The Soul-Directed Life

Polly Campbell, a top teacher at the Daily Om, contributor for Psychology Today, and blogger at The Huffington Post, is the author of our perfectly imperfect book club selection for July: Imperfect Spirituality. Polly joins us to talk about our culture of perfection, how to feel good about "bad" emotions, finding meaning in mistakes, and living a values-driven life-not a perfect one. Polly is a joyful, even goofy writer, warmly embracing all that is-muck and all!

Krisstina Wise is the founder and CEO of GoodLife Companies, an award-winning multimillion dollar conglomerate and training company helping other real estate professionals build their own good life. Her new book, Falling for Money, tells the dramatic story of how she transformed her relationship with money from poverty to partnership. She calls it a "romance novel for your bank account." But in the midst of her success story, she lost it all as a single mom with two kids to feed. And then she faced a near-death experience. What carried her through? Embracing imperfection!

Toinette Lippe's fingers are all over the publishing world. She worked for Knopf for 32 years, where she published the Feng/English translation of the classic Tao Te Ching. Then, she founded the Bell Tower imprint, where she published Thomas Berry, Ram Dass, Rabbi Rami Shapiro, and Stephen Levine's A Year to Live. Most recently, she edited Mirabai Starr's gorgeous God of Love. In her home in New York City, Toinette paints and teaches East Asian brush painting-an art form that appears to be so perfect. But perhaps in the attempt to find perfection, one must make peace with imperfection!

Mary Hayes Greico is the author of Unconditional Forgiveness and The New Kitchen Mystic. Well, you can't embrace forgiveness without first accepting imperfection and if your spirituality is laid on the kitchen table, well, it might be a tad on the messy side. Mary was on the faculty of the Hazelden Renewal Center for 16 years. Today she is the director of The Midwest Institute for Forgiveness Training in Minneapolis. In our conversation, we will talk about the wild and unexpected gifts of embracing forgiveness and imperfection.

Wired magazine called Jay Weidner an "authority on the hermetic and alchemical traditions." He's a renowned author, filmmaker, and scholar and considered by many a modern-day "Indiana Jones," searching for clues to mankind's spiritual destiny via ancient societies and artifacts. He is the director of the powerful documentaries, Kubrick's Odyssey, Infinity, and the new feature film, Shasta: A Revolution of the Spirit. Plus Jay is the programming director of Gaiam TV. Jay will bring us up to date on the future of the spiritual movie.

Seven years ago, Sunil Shah jotted a concept down on a scrap of paper: a quantum physicist struggles to prove a groundbreaking theory that destroyed his mother's career when she proposed it years ago. As he explores deeper and deeper questions, he finds himself in a profound labyrinth where science, art, and mysticism are all one. Made with an ultralow budget, The Wisdom Tree has defied the odds to attract audiences around the world.

When What the Bleep Do We Know!? burst onto the scene, it changed our view of what a movie could be. Where did What the Bleep come from? Betsy Chasse knows. She was the cowriter, producer, and director. She also produced the powerful documentary Pregnant in America, which examines the bleak state of natural childbirth in the United States. Plus she's an author with a new book, Tipping Sacred Cows. Betsy will talk with us about the essential food of a movie or book that moves us-the power of story.

Yoga helped Suzanne Bryant deal with her high-pressure job, but when her mother died, she found that yoga became an essential touchstone in her life. But why? What did yoga do that made such a difference? She set off on a journey to India, the birthplace of yoga, to answer that question. Then, she came back to America and interviewed celebrities who practice yoga. The result is a sparkling movie that will move you down to your toes, Yoga IS.

June Cotner joins us live to talk about our Soul-Directed Life Book Club selection for May: Garden Blessings! You've read June's books. Her best-selling Graces sold hundreds of thousands of copies. This month she blesses us with a brand-new book filled with poems and prayers celebrating the love of gardening. June and Garden Blessings are the perfect wrap up to our month in the garden.

Karen Maezen Miller is a wife, mother, and writer. She's also a Zen priest and teacher at the Hazy Moon Zen Center in Los Angeles. One afternoon in the summer of 1997 she and her new husband found themselves in the neglected backyard of a rundown house in a quiet suburb of Los Angeles. They were standing in a 100-year-old Japanese garden, the oldest privately owned Japanese garden in California. They heard "the call to the garden," turned to the realtor and said, "We'll take it!" And then the garden began to teach. Karen's exquisite new book, Paradise in Plain Sight, is the result.

Margaret Roach had a high-powered job with Martha Stewart and one day she walked away and headed straight to her garden. She's the author of And I Shall Have Some Peace There. With Margaret as our guide, we will all slow down and look more closely at the gifts of the mother that are right in front of us-and find peace in the process.

Wendy Johnson is the founder of the organic farm and garden program at Green Gulch at the San Francisco Zen Center. She is a lay dharma teacher and author of Gardening at the Dragon's Gate. Wendy is a garden mentor to the Edible Schoolyard program and a College of Marin instructor in the Environmental Landscape program at the Indian Valley Organic Farm and Garden project. She speaks to us of how mother earth feeds us-perfectly.

Geneen Marie Haugen is a wilderness wanderer, scholar, and guide to the intertwined mysteries of nature and psyche. She delights in offering wild questions, ceremonies, escapades, and reflections to stir the imagination and expand perception of the world, shift the sense of who we are, and deepen an experience of participation with an intelligent, animate Earth/cosmos. Does the garden speak to you? Oh, yes! And Geneen teaches us how to listen.

The call to find the poem inside-Naomi Shihab Nye is a world-famous poet born in St. Louis to a Palestinian father and American mother. She has lived in Ramallah in Palestine, the Old City in Jerusalem, and San Antonio, Texas. Naomi gives voice to her experience as an Arab-American through poems about heritage and peace that overflow with the humanitarian spirit. She is the author of many award-winning books of poems. She personally selected 19 Varieties of Gazelle for our book club. Join us for a brilliant conversation on the power of the poem inside.

The call to find the poem inside: Roger Housden has introduced hundreds of thousands of readers to the joys of poetry. He is famous for the Ten Poems series that began with Ten Poems to Change Your Life in 2001 and ended in 2012 with Ten Poems to Say Goodbye. Join Janet and Roger to hear poetry at its finest and discover why poetry is essential food for the soul.