holiness the Dalai Lama as “the most successful global event of its kind aimed at supporting the Tibetan people.” Earthdance now supports global charities worldwide. Chris currently lives in Byron Bay, Australia, and is the co-director of UPLIFT, a hybrid eco-conference and music festival.
Elayne Doughty
Elayne Kalila Doughty, MA, MFT, is the founder of Soulful Women, Planet Breathe, the Soul Spa and the Queens of Transformation. She is a psychotherapist, speaker, ordained priestess soul-midwife, priestess empowerment coach and women’s empowerment ex-pert. With her extensive background in soul transformation, the divine feminine, recovery, addictions, trauma, mental health, she has over twenty years of experience working with women who are transforming a painful past to a powerful present and an extraordinary future. Elayne is a sought-after teacher and speaker in the fields of women’s spirituality, healing, transformation and leadership.
Donna Eden
Donna Eden, a pioneer in the field of energy medicine for thirty-five years, is among the field’s most sought, joyous and authoritative spokespersons. Able to clairvoyantly “see” the body’s energies since childhood, her healing abilities are legendary. Her book Energy Medicine has been translated into eighteen languages and was named the Health Book of the Year at the prestigious Nautilus Book Awards. Its sequel, Energy Medicine for Women, won gold medals in two national competitions. More than 80,000 people have attended Donna’s classes and she has trained more than seven hundred and fifty practitioners who are fully certified in her approach to energy medicine.
Normandi Ellis
Normandi Ellis is a spiritualist medium and the author of ten books of fiction and nonfiction. Her nonfiction is rooted in her studies and travels in Egypt and includes the spiritual classic Awakening Osiris. Her most recent books from Bear & Co. are Invoking the Scribes of Ancient Egypt and Imagining the World into Existence. Her recent fiction, Going West, was published by Wind Publications. She facilitates spiritual travel through Egypt in conjunction with Shamanic Journeys.
Patricia Ellsberg
Patricia Ellsberg is a social change activist, meditation teacher and coach. She reaches thousands of people worldwide, leading guided meditations for the Awakening Joy Course and teleseminars on Finding Mother-Love Within and—together with her sister, Barbara Marx Hubbard—on The Emergence Process: The Shift from Ego to Essence. She has been a lifelong partner to Daniel Ellsberg and in their first year of marriage helped him release the top-secret Pentagon Papers, which contributed to ending the Vietnam War. A central theme of her life has been creating a bridge between political activism and spiritual experience.
Masaru Emoto
July 22, 1943 – October 17, 2014
Masaru Emoto was born in Japan in 1943. In 1986 he established the IHM Corporation in Tokyo. In 1992 he received a certification from the Open International University as a Doctor of Alternative Medicine. He began to discover the mystery of water as he learned the concept of micro-cluster water and magnetic resonance analysis technology. Eventually, he realized that it was in the frozen crystal form that water showed us its true nature. He gained worldwide acclaim through his groundbreaking research and discovery that water is deeply connected to our individual and collective consciousness. He was the author of the best-selling books Message from Water, The Hidden Messages in Water and The True Power of Water, The Messages from Water and the Universe and others. He was a long-time advocate for peace in relation to water. He was the president of International Hado Membership and the chairman of the board of the nonprofit organization EMOTO PEACE PROJECT, where he worked toward achieving world peace through water. After the Fukushima nuclear disaster of March 2011, he helped the people of Fukushima and gave “angel water” for free, as well as lecturing and providing Hado counseling in the Fukushima area.
Jennifer Esperanza
Jennifer Esperanza is a culture and art photographer based in Santa Fe, N.M. She documented the humanitarian work in South India of Amma and her devotees after the Asian tsunami in 2004 and photographed in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. She has photographed some of the greatest social-justice and earth-justice activists of our time, including Van Jones, Dr. Jane Goodall, Bill McKibben, Gloria Steinem and Tim DeChristopher. She also photographs music, fashion, culture, nature and erotica, and makes her own art. Road trips, travel, art and the ocean are some of her passions. Her work is known for its humanity, sensuality and beauty. She prays thanks with every click of her camera shutter. Jennifer’s motto is “Drowning in Beauty, Devoted to Love.”
Patricia Flasch
Patricia Flasch has a master’s degree in counseling from the University of Wisconsin and was a trainer and marketing director for Cornucopia, a human potential school. Patricia had a large private practice in counseling in Seattle, and then opened LEADING FROM THE HEART in Denver, Colo. Patricia designed and taught seminar topics on “Relationships in Paradise” (Maui) and “The Psychology of Money” (Stockholm, Sweden). Patricia operates today as a soul mentor from Santa Fe, N.M. Her recent book, Becoming a Love Dog, is available on Amazon. Her current teaching involves using creativity as a force for conscious aging. She has clients worldwide.
Matthew Fox
Matthew Fox is the author of thirty-one books on spirituality and culture, which have been translated into fifty-one languages, and is an innovator in birthing new forms of worship (the Cosmic Mass) and education (the Yellawe Institute program for inner city youth and the University of Creation Spirituality, which thrived for twenty-nine years instructing adults in their own mystical and prophetic potential). Matthew is an Episcopal priest (for thirty-four years he was a Dominican priest, but was expelled from the Catholic priesthood by Cardinal Ratzinger), and his books include Prayer: A Radical Response to Life; Original Blessing, Hildegard of Bingen: A Saint for Our Times; The Hidden Spirituality of Men; A Spirituality Named Compassion and A New Reformation.
Arun Gandhi
Arun Gandhi worked as a journalist for the Times of India, Mumbai, for thirty years before coming to the United States to lecture on Gandhi and his philosophy of nonviolence at universities around the country and Europe. During the course of his life, he has rescued one hundred and twenty-eight abandoned newborn babies and found loving homes for them, and established cooperative programs in Indian villages, that have transformed the lives of over a million people. He is a much sought-after motivational speaker.
Sharon Gannon
Sharon Gannon is the co-creator with David Life of the Jivamukti Yoga Method, a path to enlightenment through compassion for all beings. A student of Shri Brahmananda Sarasvati, Swami Nirmalananda, Sri K. Pattabhi Jois and Shyamdas, she is a pioneer in teaching yoga as spiritual activism and relating ancient teachings to the modern world. Sharon is also a musician and writer. Sharanam, is her latest album. Her books include Jivamukti Yoga, The Art of Yoga, Cats and Dogs Are People Too!, and Yoga and Vegetarianism. She writes a monthly blog for www.jivamuktiyoga.com.
Jeremy Geffen
June 25, 1956 – June 1, 2015
Jeremy Geffen, MD, FACP, was a medical oncologist, a leading expert in integrative medicine and oncology and author of the highly acclaimed book The Journey Through Cancer: Healing and Transforming the Whole Person. He devoted his career to developing the field of whole-person medicine and cancer care and was creator of the pioneering integrative medicine and oncology program, The Seven Levels of Healing®. Dr. Geffen explored the great spiritual and healing traditions of the world for more than thirty years.
Michael Gelb
Michael J. Gelb is the world’s leading authority on the application of genius thinking to personal and organizational development. A pioneer in the fields of creative thinking, accelerated learning and innovative leadership, he has authored fourteen books on creativity and innovation, including the international bestseller, How to Think Like Leonardo Da Vinci: Seven Steps to Genius Every Day. His latest book is Creativity On Demand: How to Ignite and Sustain the Fire of Genius.
Norma Gentile
Norma Gentile, a professional soprano and sound shaman, has combined a performance career with a private practice of energy healing for over twenty years. Her formal training in music (she holds a master’s from the University of Michigan) and her studies in subtle energy have helped Norma understand how sound affects our ability to heal. Over the years, Norma developed her own ability as a spiritual channel for those who teach (Archangel Michael), those who heal (Nature) and those who do both (the Hathors). She continues to offer meditation concerts and coach those who want to more fully utilize their own voices and healing abilities.
Amit Goswami
Amit Goswami, Ph.D., is a retired professor of physics from the University of Oregon at Eugene. He is a pioneer of the new paradigm “science within consciousness,” an idea he explicated in his seminal book The Self-Aware Universe, in which he also solved the quantum measurement problem elucidating the famous observer effect. Amit has written nine other popular books based on his research in quantum physics and consciousness. He was featured in the film What the Bleep Do We Know? and the award-winning documentary of his life and work, The Quantum Activist.
www.amitgoswami.org
Alex Grey
Alex Grey is a visionary artist and leader in the spiritual creative movement. Best known for his paintings, which “X-ray” multiple dimensions of reality, Alex’s art interweaves physical and biological anatomy with psychic and spiritual energies. His visual meditation on the nature of life and consciousness, the subject of his art, is contained in three books, Sacred Mirrors, Transfigurations and Net of Being. His philosophy and poetry is shared in his books The Mission of Art and Art Psalms, which reflects on art as a spiritual practice. His art was featured on the historic album art, video animations and stage design for the cult/metal band Tool. The international entheogen community has embraced Alex Grey as an important mapmaker and spokesperson for visionary realms. Alex and his wife, the artist Allyson Grey, are cofounders of Chapel of Sacred Mirrors (CoSM), an interfaith church and pillar of worldwide Visionary Culture.
Allyson Grey
Allyson Grey is an artist whose paintings have been exhibited and sold internationally. As the editor and co-author of over a dozen books and journals, Allyson has been a lecturer, educator and muse to artists for over thirty years. The symbol system in her paintings represents an essential worldview comprised of chaos, order and secret writing. For Allyson, chaos symbolizes distinctions and entropy in the physical world. Order, which is composed of interconnected harmonious patterns, suggests the transcendental unity called heaven or the infinite divine. Secret writing, comprised of 20 unpronounceable letters, represents the spirit of communication irreducible to concepts, windows to inner concepts manifested in the material world. Cofounder of the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors, Allyson is a community leader who holds an MFA from Tufts University. She has been the wife and partner of artist Alex Grey since 1975.
www.allysongrey.com
www.cosm.org
Father Bede Griffiths
December 17, 1906 – May 13, 1993
Bede Griffiths, born Alan Richard Griffiths, was born in England in 1906. He converted to Catholicism in the early 1930s and soon after joined the Benedictine monastery Prinknash Abbey and took the name Bede. He later served as a Prior of Farnborough and then Pluscardin, during which time he gained an interest in Indian thought. He asked to go to India to set up a monastic foundation, but was denied. Later he was sent to India by the same abbot, but was to serve under the local bishop. From 1955 to1958, he joined Father Francis Mahieu Acharya at Kurisumala Ashram (Mountain of the Cross), where they developed a Syriac rite monastic liturgy. Griffiths took the Sanskrit name Dhayananda, meaning “bliss of prayer.” In 1963, he conducted a trip to the United States in which he engaged in an East-West dialogue.
Lama Gyurme
Master painter and craftsman Lama Gyurme was born in Tanay, Tibet, in 1969. When he was fifteen, his family sent him to the Mindroling monastery upon the invitation of the head monk to study painting and traditional arts. His first teacher was from Kham (Guangzhou), located in Eastern Tibet. After initial study, he went to live with his principal teacher, Lama Tsekyab, in order to fully absorb the rich tradition of Tibetan painting, of which his teacher was a master. The famous paintings of Korkyim Monastery were created by his teacher during the period when Tibetans were once again allowed to worship and rebuild their temples and monasteries. While still young, Gyurme became an adept in Tibetan ritual and monastery traditions. He was the manager and rule keeper of the monastery and led chants at Mindroling until 1998, and painted or assisted in the restoration of hundreds of the temple paintings. In 1998 he was invited to teach painting at the Shanshung Institute in Italy, one of the most important Tibetan Buddhist centers outside of Tibet. He spent the next two years teaching Westerners traditional Tibetan art and sculpture. During his tenure at the Shanshung Institute, he studied Italian and English and wrote an important history of Tibetan art in Tibetan.
Deirdre Hade
Deirdre Hade is a spiritual teacher, master healer, mystic, poet and visionary leader in the ancient arts of the wisdom traditions of light. She is the founder of the Radiance Healing and Radiance Meditation Mystery School, facilitating thousands of healings, soul awakenings and journeys throughout the world. The core pillars—The Daughters of Miracles—Daughters of Miriam, The Kingship of Illumination, Radiance Healer Certification Program, Radiance Tree of Life Master Course and the Radiance Pure Energy at-home study course/guide, a pathway for all people to experience the mystical energy knowledge of Light.
www.deirdrehade.com
www.thefoundationforradiance.org
Roshi Joan Halifax
Roshi Joan Halifax, Ph.D., is a Buddhist teacher, Zen priest, anthropologist and pioneer in the field of end-of-life care. She is founder, abbot and head teacher of the Upaya Institute and Zen Center in Santa Fe, N.M. She received a National Science Foundation Fellowship in Visual Anthropology, was an Honorary Research Fellow in Medical Ethnobotany at Harvard University and is a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the Library of Congress. She is a founding teacher of the Zen Peacemaker Orde and her work and practice for more than four decades has focused on applied Buddhism. Her books include: The Human Encounter with Death (with Stanislav Grof); The Fruitful Darkness; Simplicity in the Complex: A Buddhist Life in America; Being with Dying: Cultivating Compassion and Wisdom in the Presence of Death; Being with Dying: Compassionate End-of-Life Care (Professional Training Guide) and Being with Dying: Cultivating Compassion and Fearlessness in the Presence of Death. She is a Lindisfarne Fellow, co-director of the Fellowship and a Mind and Life Board member.
Gina Rose Halpern
Rev. Gina Rose Halpern D.Min., BCCC, is the founder of the Chaplaincy Institute, an Interfaith Seminary in Berkeley, Calif. She has dedicated her life to Interfaith and inclusive education. As a chaplain, artist and teacher, she has practiced creative ways to serve across divides and provide compassionate care. She is the author and illustrator of Where is Tibet? and To Heal the Broken Heart.
Andrew Harvey
Andrew Harvey is the founder and director of the Institute of Sacred Activism, an international organization that invites concerned people to take up the challenge of our contemporary global crises by becoming inspired and effective agents of change. Sacred activism is a form of compassion-in-action that is born of a fusion of deep spiritual passion with wise radical action in the world. The large-scale practice of sacred activism can become an essential force for preserving and healing the planet and its inhabitants. Andrew Harvey has taught at Oxford and Cornell Universities as well as various colleges and spiritual centers throughout the world. He has written over thirty books.
Sandra Ingerman
Sandra Ingerman, MA, is a world-renowned teacher of shamanism. She is recognized for bringing ancient cross-cultural healing methods into our modern culture, and addressing the needs of our times. A licensed therapist, she is the author of eight books, including Soul Retrieval, Medicine for the Earth, Shamanic Journeying, How to Heal Toxic Thoughts, How to Thrive in Changing Times and Awakening to the Spirit World. She is also the author of seven CD programs produced by Sounds True.
Eli Jaxon-Bear
In 1990 Eli Jaxon-Bear met his final teacher, Sri H.W.L. Poonja, in Lucknow, India. Confirming Eli’s realization, his teacher sent him back into the world to share his unique psychological insights into the nature of egoic suffering in support of self-realization. He dedicates his life to passing on the transmission of his teacher. Eli Jaxon-Bear is the author of Sudden Awakening; The Enneagram of Liberation: From Fixation to Freedom and is the editor of Wake Up and Roar: Satsang with H.W.L. Poonja. Eli currently meets people and teaches through the Leela Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to world peace and freedom through universal self-realization.
Kathleen Jenks
Kathleen Jenks is the author of the autobiographical Journey of a Dream Animal; The River and the Stone, a historical novel about Moses, Miriam and Aaron in ancient Egypt; and the Green World Oracle. She has a Ph.D. in religious studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara. For nine years she taught courses on mythology and ritual at Pacifica Graduate Institute. She has guided private and group reincarnation sessions since 1973. She currently teaches in local colleges and lives and writes in her ivy-covered house, “Green Man Abbey.”
Chan Master Guo Jun
Chan Master Guo Jun is currently the abbot of Mahabodhi Monastery in Singapore and teaches internationally. He is Chan Master Sheng Yen’s youngest dharma heir, and served as abbot of Sheng Yen’s Pine Bush, N.Y., retreat center from 2005 to 2008. Guo Jun holds undergraduate degrees in biotechnology, psychology and sociology, as well as a Master’s degree in Buddhist studies. A native of Singapore, he received his full monastic ordination in Taiwan. He is a lineage holder and successor in Chan as well as the Xianshou and Cien schools of Chinese Buddhism, and is the author of Essential Chan Buddhism: The Character and Spirit of Chinese Zen.
Cynthia Jurs
Cynthia Jurs is a teacher of sacred activism and engaged Buddhism in the lineage of Thich Nhat Hanh. In 1990, on pilgrimage in Nepal, she met a one-hundred-and-six-year-old lama named Charok Rinpoche living in a remote cave, from whom she received the practice of the Earth Treasure Vases. For over twenty years she has traveled to diverse cultures around the world facilitating collaborations with young activists and indigenous elders in a unique ritual that strengthens community and catalyzes solutions to the planet’s problems. She founded Alliance for the Earth, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting the emergence of a global community committed to planetary healing and collective awakening. She directs the Open Way Sangha in New Mexico.
Jyoti
Jyoti is an internationally renowned spiritual advisor with a Ph.D. in transpersonal psychology, who also completed postgraduate study at the C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich, Switzerland. She is one of the founders of Kayumari, a spiritual healing community located in North America, Europe and Brazil. She is the spiritual director of the Center for Sacred Studies, a 501(c)3 organization dedicated to sustaining a way of life based on collaboration and reciprocity with the Earth and all Her beings. Jyoti has devoted her life to a prayer of unity on the planet, developing alliances through collaborative relationships with those dedicated to the Earth and Her sustainability.
Tamam Kahn
Tamam Kahn is a senior teacher in the Sufi Ruhaniat International and is married to Pir Shabda Kahn. Her book, Untold: A History of the Wives of Prophet Muhammad (Monkfish Book Publishing Co.), received an International Book Award for 2011. Tamam’s next book is on Fatima, daughter of the Prophet Muhammad. She presents her findings on early women of Islam at conferences and Sufi gatherings. In 2009 she was invited to recite her poetry at an International Sufi Conference in Marrakech, Morocco. She studied with Tai Situ Rinpoche and served on his board at the Maitreya Institute in San Francisco.
Gloria Karpinski
Gloria D. Karpinski is a holistic counselor, spiritual director, teacher and author. Her seminars as well as her individual in-depth life attunements emphasize the relevancy of universal spiritual principles to everyday life and the inter dynamics of mind, body, emotions and spirit. Gloria is the author of Where Two Worlds Touch: Spiritual Rites of Passage and Barefoot on Holy Ground: Twelve Lessons in Spiritual Craftsmanship, both published by Ballantine Books. Gloria lives in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Her web site includes a calendar of her workshops, lectures, intensives and other specialized programs.
Byron Katie
Byron Katie’s simple yet powerful method of inquiry into the cause of all suffering is called The Work. Since 1986, she has introduced The Work to millions of people throughout the world. Eckhart Tolle calls The Work “a great blessing for our planet,” and Time magazine named Katie a “spiritual innovator for the new millennium.” She has written several books, including the bestsellers Loving What Is, I Need Your Love—Is That True? and A Thousand Names for Joy; as well as Question Your Thinking—Change the World, Who Would You Be Without Your Story?, A Friendly Universe and, for children, Tiger-Tiger, Is It True? Her website features many free materials to download, as well as audio and video clips, a schedule of events and a free helpline with a network of The Work facilitators.
William Keepin
William Keepin, Ph.D., is cofounder of Satyana Institute and Gender Reconciliation International. He works in partnership with the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation and has convened eighty programs in eight countries for reconciliation between women and men. Will has practiced silent meditation for thirty years and leads retreats bringing contemplative spiritual leaders together from across the major religions, including the Dawn of Interspirituality conference. He is a physicist and former whistleblower in nuclear science policy. His books include Divine Duality: The Power of Reconciliation Between Women and Men and Song of the Earth: A Synthesis of Scientific and Spiritual Worldviews.
Colleen Kelley
Colleen Kelley is an artist, poet and teacher. She is currently working on a series titled “I Nurse the Milk of Millenia” and a multimedia performance with electric cello played by Jami Sieber, rooted in their experiences with the Asian Elephants of India and Thailand. She was the art director, visionary and co-author for ten years on The Box: Remembering the Gift. This collaborative project resulted in a series of three books and artifacts contained in a wooden box. It is an environmental curriculum that is being used by groups and individuals around the world.
Ruth King
Ruth King is an insight meditation teacher and emotional wisdom author and consultant. Ruth has a Masters in clinical psychology and is a graduate of Spirit Rock Meditation Center’s Dedicated Practitioner Program and a guiding teacher at Insight Meditation Community of Washington, D.C. She is the author of Healing Rage: Women Making Inner Peace Possible, and designed The Emotional Wisdom Cards as well as the Mindful of Race Retreat:A Stimulus for Social Healing and Leadership and the Mindfulness Practices for Living Well course. She is the founder of Mindful Members, a meditation practice community in Charlotte, N.C., where she resides.
Tito La Rosa
Tito La Rosa, a descendent of the Quechua Indians of the Peruvian Andes, has spent more than a decade recovering and preserving, studying and intuiting the ancestral music of Peru. Tito is a curandero de sonido—a sound healer. When performing ritual and ceremony for healing, he enters into parallel worlds to bring forth sound that elevates the vibration of an individual and allows for healing and balance to occur. Tito was asked by the Peruvian Institute of Culture to play two-thousand-year-old instruments at the Museum of the Lord of Sipan to reinvent the sounds these instruments made. In recreating the sounds of this culture that had disappeared into time, Tito stated, “Time, like death, is a lie.”
Gail Larsen
Gail Larsen has led a life of sufficient adventure to behoove her to learn to pray, with a path informed by studies in shamanism and angel guidance. She is the founder of Real Speaking® and author of Transformational Speaking: If You Want to Change the World, Tell a Better Story. She lives in Santa Fe, N.M.
Robin Lim
Robin Lim, CPM, was born in 1956, the offspring of a Filipino-Chinese woman and a German, Irish, Native American man. Together, her parents built a bridge of love across cultures. She now lives in Indonesia, where she is called “Ibu Robin” (Mother Robin). Lim is a certified professional midwife with the North American Registry of Midwives and Ikatan Bidan Indonesia. She devotes her life to Yayasan Bumi Sehat, a not-for-profit organization with clinics in Bali and Aceh. Along with receiving babies into the world, Ibu Robin is a doula and the author of several books on childbirth, in both English and Bahasa Indonesia. Her book of poetry, The Geometry of Splitting Souls, was released by Blue Light Press/!st World Library. Robin’s two new books have been released in the Philippines: Butterfly People, a novel, and Placenta… the Forgotten Chakra, which promises to make gentle birth more gentle.
Robin’s support and inspiration is her family—her husband Wil and their eight astounding children. She is Lola for three grandchildren: Zhòuie, Bodhi and Tashi.
In 2006 Ibu Robin received the Alexander Langer Peace Award in Italy. In 2011 she was named CNN Hero of the Year for her work in maternal and child health in Indonesia and disaster zones. Her religion is Gratitude.
Arvol Looking Horse
Chief Arvol Looking Horse was born on the Cheyenne River reservation in South Dakota in 1954. At the age of twelve he was given the enormous responsibility of becoming the nineteenth-generation Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe. He was raised in an era that gave witness to the suppression of his peoples spiritual practices. He says he decided to “work for change and let the world know how beautiful our way of life is, so the Seventh Generation can have a better life.” His life has revolved around his commitment to work towards religious freedom and cultural survival and revival.
Peter Makena
Peter Makena learned with Sufi teachers the use of the voice in songs, chants and prayer. Today, Peter leads singing groups and facilitates countless gatherings, joining people in song and prayer to create “meetings of the heart.” The greatest influences on his work with voice and presence were Sufi meditations and chants, as well as Indian kirtan and ghazal-style songs. For four years Peter led daily singing groups in a meditation ashram in India. He lives in northern California and is on tour at yoga and meditation centers, music festivals and meditation retreats throughout the United States and in Europe. Peter has published nine CDs of his music.
Trevor Malkinson
Trevor Malkinson grew up in Victoria, B.C., Canada, and completed an undergraduate degree in philosophy at the University of Victoria and a graduate degree in philosophy at Brock University. He is currently working on a Masters of Divinity at Vancouver School of Theology, and is training to be a minister in the United Church of Canada.
Brigitte Mars
Brigitte Mars is a professional member of the American Herbalist Guild and has worked with natural medicine as a nutritional consultant for over 40 years. She teaches herbal medicine at Naropa University, Bauman College of Holistic Nutrition, the School of Natural Medicine and Just for Health School of Herbalism. She has taught at Omega Institute, Esalen, Kripalu and the Mayo Clinic. She blogs for the Huffington Post and Care2. Brigitte is the author of fourteen books, including The Country Almanac of Home Remedies, The Desktop Guide to Herbal Medicine, Beauty by Nature, Addiction Free Naturally, The Sexual Herbal, Healing Herbal Teas and Rawsome!. Her latest project is a phone app called IPlant.
Rainbeau Mars
Rainbeau Mars uses literature, song, theatrical expression and activism to spread knowledge, power and inspiration throughout the world. She has made a variety of cinematic appearances, taken community leadership roles and been involved with literary features. Since writing her first book, 28 Days to Your Superstar Glow, she has been striving to express and create. Through these outlets, her true passion and purpose becomes transparent. Her journey is an invitation to all who desire expansion and transformation mentally, physically and spiritually. In the name of health and happiness, her dedication to service is an offering of empowerment and fulfillment.
David McCallum
David McCallum, S.J., is a Jesuit priest, educator and spiritual director. He has a doctorate in adult learning and leadership from Columbia University and works in the area of adult spiritual maturation, leadership and organizational development and mission integration. Currently, he serves as the chief mission officer of Le Moyne College in Syracuse, N.Y.
Father William Hart Mcnichols
William Hart McNichols has been “drawing and coloring in his room” since he was five years old. He was a member of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) from 1968 to 2002. He studied philosophy, theo-logy and art at St. Louis University, Boston College, Boston University and Weston School of Theology in Cambridge, Mass. Father Bill furthered his art studies at California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland in 1977. He was ordained as a Roman Catholic priest in Denver on May 25, 1979. In 1983 he received an MFA in landscape painting from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, N.Y. From 1983 to 1990 he worked with the AIDS Hospice team of St. Vincent’s Hospital in Manhattan, N.Y. During that time, he also illustrated twenty-five books, mostly children’s books, for the Paulist Press. In 1990, he moved to Albuquerque, N.M. to study the technique, history and spirituality of icon painting with Russian-American master painter Robert Lentz.
Father Bill also assists with sacramental ministry in the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, N.M. In 2007, Father Bill began to work on the Publication Ministry of the Icons. In 2008 to 2009 his first icon exhibit, Silence of the Storm: Icons and Images, featuring twenty-six originals, was shown at the Millicent Rogers Museum in Taos, N.M. Currently several originals and many reproductions of his work are on exhibit at Solstice Gallery in Taos, N.M.
Dunya Dianne Mcpherson
Dunya Dianne McPherson is an acclaimed authority and meditative leader and the founder and principal teacher of the healing movement system, Dancemeditation™, a path of breath and intuition. Dunya is a Juilliard graduate, Sufi Master and National Endowment for the Arts Choreography Fellow. Dunya’s teaching credits include Princeton University, Swarthmore College, New York University, Barnard College, New York Open Center, Kripalu Center for Yoga and Netherlands Mystik Festival. Dunya holds a Master’s in writing and is the author of Skin of Glass: Finding Spirit in the Flesh, a memoir about dance as a spiritual path.
Dan Millman
Dan Millman, a former world champion athlete, coach, martial arts instructor and college professor, is the author of Way of the Peaceful Warrior (adapted to film in 2006) and fifteen other books read by millions of people in twenty-nine languages. Dan teaches worldwide and has influenced people from all walks of life, including leaders in the fields of health, psychology, education, business, politics, sports, entertainment and the arts.
Arnold Mindell
Dr. Arnold Mindell is best known for his development and application of Process Work and for the 20 books that he has written and published on the subject. He is one of the founding members of the Process Work Institute in Portland, Ore., and the Research Society for Process Oriented Psychology in Zurich, Switzerland. Along with his wife, Amy Mindell, he offers extensive teaching, training, facilitation and consultation in Process Work, which is a wide-spectrum approach to individual, organizational and global problems. Arnold is a regular keynote speaker at international conferences and an international teacher, trainer, facilitator and advisor. He also works in private practice as a therapist in Portland, Ore., and he is an avid researcher, skier, runner and hiker.
Devaa Haley Mitchell
Rev. Dr. Devaa Haley Mitchell is a transformational leader who supports people to reconnect with their spiritual depths, unleash their leadership gifts and step into their full potential. She is cofounder of the Shift Network and founder of the Inspiring Women Summit, a community of over 70,000 women from more than one hundred and sixty countries. Through the Soulful Women Wisdom School, she offers deeply experiential and transformative programs that guide hundreds of women to connect more deeply with spirit. As a musician, Devaa fuses East and West with sensuous, danceable tunes. Her debut album, Sacred Alchemy, aims to reawaken and liberate the many dimensions of the sacred feminine.
N. Scott Momaday
N. Scott Momaday was born in 1934 in Lawton, Okla., to a Kiowa father and Cherokee/mixed-blood mother. In the course of his career, he has received numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the Academy of American Poets Prize, the National Medal of Arts and the Premio Letterario Internazionale Mondello, Italy’s highest literary honor. Momaday lives in Santa Fe, N.M.
Swan A. Montague
Rev. Dr. Swan (Sahra Renata) is an author, poet and artist, a visionary and a mystic, with an M.A. in spiritual philosophy and a Ph.D. in metaphysics. She is an initiate of the highest ancient mystery schools and an extraordinary healer who is able to merge her consciousness with many dimensions and realities. Her divine sacred wall-hangings, known as Temple Veils, are made from antique eastern silks, jewels and crystals. She writes sacred poetry about divine mystery and love, shortly available on CD. She is author of the quartet The Book of Sahra, Jesus’ Secret Wife and Poems of the Golden Rose.
Oriah Mountain Dreamer
Oriah is the author of the international best-selling books: The Invitation, The Dance and The Call. Her much-loved poem “The Invitation” has been shared around the world. Trained in a shamanic tradition, her medicine name, “Mountain Dreamer,” means “one who likes to find and push the edge.” Using story, poetry and shamanic ceremony, deeply personal writing and work as a group facilitator and spiritual mentor, Oriah explores how to follow the thread of our heart’s longing into a life where we can choose joy without denying the challenges of a human life.
Caroline Muir
Caroline Muir is an educator and the author of two bestselling books, Tantra Goddess: A Memoir of Sexual Awakening and Tantra: The Art of Conscious Loving, co-authored with Charles Muir. Caroline founded the Divine Feminine Awakening Immersion in 2005. She uncovered “the missing piece in modern sexuality”: the Ah. The Practice of Ah is a full-spectrum, feminine-wisdom approach to sexual healing and awakening for men and women. Ah invites us to elevate out of our animal nature and into lovers who regard and revere the body as a home for the spirit. Caroline believes that education at every age is at the core of what advances human existence.
Millard Murphy
Millard Murphy was a founding member of the intentional community La Tierra in Sebastopol, Calif., where he has lived since 1989. He has been a practicing lawyer and law school professor since 1986 in the arena of civil and human rights for prisoners, teaching law students how to provide legal services to prisoners in civil rights matters. Born in Los Angeles, he has remained close to home in California with his wife, Laurel, of thirty-two years, and his thirty-one-year-old son lives nearby.
Ravi Nathwani
Ravi Nathwani was born in East Africa and raised in India in the Hindu tradition. He lectures and leads workshops on Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras and the Bhagavad Gita for Yoga Teacher Trainings in the United States and Mexico. Ravi has taught at Tufts University since 1998, and also teaches at the College of Marin and JFK University in California. He also leads satsangs, meditation groups and workshops on a variety of Vedic/Yoga topics. Ravi has an MBA from Boston University and has lived in Bombay, London, Boston, San Francisco and Mexico.
Hella Neumann
Hella Neumann earned her Master’s in art and education from the University of Berlin. In 1975 she founded Atelier Unterm Dach Art School in Germany, and directed the school for eighteen years. Her work included meditation, art therapy, bio-energetics and the biodynamic massage of Gerda Boyesen, London. In 1994 she began intensive study of systemic constellation work in Germany with the founder Bert Hellinger. She began her own constellation work in 1997 under the name “Songs of the Ancestors,” leading family constellation workshops, doing private constellations and training facilitators. She attends the national and international conferences in Germany and the United States.
Wallace J. Nichols
Dr. Wallace J. Nichols is a research associate at California Academy of Sciences. He earned his Bachelors in biology and Spanish from DePauw University, an MEM in environmental policy and economics from Duke University and a Ph.D. in wildlife ecology and evolutionary biology from the University of Arizona.
Dr. Nichols has authored over one hundred scientific publications and reports on ocean conservation science, mentors a motivated group of international graduate students and advises numerous boards and committees as part of a commitment to building a stronger, more progressive, connected environmental community. Currently, he’s also working on BlueMind, bringing neuroscience to our understanding of the benefits of healthy waterway in our lives and a book on the subject with Little, Brown & Company. He lives on California’s SLOWCOAST with his family.
Christa Obuchowski
Christa J. Obuchowski is a traditional naturopath, botanical perfumer, distiller and educator. In 1994, Christa founded the AromaBotanica Institute in Santa Fe, N.M. She teaches classes on plant medicine, the art of perfume-making and self-care. Growing up in Germany, Christa was first introduced to plants at a young age, helping her grandfather make plant medicines, tinctures and sauerkraut. She studied aromatherapy, plant medicine and distillation with leading authorities in the field. Among her varied experiences are biodynamic gardening and studying with Mayan healers in Belize. She travels the world to learn about plants, extracts, scent and incense.
James O’Dea
James O’Dea is the award-winning author of Cultivating Peace, Creative Stress and other works, and the lead faculty for the Shift Network’s acclaimed Peace Ambassador Training program. He has conducted frontline social-healing dialogues for many years. James is the former president of the Institute of Noetic Sciences in Washington, D.C., a past office director of Amnesty International and the former CEO of the Seva Foundation. He offers consulting and leadership intensives at his mountain home in Crestone, Colo.
Richard Packham
Richard Packham was born into a devout Mormon family and was raised in that religion. He married his Mormon high school sweetheart, graduated from Brigham Young University and began to raise a family. In his late twenties, as a graduate student, he began to question Mormon claims, and after three years of research he came to the conclusion that those claims were false. His leaving the Mormon Church led to his wife divorcing him. After studying many other religions, Richard came to the conclusion that their supernatural claims were false, although many had useful and humane teachings that could prove to be valuable guides for life. He realized then that he was an atheist. In 2001, he founded the Exmormon Foundation, which helps to disseminate more accurate information about Mormonism than is usually available from official Mormon sources. He spent his professional life as a college teacher, mostly in San Francisco, teaching foreign languages and computer science. He also holds a law degree and has practiced law. He is now retired and lives on a ranch in Oregon, raising timber and cattle with his present wife of forty years. He is also active in the online ex-Mormon community.
Waduda Paradiso
Cofounder of New Earth Records, Waduda studied psychology at the University of Rome, where she became a regular contributor to the hugely popular Radio Donna, Italy’s first and only feminist radio station. She gives ongoing seminars and lectures on the subject of hypnosis and meditation for transformation and contributes regularly to various Italian magazines on the subjects of wellness, music and Eastern philosophy. She lives in the wilderness of Northern New Mexico with her beloved Bhikkhu, and travels to India and around the world regularly.
Robert Peng
Robert Peng is the founder of Elixir Light Qigong. He began his qigong apprenticeship with the legendary monk Xiao Yao when he was a boy. As part of his training he did a hundred-day water fast in a dark, underground chamber. From this experience Peng developed the ability to discharge a powerful, concentrated form of Qi (“bioenergy”) that feels like a strong electric current. Today he uses this extraordinary power to heal and inspire. Peng teaches internationally, is the author of The Master Key: The Qigong Way to Unlock Your Hidden Power and producer of The Master Key Companion CD and DVD series.
Tom Pinkson
Tom Pinkson, Ph.D., is a psychologist, author, musician, ceremonial retreat and vision-fast leader and sacred storyteller who helped start the first at-home hospice in the United States, then worked with terminally ill children at the Center for Attitudinal Healing in California for thirty-two years. His new book, Fruitful Aging: Finding the Gold in the Golden Years, is about meeting the challenges of aging in a skillful manner, growing this time of life into the richest and most rewarding time of all. Tom is a bridge builder, translating indigenous wisdom ways to help people wake up and connect to deeper, authentic being, exploring how to live, love and work from the holy place of soul.
Kristena Prater
Kristena Prater is a humanitarian activist and wellness consultant working with people to turn troubles into triumph. She believes in prayer as affirmation, which can be integrated into any religion. As the head of the Tessa Foundation, named in honor of Kristena’s daughter, who passed away in 2006, she has helped people in Tonga, Nepal, Guatemala, Colorado and New Mexico plant seeds of sustainable life. Her poems and articles have been published in various periodicals and she is currently working on a book and a screenplay. She is a mother of four and lives between Santa Fe, N.M., and Aspen, Colo.
Sri Prem Baba
Sri Prem Baba is a Brazilian master teacher in the Sachcha spiritual lineage of northern India. He offers a method of self-discovery he calls “The Path of the Heart,” which bridges psychology and spirituality, East and West, the Amazon and the Himalayas. Prem Baba resides five months a year in India, where he teaches through daily satsangs (wisdom talks). Path of the Heart retreats and workshops are offered throughout the world. His latest book is From Suffering to Joy: The Path of the Heart.
Deva Premal & Miten
Deva Premal & Miten began their journey into love and music in 1990 when they met in India at the ashram of the controversial mystic, Osho. They see themselves as part of a 5,000-year-old tradition of mantra practice. Their worldwide concerts and bestselling albums have introduced millions to the benefits of chanting mantras from sacred Sanskrit texts. H.H. the Dalai Lama is known to use their music for his personal enjoyment and Rock icon Cher covered their famous adaption of the Gayatri Mantra on her Farewell Tour Movie. Eckhart Tolle says of their music, “…it is Pure Magic…!”
Imam Jamal Rahman
Imam Jamal Rahman is a popular speaker on Islam, Sufi spirituality and interfaith relations. Cofounder and Muslim Sufi minister at Seattle’s Interfaith Community Sanctuary and adjunct faculty at Seattle University, Jamal travels nationally and internationally, presenting at retreats and workshops. He is the author of several books, including Spiritual Gems of Islam: Insights & Practices from the Qur’an, Hadith, Rumi & Muslim Teaching Stories to Enlighten the Heart & Mind. Since 9/11 Jamal has been collaborating with Rabbi Ted Falcon and Pastor Don Mackenzie. Affectionately known as the Interfaith Amigos, they tour the country sharing the message of spiritual inclusivity.
www.interfaithcommunitysanctuary.org
Father Richard Rohr
Father Richard Rohr is a globally recognized ecumenical teacher bearing witness to the universal awakening within Christian mysticism and the Perennial Tradition. He is a Franciscan priest of the New Mexico Province and founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation (CAC) in Albuquerque, N.M. Father Richard’s teaching is grounded in the Franciscan alternative orthodoxy, including practices of contemplation and lived kenosis (self-emptying), which expresses itself in radical compassion, particularly for the socially marginalized. Father Richard is author of numerous books, including Everything Belongs, Adam’s Return, The Naked Now, Breathing Under Water, Falling Upward and Immortal Diamond: The Search for Our True Self.
CAC is home to the Rohr Institute where Father Richard is academic dean of the Living School for Action and Contemplation. Drawing upon Christianity’s place within the Perennial Tradition, the mission of the Rohr Institute is to produce compassionate and powerfully learned individuals who will work for positive change in the world based on awareness of our common union with God and all beings.
Kim Rosen
Kim Rosen, MFA, is the author of Saved by a Poem: The Transformative Power of Words. In the darkest moment of her life, when psychological and spiritual teachings could not reach her, she found poetry. Now she combines her love of speaking poems with her background in spirituality and psychotherapy, offering poetry as a transformative agent for individuals and communities throughout the world. She is the co-creator of four CDs and her work has been featured in O, The Sun, The New Yorker and Spirituality & Health magazines, among other publications.
Peter Russell
Author and public speaker Peter Russell is recognized as one of the leading thinkers on consciousness and contemporary spirituality. His books include The Global Brain, Waking Up in Time and From Science to God, and his video, The Global Brain, won international acclaim. Peter believes that the critical challenge today is to free human thinking from the limited beliefs and attitudes that lie behind so many of our problems—personal, social and global.
Regina Sara Ryan
Regina Sara Ryan, the author of Praying Dangerously and The Woman Awake, is a former Catholic nun, who has studied contemplation for over forty years. After leaving the convent in the early 1970s, Regina explored other religious traditions and was inspired by the lives of the great mystics and sages of Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism and Sufism. Since meeting her own spiritual teacher, the Western Baul master Lee Lozowick, in 1984, Regina continues to follow what she calls a path of “unashamed devotion” in which she works to bring her life of contemplation into action.
Bruce Sanguin
Bruce Sanguin is an ordained minister in the United Church of Canada, having served congregations for the past twenty-seven years. Today he lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, writing, speaking, on the life and practice of evolutionary mysticism. He is the author of five books, including If Darwin Prayed: Prayers for Evolutionary Mystics, which won the IPPY gold medal award for the best spiritual book of 2012. His latest is The Advance of Love: Reading the Bible With An Evolutionary Heart.
Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi
August 28, 1924 – July 3, 2014
Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, author of Paradigm Shift, From Age-ing to Sage-ing, Wrapped in a Holy Flame and Jewish With Feeling, was professor emeritus at Temple University and past holder of the World Wisdom Chair at Naropa University. He was the founder of ALEPH, Alliance for Jewish Renewal and was Spiritual Director of YESOD, Foundation for a Jewish Future. Read more about Reb Zalman at the Reb Zalman Legacy Project website.
Nicki Scully
Nicki Scully has been teaching healing, shamanic arts and the Egyptian Mysteries since 1983. Techniques from her alchemical healing form are used internationally by thousands of practitioners. In the late 1980s, Nicki founded Shamanic Journeys, Ltd., which specializes in spiritual pilgrimages to Egypt, retreats and teleweb classes. Her latest book is Planetary Healing: Spirit Medicine for Global Transformation, which was co-written with her husband, Mark Hallert, and is part of a trilogy including Alchemical Healing: A Guide to Spiritual, Physical and Transformational Medicine and Power Animal Meditations. Nicki lives in Eugene, Ore., where she maintains a comprehensive healing and shamanic consulting practice.
Rabbi Rami Shapiro
Rabbi Rami Shapiro, Ph.D., an award-winning author, poet, essayist and educator, is cofounder of One River Wisdom School in Sewanee, TN (oneriverwisdomschool.com). The author of over twenty-four books on religion and spirituality, Rami also writes a regular column for Spirituality and Health magazine called Roadside Assistance for the Spiritual Traveler. His most recent books are Perennial Wisdom for the Spiritually Independent (Skylight Paths) and a series of short e-books called Rabbi Rami Guides.
Joanne Shenandoah
Joanne Shenandoah, Ph.D., is one of America’s most celebrated and critically acclaimed musicians. She is a Grammy Award winner, with over forty music awards (including a record thirteen Native American Music awards) and sixteen recordings. She has captured the hearts of audiences all over the world, from North and South America, South Africa, Europe, Australia and Korea, with praise for her work to promote universal peace. She is a board member of the Hiawatha Institute for Indigenous Knowledge.
Joanne and her daughter Leah recorded on the title track “Path to Zero” with Jim Morrison, which also included the artists Sting, Bono, Sinead O’Conner, Robert Downey, Jr., and others.
Joanne has performed for His Holiness the Dalai Lama and at St. Peter’s at the Vatican in Italy, where she performed an original composition for the celebration for the canonization of the first Native American Saint Kateri Tekakwitha. Shenandoah has performed at prestigious events such as the White House, Carnegie Hall, five Presidential inaugurations, Madison Square Garden, Crystal Bridges Museum, the NMAI-Smithsonian, the Ordway Theater, Hummingbird Centre, Toronto Skydome, the Parliament of the World’s Religions (Africa, Spain and Australia) and Woodstock 1994.
Nina Simons
Nina Simons is cofounder and co-CEO of the nonprofit Bioneers, an organization that since 1990 has identified, featured and disseminated breakthrough solutions for people and planet. She co-facilitates Cultivating Women’s Leadership retreats with Toby Herzlich and co-edited the recently published Moonrise: The Power of Women Leading from the Heart. She was previously president of Seeds of Change and strategic marketing director with Odwalla and lives outside Santa Fe, N.M., with her husband and partner.
Susan Slotter
Visionary artist Susan Slotter—photographer, filmmaker, writer and integrative creative midwife—left the corporate world in 1989 to follow a call. She is the creator of SoulScapes®, experiences that connect us to the divine presence within ourselves, our relationships and the world around us. Called “portals into consciousness,” SoulScapes images, films, portraits and workshop experiences are tools for personal and collective transformation. SoulScapes have been presented through venues such as the Omega Institute, Fetzer Institute and Institute of Noetic Sciences; magazines including The Sun magazine, Yoga Journal, Gnosis, Creation Spirituality, Camera and Darkroom, Popular Photography and Photo District News; the Maine and Santa Fe Photographic Workshops and Hasselblad USA. Susan has created award-winning short films, worked on independent feature documentaries and has been developing an “evocumentary” on broadening ideas about leadership from the heart of the collective.
Huston Smith
The late Huston Smith was Thomas J. Watson Professor of Religion and Distinguished Adjunct Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, at Syracuse University. For fifteen years he was Professor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and for a decade before that he taught at Washington University in Saint Louis. Most recently he served as Visiting Professor of Religious Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Smith was the holder of twelve honorary degrees. His fourteen books include The World’s Religions and Why Religion Matters. In 1996 Bill Moyers devoted a five-part PBS special, “The Wisdom of Faith with Huston Smith,” to his life and work. His film documentaries on Hinduism, Tibetan Buddhism and Sufism have all won international awards and The Journal of Ethnomusicology lauded his discovery of Tibetan multiphonic chanting as “an important landmark in the study of music.”
Jeff Sollins
Jeff is the founder of Bridges In Medicine. He received his medical degree from the University of Maryland School of Medicine, where he completed a three-year residency in internal medicine. Board Certified and Diplomat of the American Board of Integrative Holistic Medicine, he also served on the board for over a decade. As a member of the American College of Physicians and Society of Internal Medicine, he has managed emergency rooms and multi-specialty practices. Jeff’s loves include music composition and performing, Shotokan Karate, prayer, his mystical animals and, of course, his amazing miracle wife.
Sobonfu Somé
The late Sobonfu Somé was a respected lecturer and author. As the founder of Wisdom Spring, Inc., an organization dedicated to the preservation and sharing of indigenous wisdom and fundraising for wells, schools and health projects in Africa, she was one of the foremost voices of African spirituality to come to the West, bringing insights and healing gifts from her West African culture to this one. Her books include: The Spirit of Intimacy, Welcoming Spirit Home and Falling out of Grace.
Tara Stapleton
Tara is originally from Chicago, and has lived in several countries, participating in and learning about various cultures and traditions. She has spent decades studying and practicing Tibetan Buddhism. After many years of solitude and meditation, she continues to apply what she learns from the Heart Essence of the Masters into her everyday life and healing practice. Tara incorporates wisdom from those various spiritual traditions, along with shamanism and astrology, into her worldview. In 2010, she created The Prayerfield of the Heart Essence project, a vast collective of enlightened beings from the spiritual realms whose purpose is assisting humanity and all sentient beings in personal and collective healing, growth and evolution. Tara lives and has her healing practice as an energy worker, medium and astrologer in Santa Fe, N.M. She also teaches Sky Dancing, a form of spiritual dance and meditation and is presently writing and bringing through a form of Dakini yoga.
www.prayerfieldoftheheartessence.org
Margaret Starbird
Margaret Starbird holds B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Maryland and pursued graduate studies at Vanderbilt Divinity School. She is the author of several widely acclaimed books reclaiming Mary Magdalene and the Sacred Feminine in Christianity. Starbird gives lectures and retreats worldwide and has appeared in numerous TV documentaries. Her books include The Woman with the Alabaster Jar and The Goddess in the Gospels, both mentioned in The Da Vinci Code, followed by Mary Magdalene, Bride in Exile. Other titles include Magdalene’s Lost Legacy and The Tarot Trumps and the Holy Grail. Married with five grown children, Margaret lives near Seattle.
Mirabai Starr
Mirabai Starr is a critically acclaimed author and translator of sacred literature. She teaches and speaks widely on contemplative practice, interspiritual experience and the transformational power of loss. Her works include Dark Night of the Soul by John of the Cross. The Interior Castle and The Book of My Life by Teresa of Avila, The Showings of Julian of Norwich, Mother of God Similar to Fire (in collaboration with iconographer, William Hart McNichols) and Contemplations and Living Wisdom (Sounds True). GOD OF LOVE: A Guide to the Heart of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, positions her at the forefront of the emerging Interspiritual Movement.
Brother David Steindl-Rast
Born in Vienna, Austria, David Steindl-Rast studied art, anthropology and psychology, at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts (M.A.) and the University of Vienna (Ph.D.). In 1953, he joined Mount Saviour Benedictine Monastery, where he is now a senior member. He began studying Zen in the 1960s and became a pioneer in interfaith dialogue. In 1975 he received the Martin Buber Award for his achievements building bridges between religious traditions. His books include Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer; Deeper than Words and 99 Blessings. Currently, Brother David serves as founding advisor of Gratefulness, a Network for Grateful Living.
Michael Stillwater
Michael Stillwater is an artist using music for healing. A filmmaker, author and educator, he is co-creator of Graceful Passages: A Companion for Living and Dying and founder of Inner Harmony Music and Song Without Borders. His documentary film, In Search of The Great Song, explores and celebrates the power of song to reconnect us to our hearts and each other. He lives in Switzerland and tours internationally, offering contemplative retreats and evolutionary song workshops.
Rick Strassman
Rick Strassman, MD, is a clinical associate professor of psychiatry at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine. He is the author of DMT—The Spirit Molecule, the co-author of Inner Paths to Outer Space and the author of the forthcoming The Soul of Prophecy (all published by Inner Traditions).
Gail Straub
Gail Straub is the author of the bestselling Empowerment: The Art of Creating Your Life As You Want It, the critically acclaimed The Rhythm of Compassion and the awarding-winning feminist memoir Returning to My Mother’s House: Taking Back the Wisdom of the Feminine. A pioneer in the field of empowerment, she co-directs the Empowerment Institute, a school for transformative social change where over the last three decades she has offered her work to tens of thousands of people worldwide. Gail co-founded IMAGINE: A Global Initiative for the Empowerment of Women currently under way in Afghanistan, Jordan, Africa and India.
Lama Surya Das
Lama Surya Das, who the Dalai Lama affectionately calls the “American lama”, has spent over forty years studying with the great spiritual masters of Asia. He is an authorized lama in the Tibetan Buddhist order and the founder of the Dzogchen Center. Surya Das is the author of the international bestseller Awakening the Buddha Within: Tibetan Wisdom for the Western World and twelve other books, including his latest release, Buddha Standard Time: Awakening to the Infinite Possibilities of Now. His blog, “Ask the Lama,” can be found at askthelama.com. To see Surya’s lecture and retreat schedule, vist www.surya.org.
Katherine Woodward Thomas
Katherine Woodward Thomas is the national bestselling author of Calling in “The One”: 7 Weeks to Attract the Love of Your Life, a licensed psychotherapist, creator of the Conscious Uncoupling Program and co-creator/co-leader of the Feminine Power transformative courses for women. Her work has touched the lives of hundreds of thousands of people throughout the world, both through her live and virtual learning communities. As a highly sought-after relationship expert, Katherine is deeply devoted to the evolution of love in our world in all of its many forms.
www.katherinewoodwardthomas.com
Donna Thomson
Donna Thomson is an intuitive, author and meditation teacher. Since 1987 she has channeled healing light, energy and information for the benefit of others in individual and group awareness sessions. With her husband and partner in healing work, Bob Schrei, she is the co-originator of SourcePoint Therapy®, an energy healing system. Donna is the author of The Vibrant Life: Simple Meditations to Use Your Energy Effectively (Sentient Publications, 2006).
Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Sufi teacher and author Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, Ph.D., has followed the Naqshbandi Sufi path since he was nineteen. In 1991 he became the successor of Irina Tweedie, author of Daughter of Fire and moved to Northern California where he founded the Golden Sufi Center. He has specialized in the area of dreamwork, integrating the ancient Sufi approach to dreams with the insights of Jungian psychology. Since 2000 his writing and teaching have focused on spiritual responsibility in this time of transition, an awakening global consciousness of oneness, the Anima Mundi and spiritual ecology.
Jason Apollo Voss
Jason authored the 2011 Foreword Reviews Business and Economics Book of the Year finalist, The Intuitive Investor: A Radical Guide for Manifesting Wealth, a book about how to make more conscious decisions. Jason retired as co-Portfolio Manager of the Davis Appreciation Fund (DAIF) in 2005 after it bested the NASDAQ by 77.0 percent, the S&P 500 by 49.1 percent and the DJIA by 35.9 percent. Jason has given numerous press interviews but is most proud of being published simultaneously in the Wall Street Journal and New Age Journal in February 2011. Jason has been meditating since he was seven.
Mark Robert Waldman
Mark Waldman is a faculty member of the College of Business at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. He coaches individuals in business and personal development and has authored twelve books, including Words Can Change Your Brain and How God Changes Your Brain, picked by Oprah as one of the nine “must-read” books for 2012. According to Time, Newsweek and the Washington Post, he and Andy Newberg are the world’s leading authorities on spirituality and the brain. His research has been featured in O magazine, the New York Times, Forbes, Entrepreneur and dozens of other magazines.
Alex Warden
Alex Warden is a mystic devoted to answering the call of her heart: to share the experience of the essential oneness of life with others. Her work focuses on the development of relational consciousness, an awareness born from the primordial feminine knowing of unity and interrelatedness. A mother, spiritual director and the founder of Essential Oneness, Alex speaks and leads workshops and retreats internationally on spirituality, feminine wisdom and dream studies. She has extensive experience in Christian mysticism and has been a student of Sufism since 1996.
Susun Weed
Susun Weed, author and herbalist, is the voice of the Wise Woman tradition, where healing comes from nourishment. She is known internationally as an extraordinary teacher with a joyous spirit, a powerful presence and an encyclopedic knowledge of herbs and health. She restores herbs as common medicine and empowers us all to care for ourselves; she is the author of the Wise Woman Herbal Series, including five books on women’s health and wellbeing the Wise Woman Way.
Hank Wesselman
Dr. Hank Wesselman, Ph.D., is a paleoanthropologist and award-winning author of eight books on shamanism, including The Spiritwalker Trilogy, Awakening to the Spirit World (with Sandra Ingerman,) and The Bowl of Light, an account of his philosophical discussions with the Hawaiian visionary Hale Makua. He is a shamanic teacher and practitioner now in the thirtieth year of his apprenticeship and resides on Hawai’i Island.
Ganga White
Ganga White is the founder of the White Lotus Foundation, and Yoga Ashram, in Santa Barbara, California and is recognized as an outstanding teacher and exponent of Yoga. He has been called one of the “architects of American yoga” and a “pioneer of yoga” by the Yoga Journal. Since 1967 he has made many valuable and enduring contributions to his field. Ganga White is the author of Yoga Beyond Belief—Insights to Awaken and Deepen Your Practice.
Marcia Wieder
Marcia Wieder, CEO/Founder of Dream University, is leading a Dream Movement. Whether teaching at the Stanford Business School, speaking to executives in China or addressing young women at Girl Scout Camp, her riveting style impacts audiences worldwide. She is the personal Dream Coach to Jack Canfield, stars in Beyond the Secret with Bob Proctor and is a member of the Transformational Leadership Council, along with John Gray and Marianne Williamson. She has authored fourteen books and appeared on Oprah, Today and in her own PBS-TV special.
Terry Tempest Williams
Terry Tempest Williams has been called “a citizen writer”—a writer who speaks out eloquently on behalf of an ethical stance toward life. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, the New York Times, Orion magazine and numerous anthologies worldwide as a crucial voice for ecological consciousness and social change. She has also published several books, including Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place, Red: Passion and Patience in the Desert, An Unspoken Hunger: Stories From the Field, Leap; Finding Beauty in a Broken World and When Women Were Birds. She and her husband, Brooke Williams, divide their time between Castle Valley, Utah, and Jackson Hole, Wyo.
Marianne Williamson
Marianne Williamson is an internationally acclaimed spiritual teacher. Six of her 10 published books have been New York Times bestsellers. Four of these have been #1 New York Times bestsellers. A Return to Love is considered a must-read of the New Spirituality. One paragraph from that book, beginning, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure…”—which is often misattributed to Nelson Mandela’s Inaugural address—is considered an anthem for a contemporary generation of seekers. Marianne’s latest New York Times bestseller is A Course in Weight Loss: 21 Spiritual Lessons for Surrendering Your Weight Forever. A Course in Weight Loss was selected by Oprah as one of her “Favorite Things” in 2010.
Fred Alan Wolf
Fred Alan Wolf, Ph.D., works as a physicist, writer and lecturer. His work in quantum physics and consciousness is well known through his popular and scientific writing. He is the author of sixteen books and audio CDs, many technical and popular articles and is also known as Dr. Quantum. He appeared in many movies, including What the Bleep Do We Know? and The Secret. He won the National Book Award for Taking the Quantum Leap; his latest book is entitled Time-loops and Space-twists: How God Created the Universe.
Carmela “Millie” Yacoboni
Carmela “Millie” Yacoboni is a daughter, sister, aunt, wife, mother, grandmother and friend to many. Millie is an artist who creates brushless paintings and the author of 4U, a four-ingredient cookbook, and a fundraiser for children with cleft palates. She lives in Florida and is part of the water aerobics group “Waterlogged Divas.” Now 92, she says, “Getting old is great! Look at the alternative.”
Tom Zender
Tom Zender is a successful business executive and mentor, a best-selling author and a recognized spiritual leader. Author of God Goes to Work and One-Minute Meditations at Work, he raises work and business consciousness for organizational integrity and conscious commerce. He held management positions at General Electric and Honeywell and was a senior vice president in NYSE and NASDAQ listed corporations. Tom is president emeritus of Unity, which serves over three million people of all faiths worldwide. His corporate board experience includes NASDAQ- and Toronto Stock Exchange-listed companies, plus nonprofits that include the Evolutionary Leaders, the Forum for Corporate Directors and Ottawa University.
Zuleikha
Zuleikha is an international performer, social activist, self-care trainer and teacher in the art of movement. Renowned for her global work with women and girls, her “storydance” performances and Rumi Concert collaborations, she is a recipient of the Images and Voices of Hope Media Award for her outstanding work in the world promoting positive personal and social change.
