624. Philip Goldberg, 2nd Interview

Phil GoldbergPhilip Goldberg has been studying the world’s spiritual traditions for more than 50 years, as a practitioner, teacher, and author. He trained as a Transcendental Meditation teacher with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in 1970 and later became an ordained Interfaith Minister and spiritual counselor. As a public speaker and workshop leader, he has lectured and taught at major venues throughout the U.S. and India. As a professional writer, his articles and blogs have appeared in numerous print and online publications, and he has authored or co-authored more than 25 books, including an upcoming novel and such celebrated nonfiction as:

He has produced e-courses for Spirituality & Practice and has taught many online courses, most recently, The Yoga of Intuition and Creativity, Four Pathways to the Divine, How Hindu Dharma Transformed the West, and the forthcoming An Immersive Exploration of the Iconic “Autobiography of a Yogi.” His special 12-part series, Spiritual Practice for Crazy Times, for Unity Online Radio, features interviews with well-known spiritual teachers. He is currently working on two nonfiction books and a sequel to his novel. In addition, he blogs regularly on Elephant Journal and Spirituality & Health, cohosts the popular Spirit Matters podcast and YouTube channel and leads American Veda Tours to India. He serves on the board of the Association for Spiritual Integrity. His website is PhilipGoldberg.com.

Interview recorded November 21, 2021.

First BatGap interview with Phil.

Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group.

Transcript of this interview.

Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast.

605. Chelan Harkin

Chelan HarkinChelan Harkin has been channeling ecstatic poetry for years and has now published two books in the past seven months, Susceptible to Light and Let Us Dance!: The Stumble and Whirl With The Beloved. Her publishing journey has been mystical and transformational and filled with “prayer experiments” gone right. Chelan has regularly been compared to the great mystic poets, Rumi, Hafiz, and Rilke. She lives in a geographically spectacular region of Washington State, The Columbia Gorge, with her husband and two small children. In her poetry and in her life, Chelan continually invites the fumbling, suffering parts of our nature and our divinity to meet for tea in the heart, to have a great laugh, and share a big hug.

Some of the main points discussed in this conversation:

  • Chelan’s background and introduction to poetry by Hafiz. Her shift from effortful poetry to spontaneous “downloads”.
  • Chelan reads some of her favorite poems throughout the interview.
  • Chelan’s subjective experience when a poem starts to “come through” – a full-body tingle and a sense of urgency; a mingling of her spirit with something larger.
  • What the world might be like if everyone unlocked their full potential.
  • Chelan’s transformative experience with hypnosis as a process for the development of consciousness.
  • There is no joy in smallness. Chelan reads the poem ‘I AM TOO MUCH!’
  • The growth potential of marriage and parenthood.
  • Opening the heart and connecting with the divinity within us.
  • Sensitivity to ‘truth’ and addressing that which is not aligned with it.
  • Being able to have pain move through us without hurting us.
  • Chelan’s collaboration with Daniel Ladinsky.
  • Chelan’s upbringing in the Baháʼí faith. All people and religions are fundamentally united in a common source.
  • Chelan’s mystical experience and creative inspiration in a cell in Israel in which the founder of the Baháʼí faith was imprisoned.
  • Developing a harmonious relationship between knowledge and experience.
  • Chelan’s current and future projects.

Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group.

Transcript of this interview.

Interview recorded July 3, 2021

Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast.

563. Diana Durham

Diana DurhamDiana Durham is a British/American poet and writer who draws on archetype to explore our identity.

She’s a poet, writer, and documentary film producer who, following a degree in English Literature from University College, London, took the ‘path less traveled’ and became involved in an intentional community in England, the United States, and Canada. In the early 1990’s she was among a grouping who began to explore dialogue and collective intelligence with the late theoretical physicist David Bohm.

Her most recent book Coherent Self, Coherent World: A New Synthesis Of Myth, Metaphysics & Bohm’s Implicate Order explores how our thinking becomes coherent when our ‘personality self’ is in a meaningful relationship with a deeper, more intuitive quality of awareness and identity. And it also traces how, when we are disconnected from this intuitive source, our thinking becomes incoherent leading to problematic outcomes.

The work grew out of her deep study of the Arthurian and Grail Myths, explored in her former nonfiction book, The Return of King Arthur: Finishing the Quest for Wholeness, Inner Strength, and Self-Knowledge, as well as her participation in dialogue with Bohm.

Other works include the novel The Curve of the Land; and three poetry books:

Her poems have also appeared in numerous magazines in the UK and USA, including Orbis, Tears in the Fence, Kindred Spirit, Mankato Review, Northern New England Review, Parabola, and Ecozone@:European Journal of Literature, Culture and Environment from Leiden University, The Netherlands,  as well as in twelve anthologies, including Soul of the Earth The Awen Anthology of Eco-Spiritual Poetry edited by Jay Ramsay, published by Awen Press, UK, The 2008 Poets’ Guide to New Hampshire published by the Poetry Society of New Hampshire and Diamond Cutters: Visionary Poets in America, Britain & Oceania edited by Andrew Harvey and Jay Ramsay, published by Tayen Lane.

She also wrote, performed, and co-produced a dramatic retelling of the Grail Myth called Perceval & the Grail which is in CD and downloadable form as an audio play as well as a 15-part animated series on YouTube.

She was a Visiting Research Associate at the Women’s Studies Research Centre, Brandeis in 2011, and gave talks and workshops using the grail myth sponsored by the NH Humanities Council (in the US), as well as national and international women’s groups and business executives leadership training courses. In addition to writing books, she collaborates with her husband as writer/producer of documentary films. Their current project is a series of short films, ‘Making Sense’. For their first film, they talked to psychiatrist Dr. Iain McGilchrist, author of ‘The Master & His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of Western Culture’.

Website: dianadurham.net

Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group.

Interview recorded August 8, 2020

Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast.