My recent conversation with Dr. David Ragland, writer, scholar and activist, couldn’t be more timely in the midst of the current relentless roll-back, under the Trump Administration, of policies and programs that were aimed at racial healing. David is a co-founder, along with Congresswoman Cori Bush, of the Truth Telling Project, where he serves as director for Culture, Organizing and Reparations. He is a passionate advocate for the healing of America through programs that expose and acknowledge the history and present experiences of racism, promote reparations for the injustices, and educate so as there will be no repeat of the abuses.
David was moved to create the Truth Telling Project after the murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO, where he witnessed the exclusion of the voices of the victims from public discourse. Yet, while far from a fan of Trump, David sees the problems we face in America as bi-partisan and present throughout the history of our country, with police abuse and mass incarceration being essentially an extension of slavery.
I think most people are very naive about the idea of reparations, seeing it merely as giving money to Black Americans who are the descendants of slaves. David sheds light for us around reparations as a multi-dimensional, educational, healing and spiritual initiative, as well as having grounded economic aspects.
In our conversation, David talks about the influence of his family on his own development. His father was a sharecropper who had to escape from Tennessee under the threat of forced labor. His mother’s lineage includes ancestors from Cameroon who had a warrior tradition that resisted colonization. He describes his mother as a continuing inspiration, among other things having maintained a garden in Missouri that supplied food for her own family and other folks in the community . Now, in addition to his work with the Truth Telling Project, David is a founder and member of a the Kibilio community in Massachusetts, a Queer, Black-Led Intentional community focused on healing, reparations and regenerative farming.
I hope you get as much from hearing David as I did in my conversation with him. If you find it of value, please subscribe to my YouTube channel and check out some of the other podcasts. And please take some time to explore the Truth Telling Project and David’s work through the links below.
“The common denominator between all my cartoons is rebellion against blind conformity.” –Khalil Bendib
It was my pleasure to have a conversation with my friend, Khalil Bendib: artist, sculptor, author, political cartoonist and radio host. The recorded YouTube of the conversation can be seen here:
Khalil and I met as participants in a dialogue group in Berkeley that included, Jews and Arabs, Israelis and Palestinians and I learned to deeply respect his candor, sense of humor and intelligent take on the nuanced reality in which we live.
Khalil Bendib is an Algerian, born in Paris during the Algerian Revolution. In our conversation he shared his feeling that he carries the trauma of the Algerian people from his time in the womb forward. He describes his parents’ escape from almost certain execution by the French forces as the first imprint of his understanding and empathy for all oppressed people.
Khalil is the co-author of the New York Times bestseller Zahra’s Paradise, which was published in 16 languages and nominated for two Eisner Awards. He has lived in Berkeley, CA since the 1980s. He worked as a political cartoonist at the San Bernardino County Sun for eight years, leaving that to work independently. He now distributes his cartoons to 1700 independent publications nationwide and co-hosts a weekly one-hour show, Voices of the Middle East and North Africa, on Pacifica station KPFA. His first book, Mission Accomplished: Wicked Cartoons by America’s Most Wanted Political Cartoonist, was published in 2007.
He has since published books of political cartoons as well as a graphic novel, Verax: The True History of Whistleblowers, Drone Warfare, and Mass Surveillance: A Graphic Novel, (with Pratap Chatteerjee). His sculptures have become public monuments in Los Angeles, upstate N.Y., and San Francisco. They have been exhibited and collected on five continents and grace numerous businesses, homes and gardens in the United States and abroad.
Khalil shares the role of his parents in shaping the development of his empathy and open hearted approach to people. In our far ranging discussion, we talk about the emotional impact of the ongoing ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people, the distorted views about race, ethnic identity and the Arab people in particular.
For more information about Khalil’s work, see Links:
In case you missed it, a few weeks back I wrote a blog post about my conversation with Jim Fadiman, the father of modern microdosing. At the time, his book had not been released, so I wanted to be sure to call your attention to it.
(Please note: for this and other books suggested here, I understand if you’d rather not order from Amazon. Please simply use the titles and order from the bookseller of your choice).
Here’s the link to his book, Microdosing for Health, Healing, and Enhanced Performance. If you are curious, wanting to start, or already attempting microdosing on your own, you will benefit from learning more from the wealth of knowledge Jim has gained through his research.
If you haven’t seen or heard our conversation, here’s the links again:
I had the great pleasure to speak with my friend, Tomás, and discuss some of the wide range of issues he’s been involved with. Tom is one of the most real people I know. He shares about his extraordinary life experiences, his stumbles and awakenings, with humility, candor and humor, and opens to a deep channel of wisdom for us all.
In our conversation, he shares what he has learned from his work with the dying, his journeys on deep vision quests in nature, and what carefully guided psychedelic experiences offer for transforming individuals and our culture. Having apprenticed for eleven years with Huichol shaman and studied with numerous indigenous elders, he shares his thoughts on the issue of cultural appropriation and the importance of reciprocity. Finally, I asked Tomás to offer his thoughts on dealing with the machinations of our current President and his minions.
Tom is a true pioneer: he builds bridges between cultures, integrates ancient wisdom traditions with modern psychology and science, and brings forward how shamanic and nature-based principles can help us address the challenges of our times and return to sacred living. He has served as a transpersonal psychologist, ceremonial elder, rite of passage and vision-fast leader, sacred storyteller, musician, and author. Tom completed an eleven-year apprenticeship with Huichol shamans in Mexico and has written extensively about Huichol shamanism, cosmology and the use of peyote as a sacrament in their religious practice.
It was my great pleasure to have a conversation with Dr. Jim Fadiman. Jim is a delightful gentleman, an elder wiseman with a great sense of humor. Here’s a very concise bit of information about his life:
Jim Fadiman has been at the forefront of the exploration of consciousness since he was introduced to psychedelics by his former Harvard undergraduate advisor, Richard Alpert (aka, Ram Dass) in 1961. He went on to introduce a good number of folks to LSD and psilocybin, some who became counter-culture heroes in the Sixties, such as Stewart Brand who later developed the iconic Whole Earth Catalog.
While he grew up in a Jewish-atheist family, his psychedelic experiences turned him towards a spiritual path. Along the way he studied with Idris Shah, a Sufi mystic, and co-authored the book Essential Sufism with Robert Frager. Jim was an early pioneer in establishing transpersonal psychology, considered the fourth branch of psychology, directly integrating psychology with spirituality. He was the president of the Association for Transpersonal Psychology and along with Frager, founded the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology in Menlo Park (now known as Sofia University).
In the pre-prohibition days, Jim was one of the researchers working with psychedelics to enhance creativity, solve problems, and develop higher awareness of self and the world. Those programs were halted by the war on drugs in 1966. During that time, he bridged the more academic and research study of psychedelics while maintaining relationships with the counter-culture. He was a friend of Ken Kesey and wrote about the hippie scene in The Other Side of Haight- a Novel.
In our conversation, Jim shares about his early family life as well as his trajectory through many projects and activities until the present. Of his present focus, he might say that the universe has a sense of humor. After all his involvement with deep spiritual, transformative work with moderate to high dose psychedelics, he is now the most well known spokesperson for microdosing, the use of tiny, sub-perceptible doses of psychedelics to enhance people’s functioning in profoundly varied ways.
When I asked him if he was comfortable with being called “the father of microdosing,” he said he preferred the term “modern microdosing.” That’s because his research has led him to recognize that indigenous people have used micro-levels of various plant medicines for thousands of years. This surprised me as these are the substances which many of us know to be used only in larger doses and exclusively in sacred ceremonies.
It would be an understatement to say he has become enthusiastic about the potentials of microdosing. Along with colleagues, he has set up a citizen science reporting network from which he receives thousands of accounts from people who are microdosing. He speaks of athletes improving their performance, students doing better on tests, people being lifted from chronic intractable depression, sleeping better, dropping additive patterns, even very unexplainable resolving of long-term medical conditions.
Now in his 86th year, he remains active and has been instrumental in the establishment of the “microdosing institute” which educates and offers counseling or coaching for people seeking the benefits of microdosing. A wealth of information, including several videos of Jim speaking are featured on the website.
I hope you take some time to watch or listen to my conversation with this remarkable man.
This is a conversation that I truly wish would get wide attention because what is brought out here is so important for people, especially Americans, to know. The U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan lasted over 20 years, cost over 2500 American lives and likely 100, 000 Afghans. Thousands more on both sides suffered injuries, lost limbs and now suffer from PTSD. It cost American taxpayers over one trillion dollars. It’s important to hear from an Afghan woman the story of Afghanistan, before, during and after this war. What it has meant for women and all the people of this war-torn nation.
Fahima Gaheez, the director of Afghan Women’s Fund, grew up in Afghanistan and from an early age was involved with the women’s rights movement in that country. A chemist by training, she chose to become involved with educational programs for women. She has has been actively involved in consciousness-raising and fundraising for many years. She has addressed the United Nations, has traveled widely to speak at conferences at universities and religious organizations, and has appeared on many national and international television and radio stations.
Since 2002 Fahima has visited Afghanistan to open new schools for girls and literacy classes for women, create income-generating projects for widows to help them become self-sufficient, distribute warm clothing and school supplies to refugees and guide numerous other humanitarian and educational projects like digging wells for clean drinking water and irrigation, building schools and clinics, giving goats and chickens to the widows and helping with their health issues by building clinics and providing medical supplies.
In my conversation with her she tells her personal story of growing up in Afghanistan, working for women’s rights, and what life was like for the Afghan people before even the Russian military occupation. She describes in vivid detail the role of the U.S. government in promoting the fanatic Islamist, Mujahadeen which became the Taliban and the consequences on the ground of the U.S. military campaign and their abrupt withdrawal.
Please scroll down to view links to her work and ways that you can support it. So far, the U.S. government has done nothing to rebuild what it has destroyed. Please consider making a donation, however small, to the Afghan Women’s Fund, and calling your congressional leader to begin addressing the issue of U.S. responsibility.
Fahima is the winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award “for Extraordinary Contribution to Peace and Justice” awarded by the Ann Arundel Peace Action Organization in 2002.
In Dec 2003 she was awarded the “Human Right Community Award” by the UN Association of the National Capital Area”.
In September 2004 she received” Most outstanding volunteer” award from Ann Arundel County. In April 2005, she received the Salem Award for Human Rights and Social Justice.
In 2007 she received the Soroptmists award.
In Dec 2009 She received the life time achievement ward from Washington Peace Center.
In 2010 she received an honorary Doctor of Laws from Montclair University.
Get Involved: Now, especially, help is needed in Afghanistan. There are currently over 1 million widows desperate to feed their children; many are turning to begging and prostitution, and thousands of children are living on the streets. Most government funds just are not reaching women and children. Grassroots efforts are directly touching lives.
Take Action: Speak out for those whose voices are not being heard. Write to your congressional representative in Washington, D.C. and express your concern about the future of Afghanistan’s women and children. Use the following web sites to find out how to reach your senators and representatives:
Cathy’s very multi-faceted career and continuing activities include earning a doctorate in East-West Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS). At CIIS, she worked in a variety of administrative, leadership roles for 20 years and for the past six years she has worked with the CIIS Center for Psychedelic-Assisted Therapies and Research. She has served as president of Kepler College, (a state-approved college of astrological studies in Washington state) and as Director of IONS’ (Institute of Noetic Sciences) EarthRise Retreat Center. As a very respected astrologer, she works in private practice, as a coach, and lectures nationally and internationally on Western and Eastern (Jyotish) astrology.
She is a devoted mother, grandmother and author of the just released book, Ralph Metzner, Explorer of Consciousness – The Life and Legacy of a Psychedelic Pioneer published by Inner Traditions. We talk about the book, which contains dozens of tributes and illuminating stories from people whose lives were touched and deeply influenced by Ralph as friends, colleagues, students and family. It reveals a good deal about his life, his wide ranging interests and contributions to the fields of psychology, shamanism, eco-psychology, mythology, Western and Eastern mysticism, and of course, psychedelics, a field in which he was a pioneer and innovator starting with his association with Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert (Ram Dass) at Harvard.
In our conversation, we talk about Cathy’s early years growing up in a conservative, small town in Missouri, her opening to astrology, her move to California and the California Institute of Integral Studies, and her in thirty year marriage with Ralph Metzner. Cathy talks with openness about what it was like living with him, working alongside him, being with him through his dying, and now communing with him in the after-life.
Cathy co-founded the Green Earth Foundation with Ralph that was a vehicle for Ralph’s teachings and books and through which Cathy continues to pass on his rich legacy (www.greenearthfound.org).
My recent conversation with John Malkin opened my eyes to a genre of music which I’d previously kept at a great distance – Punk Rock music. John, a very accomplished and recognized pianist himself, has a wide range of interests: writing, photography, non-violent communication, activism, music of several genres, and interviewing and writing about people involved with music, social justice and spirituality. Regarding music, he’s given a good deal of focus to punk rock, especially the punk music that has radical and revolutionary social and political content.
John’s most recent book, Punk Revolution! – An Oral History of Punk Rock, Politics and Activism, came out of over 250 interviews with punk musicians. In it, he explores in-depth, the very powerful and provocative messages and influence of the punk music scene. Coming from an older, hippie, rock and roll generation, I had pretty much bought into the disparaging view of punk as simply violent ranting (John acknowledges it has that element). But I now see it in a different light, that it took on the early anti-authoritarian role of rock-and-roll which had become pretty commercial as punk came on the scene. And embedded in the intense beat and thrashing guitars are messages related to political and social issues. I learned just how much punk is international in scope and includes Buddhist, indigenous, Hindu, vegan, even Orthodox Jewish versions. In John’s forthcoming book, Punk Spirit, he plans to focus on the spiritual aspects of punk.
Malkin has been working through radio for over 25 years. Starting with a tiny “pirate radio” station in Santa Cruz, he now has a regular program, “Transformation Highway,” on KZSC 88.1 radio through UC Santa Cruz. John’s interviewed musicians of all genres, political activists, spiritual teachers as well as community and labor organizers. The list includes, Thich Nhat Hanh, spiritual guru Amma, Noam Chomsky, John Trudell, Amy Goodman, Yolanda King (MLK’s daughter).
Malkin considers himself a student of Thich Nhat Hanh and Gandhi, and is committed to non-violence with an anarchist bent towards authoritarian powers. Our conversation includes a good look into the political questions of our time, the upcoming election, and Israel’s war on Gaza as it relates to Jewish identity.
Malkin’s interviews and writings have been published internationally in Adbusters, Punk Planet, Razorcake, Spirituality & Health, Z Magazine, Ode, In These Times, Sojourners, The Sun, Film International, Shambhala Sun, Tricycle, Friends Journal, The Santa Cruz Sentinel, The Monterey Herald and other publications. As a pianist / percussionist he has collaborated with a variety of ensembles, dancers and choreographers for 30 years including Tandy Beal, Mel Wong, Connie Kreemer, Frey Faust, Nita Little, Joe Goode, Miranda Janeschild and Rita Rivera. He’s played solo piano concerts internationally and has performed with West African Kora master Foday Musa Suso, German vocalist Christian Kesten, cellist Elaine Kreston and blues guitarist Paul Sprawl. Malkin has traveled internationally and has lived in West Berlin and Australia. He is now writing his first novel about hitchhiking across the Sahara Desert.
A very interesting man! Please watch or listen to my conversation with him and check out the information at the links below for more about John and for some his recommendations of punk music.
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May we all be the peace that brings justice to the world,
“There is a coming home. A home base. Psychedelics help you reconnect with home.” — Ann Shulgin “After centuries of patriarchal dominance, humanity has lost its innate balance. By invoking the divine feminine energies we restore equilibrium. That’s why we chose the word Divas — the Latin for goddesses or the feminine divine — to honor the highest aspect of the feminine.” –from Psychedelic Divas website
“I want to unfold. Let no place in me hold itself closed, for where I am closed, I am false.“
–Rainer Maria Rilke
It’s been noted that the discovery of LSD in 1943 by the Swiss chemist, Albert Hoffman, occurred while scientists at the Manhattan Project were developing the first atom bomb, detonated in 1945. The most powerful agent of consciousness change and the most destructive weapon mankind had ever created came to us very close in time. Is it a coincidence, or synchronicity. A similar synchronicity seems apparent in the present moment, where a wide range of intersecting destructive trends, possibly crippling or fatal to humanity and other life on Earth – the mega, meta, or polycrisis – is happening at the same time as what has been called the psychedelic renaissance.
Can psychedelics help humanity develop a more eco-conscious mindset and find the motivation and wisdom to create a just and sustainable world? It seems clear that psychedelics alone do not accomplish that. But combined with appropriate intention, proper preparation, and mindful integration, there are signs that they do support and accelerate the transformation of people’s perception, thinking and activity towards more cooperation and empathy and greater appreciation and respect for nature.
One of the oldest and key features of the old paradigm is male domination, patriarchy. It’s fair to ask whether this way of being itself is a primary cause of our crises, subjugating the nurturing, holding and being qualities of the feminine and women, to the assertive, active, goal-oriented male energies, and men.
As we try to emerge from millennia of patriarchy, we can draw from the many wisdom and spiritual traditions of the world which contain teachings that can help free of us from the mindsets of male dominance. We can learn that giving attention to the Divine Feminine, the Goddess and Goddesses of old, and to Nature and Mother Earth is essential for both men and women. We can face the deeply ingrained destructive bias that places male attributes and energy, and men, above and more important than the feminine and women.
There are many ways to unlearn the conditioned patterns of male dominance and expand our consciousness to embrace the fuller realizations of the feminine. One way is the carefully guided, ceremonial use of plant medicines, entheogens, psychedelics. On such journeys, it’s possible to heal the wounded aspects of one’s inner woman (what Carl Jung called the anima) and open to the divine feminine available to both men and women. Carla Detchon has been exploring this for nearly forty years and recently launched “Psychedelic Divas”, a podcast devoted to this subject. I interviewed Carla for my Crossing the Boundary podcast. I hope you can take the time to listen to our conversation.
Carla and I were in ceremonial spaces together many times with the masterful guide, Ralph Metzner. Metzner’s approach to psychedelic ceremonies included what he called “divinations,” purposeful inner journeys for opening to divine guidance and healing. He would take us through mythic realms and lead us through spiritual practices, some of which aimed to heal wounded parts of ourselves and explore our relationship to the physical, psychological and spiritual aspects of male and female consciousness.
Through her work as an integrative coach and through her podcast series, Carla supports people in the preparation and integration of psychedelic journeys. She is passing along the legacy of Metzner’s wisdom teachings. Her emphasis, as the podcast name makes clear, is on the feminine. While ultimately, we all need to balance the male/female within, the long suppression of the feminine in humanity calls for us to highlight that aspect of our nature. We need an affirmative action focus of our attention on HER for our personal benefit, and for the much needed transformation of the collective human consciousness.
As it says on the Psychedelic Divas website:
“We are calling on people of all genders to lean into their natural divine feminine traits—intuition, receptivity, creativity, compassion, healing, communal connection, softness, nurturing, and flow—in order to help bring balance back to our individual selves as well as the world.“
At a very practical level, Carla offers a free guide on her website and podcast site called: “PSYCHEDELIC SAFETY TIPS INCLUDING WHAT TO DO WHEN THINGS GO WRONG”
Eva was born in Israel in a Muslim family and as a child, learned to think of herself as an Arab-Israeli. She moved to France to study and received a double Masters degree in International Relations and International Administration from the Sorbonne. Her skills, and the fact that she speaks five languages fluently, led her to Brussels to work with an NGO and also as a consultant to the European Union. Living there for 10 years, she took on Belgian nationality. Her work included extensive conflict resolution projects in Africa and later New York.
Eventually, she came to the U.S. and began looking more deeply into the psychological and spiritual roots of conflict and realized she needed to do the work within herself before she could help others. She now likes to use the term “peace activator” to describe what she does, rather than peace activist, noting that it is the peace within that needs to be activated and brought out into the world.
Her self exploration and truth seeking led her to embrace her identity as a Palestinian. Especially now, she devotes herself to working with both Jewish Israelis and Palestinians. In her work with them as individuals and in groups, people find the common humanity they share with the people they had come to see as “others.” She sees this as getting to the roots of the conflict and a necessary part of finding solutions that will bring about justice and peace.
I found the work she does through PeaceActivation of great interest. As well, her life journey, crossing boundaries of different national or ethnic identities, seems to give her a clear vision of the role identity plays in all of us. I have found that when we recognize and accept our personal and collective identifications, we can more genuinely transcend the separative aspects of those identities and experience ourselves as fundamentally spiritual beings living in a human family. Eva Dalak seems to me to be someone who has done the work and is helping others find the way.
Eva and her partner live in Costa Rica and have a healing retreat center where they have “PeaceActivation” workshops and trainings.
Please see the links below to find out more about her work and ways to take part:
