Saturday, February 23, 2013

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #107 - 23FEB13

The Mystical Positivist is now a weekly radio show on KOWS-LP 107.3 FM, Occidental, CA. Listen live on Saturday evenings from 4:00 - 6:00pm, PST, via the web at KOWS Live Stream.

This week's podcast features:
  • A conversation with Lama Tsultrim Allione, international Tibetan Buddhist teacher and author of Women of Wisdom and Feeding Your Demons. She is the founder and spiritual director of Tara Mandala. In 2009, Lama Tsultrim received the International Outstanding Woman in Buddhism Award given in Bangkok, Thailand.

    Born Joan Rousmaniere Ewing in 1947 to a family of considerable accomplishment in New England, the young woman who would become Lama Tsultrim Allione began a lifelong study of Tibetan Buddhism at the age of 19 after encountering it during a long trip to India and Nepal. Among other teachers she studied with Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche, and at the age of 22 was ordained a nun by His Holiness the 16th Karmapa, who became her root guru. After several years of study and training in both Asia and America with many wonderful teachers, she made the difficult decision to return her monastic vows, married, and moved with her new husband to Puget Sound. There she gave birth to two daughters, and both she and her husband continued their Buddhist studies. The family moved to Colorado to work with Chogyam Trungpa, where Tsultrim separated from her first husband and later married Italian filmmaker Costanzo Allione. They had two children, one of whom died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Her Buddhist studies which helped her come to terms with this death were the foundation of her first book Women of Wisdom.

    She met her third husband David Petit in 1988. This marriage was a true partnership, and the couple collaborated in the creation of Tara Mandala near Pagosa Springs, Colorado in the early 1990s. For many years, Lama Tsultrim has focused her teachings on the lineage of Machig Labdrön, the 11th century Tibetan yogini who founded the Chöd lineage. In 2007 she was recognized and acknowledged as an emanation of Machig Labdrön, by the resident lama and lineage-holder at the monastery in Tibet where Machig Labdrön lived most of her long life. In 2008 she published the national bestseller Feeding Your Demons – Ancient Wisdom for Resolving Inner Conflict.
More information about Lama Tsultrim Allione's work can be found at:

Saturday, February 16, 2013

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #106 - 16FEB13

The Mystical Positivist is now a weekly radio show on KOWS-LP 107.3 FM, Occidental, CA. Listen live on Saturday evenings from 4:00 - 6:00pm, PST, via the web at KOWS Live Stream.

This week's podcast features:
  • A conversation with Kenneth "Bear Hawk" Cohen, author of the critically acclaimed classic, Honoring the Medicine: The Essential Guide to Native American Healing. He is a health educator, a traditional healer, and scholar of indigenous medicine. Bear Hawk is the recipient of the Alyce and Elmer Green Award for Innovation and Lifetime Achievement in Energy Medicine. Although best known for his pioneering work in Chinese healing arts (qigong), he has followed the "red road" of Native American wisdom as his personal spiritual path for more than thirty-five years.

    Of Russian Jewish ancestry, Bear Hawk is an adopted member of a Cree family from Sturgeon Lake First Nation in Canada and teaches with the blessings and support of traditional elders of many Nations. He is an initiate of the Red Cedar Circle and various medicine societies. Bear Hawk was an apprentice to Cherokee spiritual teacher Keetoowah Christie, from 1977-87. He also trained with elders from the Northeast, Northwest, and Northern Plains.

    In his quest for the common root of healing, Bear Hawk was initiated into Filipino oracion, prayer healing and psychic surgery, after a five year course of study. He studied African medicine with the Zulu sangoma, Ingwe, in the lineage of the Holy Man, Vusamazulu Credo Mutwa, and is a keeper of the sacred "bones" used in divination. Bear Hawk was one of four North American students of a master healer of the Igbo Tribe, Nigeria, and is an initiated dibia (priest/diviner).

    In addition to writing Honoring the Medicine, Bear Hawk is the author of "Native American Medicine" in Essentials of Complementary and Alternative Medicine. This was the first work on Native American medicine to be included in a U.S. medical school textbook. He is also the author of Native Wisdom: 7 Keys to Health and Happiness (Sounds True, audio CD) and more than 200 journal articles on health and spirituality.
More information about Ken "Bear Hawk" Cohen's work can be found at:

Saturday, February 9, 2013

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #105 - 09FEB13

The Mystical Positivist is now a weekly radio show on KOWS-LP 107.3 FM, Occidental, CA. Listen live on Saturday evenings from 4:00 - 6:00pm, PST, via the web at KOWS Live Stream.

This week's podcast features:
  • A conversation with Eric Edelmann, a teacher in the lineage of the great French spiritual teacher Arnaud Desjardins, who died in 2011. Founded by Desjardins over twenty years ago, Eric and his wife Sophie have operated Ashram Mangalam in Quebec for many years. Eric Edelmann is the author three books, regrettably not yet translated from French into English, Swami Prajnanpad and Lying, Jesus Spoke Aramaic, and Mangalam: A Journey from Arnaud Desjardins. While English speakers can get access to Desjardins’ teachings from his two books published in English, The Jump into Life, and Toward the Fullness of Life, we particularly appreciate our conversation with Eric Edelmann as an opportunity to deepen our understanding, and to share with our listeners, this deep teaching, which Desjardins himself received from his Indian teacher Swami Prajnanpad.

More information about Eric Edelmann's work can be found at:

Saturday, February 2, 2013

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #104 - 02FEB13

The Mystical Positivist is now a weekly radio show on KOWS-LP 107.3 FM, Occidental, CA. Listen live on Saturday evenings from 4:00 - 6:00pm, PST, via the web at KOWS Live Stream.

This week's podcast features:
  • A conversation with Zachiah Murray, author of the new book from Parallax Press entitled Mindfulness in the Garden: Zen Tools for Digging in the Dirt. A Registered Landscape Architect and Masters of Divinity graduate from Meru Interfaith Seminary at the Center for Spiritual Enlightenment located in San Jose, California, she regularly teaches meditation classes for the community and outreach programs. She also teaches 9 to 12 year-old children the martial art of Aikido, whose goal is the harmonious resolution of conflict. In addition to being a graduate of Meru Interfaith Seminary, she is also a member of the Order of Interbeing in the lineage of Thich Nhat Hanh (Thich Nhat Hanh provides the Foreward to Zachiah’s book). She lives in Santa Cruz.

More information about Zachiah Murray's work can be found at: