The Soul-Directed Life

Can you have a direct experience of the divine on a radio show? Daniel Ladinsky makes a rare public appearance to share how we can walk in the words of the poet-saints and touch what they touched. He'll read from The Gift, Love Poems From God, A Year With Hafiz, and Purity of Desire. Come hear the ecstatic poetry of the man The Bloomsbury Review says "sees God everywhere." Soon, you'll be seeing God everywhere too!

John Welshons is a man of the heart by the heart and for the heart. In his books and classes, he carries us into that heart place where human and divine love are revealed as one.

Gavin Harrison, author of In the Lap of the Buddha and Petals and Blood, was diagnosed with AIDS in 1989. From that moment, his life was transformed by suffering, and he was carried into a life of wholeness and beauty. Today he is a poet and deep meditation teacher. Gavin joins us from his home in Hawaii to speak of the essential nature of oneness and how it carries us.

Mirabai Starr has told the stories of mystics from all traditions. Her translation of The Dark Night of the Soul by St. John of the Cross transformed our understanding of this great mystic. Her newest translation, The Showings of Julian of Norwich, awakens us to a radical mystic who experienced Jesus as mother, and who was the first woman to write in English. If anyone can help us understand the universal call to oneness, it's Mirabai.

It's no accident that our month on death ends on Samhain! Although there are dozens of superb books on becoming friends with death, the date calls for a Celtic celebration of the circle of life. And who embodies Celtic spirituality like no other? John O'Donohue, of course. But this great soul is not available to lead our discussion. He embraced the angel of death in 2008. So he is sending his dear friend and workshop cofacilitator, Gareth Higgins. In Gareth's hands, we will not only become friends with death, we will explore the best movies on the subject, and a few of John's favorite things. Halloween will never be the same!

Therese Tappouni is the cofounder of ISIS, Institute for Sacred Integrative Somatherapies in Florida, where she and her partner help people lead intentional, conscious lives. She is a Somatic Intuitive Training practitioner, licensed HeartMath practitioner, clinical hypnotherapist, teacher, author, poet, grief counselor-and a mother who lost her child. She joins us to talk of the gifts of grief, and remind us that "To walk through grief is a heroic journey. No other challenge in life approaches it."

Mary Anne Radmacher is famous for sayings that carry us. Her famous poster that begins "live with intention" and ends with "live as if this is all there is" was written for a dying friend. This past year, Mary Anne was invited to collaborate on Getting Up, a book to help people facing illness. Two months later, Mary Anne became one of those people when she got the call that her brother was dying of a brain tumor. Mary Anne's gentle wisdom will help us all become friends with the one thing we all have in common-death.

Did you know the Hindu word for death means "great bliss"? In that phrase we can hear our theme, "the call to become friends with death." Of course! If death is the great bliss, surely we want to befriend her. When Swami Dhumavati was managing an AIDS hospice in Los Angeles, Ma Jaya Sati Bhagavati came to visit and invited Dhumavati to join her at Kashi Ashram, where AIDS sufferers were gathering to end their days. Swami Dhumavati has been a hands-on witness to hundreds of deaths. She joins us to speak of the path to that great bliss-Mahasamadhi.

Ted Wiard has had many visits from the angel of death. He faced death himself, survived, but then lost his wife, children, preborn baby, dog ... By all rights, these repeated visits should have broken him completely-and they almost did. But in the depths of grief, Ted recognized that grief and trauma can be a catalyst for high potential. He joins us to share a deeper exploration of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross's stages of death and dying.

Allaudin Mathieu is a brilliant composer, arranger, pianist, choir director, music teacher, and author. He joins us live from his studio in San Francisco, seated at his Steinway piano. At just 22, Allaudin wrote all the music in a famous Stan Kenton album. He went on to become a founder and musical director for Second City in Chicago, and the music director for The Committee, an improv theater is San Francisco. He's been on the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and was the original director of the world-famous Sufi Choir. But of greater importance than all his accolades and accomplishments is his deep, abiding love for the gift of music, the joy of song. Join us for a sparkling conversation on Bridge of Waves, his book on how listening to music changes the world.

Chant is more than song. Chant is a spiritual path. Chant is alive, it responds to your intention, and it helps you embody a sacred text, moving it off the page and into your heart. On the wave of intention, your heart turns in a particular direction, and as you chant, your voice opens the door to the silence, where the music and words can unfold in the infinite. An hour with Shefa Gold, author of The Magic of Hebrew Chant, is an hour of magic, wisdom, intention, and love.

Jill Purce, internationally recognized pioneer of sound healing, lives in London, but she'll be joining us from her appearance at the IONS conference in California to share ancient vocal techniques. Jill is living proof that the call to sing a sacred song doesn't have to involve words. Jill will share ancient vocal purification practices that cleanse and tune the radiant body and demonstrate how the voice has access to subtle dimensions of reality through Mongolian and Tibetan overtone chanting. All your perceptions of "sacred song" will be shattered listening to Jill's ecstatic singing.

Karen Clark first visited our program when Matthew Fox spoke to us of Hildegard of Bingen. Karen sang "O Virtus Sapientiae" by Hildegard. Listening to the exquisite music, something stirred in me and got up and erased all my plans for September and wrote "the call to sing a sacred song." So it's perfect that Karen Clark returns today to not only sing more Hildegard, but sacred songs from all times and places, proving that this soul call is truly universal. You'll hear sacred songs from ancient China to 21st-century America. You'll even get to sing along to "Ubi Caritas"!

What is the perfect book to capture our August exploration of "the call to love"? It had to be something by Thich Nhat Hanh, but I couldn't choose between Fidelity on how to have an intimate relationship and Cultivating the Mind of Love on how to have a loving relationship with all. So I chose both! As with all of Thich Nhat Hanh's books, these two are short and easy to read. Easy, but not simple. Reading them is like sitting down to have a gentle, loving conversation with Thich Nhat Hanh himself. Rachel Neumann of Parallax Press, Thich Nhat Hanh's editor in America, joins us to share what it's like to live deep within the master's teachings on love.

Rev. Marj Britt had an intimate loving relationship with the Divine and powerful spiritual practices. She had spent years creating the sacred container of Unity of Tustin in Southern California, complete with extensive meditation gardens. But then, as she puts it, "My white board got erased." In the midst of one change after another, Spirit showed up saying, "All your thoughts of God are too small. You have now been Called by Love." So what did Marj do? She answered the call! Join her as she tells us what happens when you have been "called by love." (Because, guess what, you've been called by love too!)