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Stephan offers webinars, retreats, videos, books, and spiritual counseling that make profound spiritual teachings and practices accessible to a global audience. He studied and practiced for many years with great masters in the nondual wisdom traditions of Zen, Dzogchen-Mahamudra, and Advaita Vedanta, and in 2001 he received Dharma transmission (authorization to teach) from Adyashanti.
In this conversation, recorded to mark the release of his new book Infinite Awakening: A Guide to Nondual Wisdom and the Pathless Path (Shambhala, May 2026), Stephan and Michael explore awakening not as a destination but as an ongoing, infinite process. They move through trauma and trust, the limits of mindfulness, the role of intimate relationship as spiritual path, and how nondual realization speaks — or fails to speak — to the metacrisis we're all living through. The episode closes with a guided "rest and allow" meditation from Stephan.
Topics
00:00 — Reconnecting00:04 — Awakening as a Path00:10 — Trauma & Trust00:16 — IFS & Somatic Therapy00:18 — Intimate Relationships as Spiritual Path 00:21 — Spiritual Bypassing00:27 — The Limits of Mindfulness00:33 — Guided Meditation: Rest and Allow by StephanResources & Links
Stephan Bodian
Website: infinite-awakening.orgInfinite Awakening: A Guide to Nondual Wisdom and the Pathless Path — Shambhala/Penguin Random House, May 2026Beyond Mindfulness — referenced in the conversationMeditation for Dummies — Stephan BodianPsychology Today interview: "Stephan Bodian on Our Innate Drive to Awaken"Referenced teachers and books
Adyashanti — website — gave Stephan Dharma transmission; wrote the foreword to Infinite AwakeningRamana Maharshi — Wikipedia — referenced in discussion of awakening idealsNisargadatta Maharaj — Wikipedia — "I am That"; referenced in discussion of true natureThich Nhat Hanh — "inter-being" — referenced in discussion of inseparability and nondualityRam Dass — "go home to your parents" — referenced in discussion of relationships as spiritual mirrorAndrew Holecek — I'm Mindful, Now What? (Sounds True, 2024) — referenced as a companion conversation on the limits of mindfulnessGlissando of Consciousness SAND Podcast with Andrew HolecekGabor Maté — referenced in discussion of trauma as universal human conditionPsychological Modalities
IFS — Internal Family Systems — referenced as a somatic approach that complements awakeningEMDR — Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing — referenced alongside somatic therapySAND
The Wisdom of Trauma — SAND filmThe Eternal Song — SAND film seriesSAND membershipContact SAND
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We are resharing this episode in memory of Michael Harrison, who passed away on April 17, 2026. He was 67.
In this episode, we discuss the life and work of musician and Sufi teacher Hazrat Inayat Khan with composer/pianist and Inayat Khan scholar Michael Harrison.Hazrat Inayat Khan ( July 1882 – 5 February 1927) was an Indian professor of musicology, singer, exponent of the saraswati vina, poet, philosopher, and pioneer of the transmission of Sufism to the West. At the urging of his students, and on the basis of his ancestral Sufi tradition and four-fold training and authorization at the hands of Sayyid Abu Hashim Madani (d. 1907) of Hyderabad, he established an order of Sufism (the Sufi Order) in London in 1914. By the time of his death in 1927, centers had been established throughout Europe and North America, and multiple volumes of his teachings had been published.
Michael Harrison (October 24, 1958 - April 17, 2026) forged a new approach to composition through just intonation (the system of tuning based on pure harmonic proportions). His works blend classical music traditions of Europe and North India. He is a Guggenheim Fellowship and NYFA Artist Fellowship recipient.
Michael created dedicated tuning systems for many of his works. He pioneered a structural approach to composition in which the proportions of harmonic relationships organically determine other musical elements such as pitch, duration, and dynamics. He also invented the “harmonic piano,” a grand piano that plays 24 notes per octave, documented in the Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments. Harrison seeks expressions of universality via the physics of sound – music that brings one into a state of concentrated listening as a meditative and even mind-altering experience.
At the time of his death he was working on “The Raga Cycle”, a series of albums charting the hours of the day through Hindustani raga. The first installment, Evening Light, was released in March 2026 on Cantaloupe Records. More albums in the series were recorded before he became too ill to continue. They will be released in the years ahead.
Donations in his memory can be made to the Michael Harrison Foundation for Just Music at JustMusic.org.
Topics
00:00 Podcast Welcome00:22 Encore Tribute02:28 Mysticism Book Intro02:49 Spiritual Music Path04:32 Conservatory And Tonality06:37 Daily Raga Practice12:55 Voice Breath And Wazifa16:48 Creation As Vibration20:14 Harmony East And West24:07 Math Of Consonance25:32 Temperament Versus Just28:24 Tuning The Soul Quote32:03 Piano Retuning Journey35:54 432 Versus 44039:56 Music As Universal Religion46:02 Cage Oliveros Deep Listening51:16 Commentary And Curriculum53:08 Teaching Programs55:26 Closing Thanks And OutroLinks
Michael Harrison — His Own Work
Evening Light: Raga Cycle I — Cantaloupe Music (2026)Seven Sacred Names — Bandcamp (2021)Revelation: Music in Pure Intonation — Cantaloupe Music (2007)From Ancient Worlds — michaelharrison.comTime Loops with Maya Beiser — Cantaloupe Music (2012)Michael Harrison websiteEpisode Music
Michael Harrison — "Mureed" from Seven Sacred Names (2021, Cantaloupe Music)Michael Harrison — "Alim: Polyphonic Raga Malkauns" from Seven Sacred Names (2021, Cantaloupe Music)Michael Harrison — "Qadr: Etude in Raga Bhimpalasi" from Seven Sacred Names (2021, Cantaloupe Music)Hazrat Inayat Khan — "Purvi Khal: Kamli Wale Tope Sabkuchhvare" (2022, Primitiv)Michael Harrison – “Sami: The Acoustic Constellation” from Seven Sacred Names (2021, Cantaloupe Music)Hazrat Inayat Khan
The Mysticism of Sound and Music — GoodreadsInayat Khan 1909 78rpm Recordings — YouTubeHazrat Inayat Khan — WikipediaThe Inayat Order — Pir Zia Inayat KhanTurning Toward the Heart — SAND Podcast with Pir Zia Inayat KhanTeachers & Lineage
Pandit Pran Nath — WikipediaLa Monte Young — WikipediaTerry Riley — WikipediaPir Vilayat Khan — WikipediaUstad Mashkoor Ali Khan — WikipediaOther Composers & Artists Referenced
Pauline Oliveros — Center for Deep Listening® — Michael Reiley's teacher; creator of Deep Listening practicePauline Oliveros — paulineoliveros.usJohn Cage — Wikipedia — composer, Zen Buddhist, creator of 4'33"Arvo Pärt — WikipediaHildegard of Bingen — WikipediaRavi Shankar — WikipediaGeorge Harrison Concert for Bangladesh — YouTubeRoomful of Teeth — websiteJohn Eliot Gardiner — WikipediaJosquin des Prez — WikipediaClaudio Monteverdi — WikipediaJ.S. Bach — WikipediaPrograms & Institutions
Arts, Letters and Numbers — Creative Music IntensiveMichael Harrison Foundation for Just Music — donations in his memoryManhattan School of Music — where the harmonic piano is now archivedContact SAND
[email protected]Support the mission of SAND and the production of this podcast by becoming a SAND Member
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This is the second gathering in SAND's ongoing series on AI and the human spirit — and it takes a deliberately different rhythm. Rather than asking "is AI safe?" or "will it take our jobs?", Tiokasin Ghosthorse and Pooja Prema invite us to slow down and ask the deeper questions: What cosmology is AI extending? What is intelligence, really? And what happens when the earth-based, organic, living intelligence of Indigenous and ancestral ways of knowing gets replaced by a synthetic one? A spacious, felt-sense conversation that asks us to remember what a living mind actually is.
Timestamps
00:00 — Welcome & framing the deeper questions00:04 — Opening body practice: tuning into felt sense before speaking00:07 — Tiokasin: AI as the latest ship on the shore — colonization in a new form00:17 — "There is no artificial intuition" — what technology cannot replace00:18 — Pooja: the cosmology behind AI — colonial linearity vs. the curving motherboard of Earth00:25 — AI as the latest savior narrative — and why that story keeps repeating00:45 — Who owns the data? Who controls the intelligence? The politics of AI01:05 — AI as therapist, AI replacing elders — the cost to young people and mental health01:10 — Ghost in the Machine: how to resist empire over the long game01:15 — Closing: "Our body is the mystic" — an invitation to make this a living inquiryGuests
Tiokasin Ghosthorse is a member of the Cheyenne River Lakota Nation and lifelong Indigenous activist. He is the founder and host of First Voices Radio, which broadcast for 33 years before its final episode in July 2025. He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2016, is a National Native American Hall of Fame nominee, and a master musician who performs worldwide. He describes himself simply as "a perfectly flawed human being." He is also featured in SAND's film The Eternal Song.
Pooja Prema is a first-generation Indian American writer, multidisciplinary artist, and ritualist from Kerala, South India. Her work weaves ecofeminism, decolonial somatic practice, and animistic cosmologies. She is the founder of The Rites of Passage Project and The Ritual Theatre. Her work has been featured at the Kennedy Center, Ebony Magazine, and NPR.
Resources & Links
Tiokasin Ghosthorse
Akantu Intelligence — websiteFirst Voices Radio — archiveFeatured in The Eternal Song — SAND filmPooja Prema
Website: poojaprema.comThe Rites of Passage ProjectThe Ritual TheatreInstagram: @thecabinwitchFilm referenced
Ghost in the Machine — documentary directed by Valerie Veatch, Sundance 2026 — traces the buried history of AI and its roots in eugenics, racism, and colonial power. Featuring Tasheka Lavann on how indigenous nations are resisting data centers and how we resist empire over generations.Concepts discussed
Conspecific aggression — Tiokasin's term for what happens when a species competes so aggressively over shared resources that it turns on itselfPresent-phobic language — technology as a tool for escaping the present into an imagined futureThe real motherboard — Pooja's framing of Earth and cosmos as the original curving, relational, non-linear intelligence that AI's linear grid cannot replicateSAND series context
Part 1 of The Great AI Unraveling — with Tristan HarrisThe Eternal Song — SAND film seriesContact SAND
[email protected]Support the mission of SAND and the production of this podcast by becoming a SAND Member
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Originally recorded at Science and Nonduality, 2021
Pat McCabe, also known as Woman Stands Shining, is a Diné elder, ceremonial prayer leader, and international speaker adopted into the Lakota spiritual way of life. In this conversation hosted by Lynn Murphy, Pat offers a profound invitation to examine the foundational assumptions of the modern world paradigm and consider what it might mean to live from a genuinely different understanding of what it is to be human.
Drawing on teachings from her clan grandfather, her experience of intergenerational trauma and survival, and her deep inquiry into masculine and feminine principles, Pat maps the territory between the glittering world we are leaving and the green world we are entering. The conversation opens in ceremony and closes with a practice: a morning sunrise offering that anyone can begin today.
Lynn Murphy is a strategic advisor for foundations and NGOs working in the geopolitical South. She was a senior fellow and program officer at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation where she focused on international education and global development. She resigned as a ”conscientious objector” to neocolonial philanthropy. She holds an MA and PhD in international comparative education from Stanford University. She is also a certified Laban/Bartenieff movement analyst.
This episode is released in celebration of SAND’s new film featuring Pat McCabe, Little Singer, premiering online May 26-28, 2026, as part of the Eternal Song series.
Timestamps
00:00:00 — Introduction
00:01:45 — Lynn Murphy introduces Pat McCabe: Diné nation, Lakota spiritual way, Defend the Sacred alliance
00:05:00 — Pat introduces herself through her clans — clan names as places on the earth, worlds more than this one
00:07:00 — Traveling through worlds: the flood, men and women, and the movement from the glittering world to the green world
00:15:00 — The two paradigms: indigenous versus modern world — "I am a human being, relative to all my relations"
00:34:00 — Trailer for Little Singer — premiering online May 26-28, 2026 — theeternalsong.org/littlesinger
00:35:00 — Masculine and feminine principles: power over versus power with, the sacred hoop, and right relations
00:52:00 — A practice for beginning: the morning sunrise offering and the teaching on consent, sovereignty, and honorable relationship with all beings
Resources and Links
Pat McCabe — Woman Stands Shining Website: patmccabe.net
Little Singer — Eternal Song Series Online premiere: May 26-28, 2026 Three-day event with Diné voices
Mentioned in the episode Robin Wall Kimmerer — Braiding Sweetgrass (plant sovereignty, honorable harvest) Lakota spiritual traditions — Seven Generations teaching Diné (Navajo) Nation — Long Walk history, Bosque Redondo concentration camp, 1860s Residential boarding school history — US government and church collaboration Masculine and feminine principles in economics and right relations — ongoing inquiry in Pat's work
Episode artwork “Woman Stands Shining” by Namita
Contact SAND
[email protected]Support the mission of SAND and the production of this podcast by becoming a SAND Member
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Persian Poetry, Radical Love, and the Soul of Iran
“The path to God goes through that most difficult of beings, the human being.”– Omid Safi
Recorded live at a SAND Community Gathering (April 2026). Watch the full conversation on the SAND Website.We are watching, once again, what empire does: not only to bodies, but to the long memory of a people; to the libraries and sacred sites; to art, language, and the ruins that hold the oldest threads of human spiritual inquiry.
We are thinking of the civilization that gave us Rumi, Hafez, Omar Khayyam, Forough Farrokhzad — mystics and rebels and lovers of paradox who understood something about the human soul that we are still, centuries later, trying to catch up to.
This gathering invited us to come together: to read poetry aloud, to hear from Iranian voices, to sit with grief and beauty together rather than alone.
We work with political and moral vocabulary shaped by Iranian thinkers such as Ali Shariati, who wrote against domination, spiritual emptiness, and the violence of imposed power.
We make space for what doesn’t fit into headlines or talking points—the complexity of empire, the difference between a government and its people, the authoritarian forces at work not only abroad but here at home. We also gather with the political inheritance of those who taught generations to resist domination and spiritual emptiness, including Ali Shariati.
Guests
Omid Safi is a scholar of the Islamic mystical tradition and professor of Islamic Studies at Duke University. He is the author of Memories of Muhammad and Radical Love: Teachings from the Islamic Mystical Tradition, and teaches online courses on Muslim mysticism. He leads contemplative journeys to Turkey, Morocco, and Mecca/Medina through Illuminated Courses.
Fatemeh Keshavarz is the Roshan Institute Chair in Persian Language and Literature and Director of the Roshan Institute Center for Persian Studies at the University of Maryland. A poet in Persian and English, she is the author of Reading Mystical Lyric, Recite in the Name of the Red Rose, Jasmine and Stars: Reading More Than Lolita in Tehran, and Lyrics of Life: Sa'di on Love, Cosmopolitanism and Care of the Self. She has spoken at the UN General Assembly and received the Peabody Award for her NPR program on Rumi.
Mays Imad, PhD (facilitator) is a neuroscientist, educator, and associate professor at Connecticut College whose work bridges neuroscience, philosophy, and education. An Iraqi immigrant who lived through wars and displacement, she brings both personal and scholarly depth to the themes of trauma, remembrance, and repair through the embodied nervous system.
Timestamps
00:00 — Welcome & framing00:02 — Mays Imad opens: grief, urgency, and love00:06 — Introducing Omid Safi & Fatemeh Keshavarz00:07 — Saadi, Rumi, and the Persian tradition00:12 — The war on Iran: what is being destroyed00:21 — Don't bypass grief — the Persian mystics knew this00:27 — Saadi on truth, power, and interconnection00:32 — Fatemeh: togetherness, invisibilization, and Iranian resilience00:38 — Poetry as the Silk Road of imagination00:52 — War's corruption of language — and poetry as antidote01:04 — Remembrance as ethical act01:10 — Intergenerational love & closingResources & Links
Omid Safi
Illuminated Courses — books, podcast, courses, toursDuke University faculty pageRadical Love: Teachings from the Islamic Mystical Tradition — Yale University PressMemories of Muhammad: Why the Prophet Matters — HarperOnePodcast: Sufi Heart — Be Here Now NetworkThe Heart of Rumi's Poetry — online courseUpcoming events:
Evening workshop in London, May 5th — "Islamic Spirituality in an Age of Conflict"Contemplative journey to Turkey, June 1–12Rumi Retreat in Marrakech, November 22–28Fatemeh Keshavarz
WebsiteJasmine and Stars: Reading More Than Lolita in TehranLyrics of Life: Sa'di on Love, Cosmopolitanism and Care of the SelfCowboys and Iranians — poem by Fatemeh Keshavarz (video)Birds Without a Name — poem by Fatemeh Keshavarz, read at ARHU event on Hope & Home (video)Mays Imad
Personal websiteConnecticut College faculty pageMusic featured
Watan (وَطَن — "Homeland") performed by Shaghayegh Amiri, playing the Daf — the ancient Persian frame drum central to Sufi musical traditionAli Ghamsari — solo on the Kamancheh (Persian bowed string instrument), taught by Hamidreza Afarideh, music teacher in TehranPoets and texts referenced in depth
Rumi (Jalal al-Din Rumi, 1207–1273) — Persian Sufi mystic and poet; his Masnavi opens with pain and grief; central throughoutSa'di Shirazi (1210–1291) — Iranian Sufi poet; his Golestan (Garden of Roses) is where Iranians learn to read and write; complete English translation by Thackston available; Fatemeh's Lyrics of Life goes deeper on Sa'diHafez (14th century) — Persian lyric poet; Fatemeh discusses his use of the word hush as an example of how poetic language restores meaningFarid ud-Din Attar (born 1150) — author of Mantiq ut-Tayr (The Conference of the Birds / The Parliament of the Fowls) — referenced by Mays in her openingAbu Sa'id (Abu Sa'id Abi'l-Khayr, 967–1049) — Persian Sufi mystic referenced by Omid: "Don't just write down stories — become someone others want to write down what you say"Shams of Tabriz — Rumi's spiritual companion; Fatemeh discusses how Shams urged Rumi to live his knowledgeJamiluddin Aali — Urdu poet whose work was recited in the live chatHistorical & contextual references
Sharif University of Technology, Tehran — described as "the MIT of the Middle East," bombed during the warLeston Palace, Tehran — UNESCO World Heritage Site, bombed and referenced as a war crimeThe Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988) — Fatemeh's personal reference point for civilian life under bombardmentGeorge Orwell's Animal Farm and 1984 — referenced by Omid in discussion of the corruption of languageNext SAND Community Gathering
Voices of the Land: Resistance & Solidarity with Lebanon — April 28thContact SAND
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Recorded live at SAND Community Gathering (April 2026). Watch the full conversion on the SAND Website.
SAND has launched a special series on Artificial Intelligence.
To premiere this series, we spoke with tech ethicist Tristan Harris—co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology. In this conversation, we explored his warnings about the impending age of AI. According to Harris, the current trajectory isn’t just menacing the economy, but fundamentally rewiring human relationships, altering parenting and mental health, potentially accelerating climate collapse, and even threatening the very fabric of society. We inquired into ways to remain human in an era where machines can simulate empathy, displace our labor, and potentially outmaneuver us.
Topics
00:00 Welcome and Context00:42 Why This AI Talk01:32 Introducing Tristan Harris03:15 Setting the Basics04:10 From Narrow to New AI06:18 Rubber Band Reality Check08:31 Transformers and Scaling11:00 Infinity Upside and Risk14:49 Defining AGI and ASI18:18 Jagged Capabilities and Hype21:33 Singularity and Anti Human Drift23:26 Incentives Behind the Future27:29 The Intelligence Curse32:22 Devaluing Humans and Consensus37:56 Planetary Costs of Data Centers39:41 Why We Keep Building It42:46 Extinction Risk and Safety Math45:20 AI in War and Arms Race47:36 Leaders Unaware of Runaway Signs48:26 Leaders Fear AI Power49:02 Nuclear War Game Theory49:41 Infinite Games Mindset51:11 AI as Extractive Empire52:27 From Shadow to Action53:55 Building the Human Movement57:25 Four-Step Action Plan59:44 Grassroots Wins and Bans01:02:18 Nonprofit Progress and Lawsuits01:07:51 Talking to Teens Effectively01:10:05 Governance and Citizen Assemblies01:12:19 Spiritual Hopes vs Incentives01:15:12 Accelerationism and Choice01:18:22 Policy Maker Ten Minute Brief01:21:26 Countering Transhumanist Ideology01:23:45 Changing Culture and Incentives01:27:12 Final Reflections and GratitudeResources
Websites & Organizations
Center for Humane Technology (Tristan Harris's website)The Human MovementAI DialogueProhuman AI Statement / DeclarationRoadmap to How We Ensure AI is Serving HumanityIndigenous Perspectives on AI CourseMetarelational AITech Workers CoalitionPanel on AI + Embodiment Luma InvitePurge Palantir Action LinksPurge Palantir Campaign PledgeArticles & Documents
Alibaba Security PaperThe Intelligence Curse by Luke Drago and Rudolf LaineThe Shape of AI JaggednessHarvard Gazette: Why are Communities pushing back on data centersThe Palantir Payroll PDFNew York Times Opinion: Yuval Harari AI ChatGPTArchive Article on Billionaires' BrainsNew York Times Opinion: Anthropic’s Restraint Is a Terrifying Warning SignVideos & Films
The Social DilemmaThe AI Doc / How I Became an Apocalyptimist - Official TrailerGhost in the MachineThe Day AfterWar GamesBernie vs. Claude (YouTube)Joanna Macy and the Great TurningHow To Make AI Good For Humanity by Siliconversations (YouTube)Books & Textbooks
Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach by Peter Norvig and Stuart J. Russell (PDF)States of Denial by Stanley Cohen (PDF) Finite and Infinite Games by James P. Carse (PDF)Hospicing Modernity by Vanessa Machado de OliveiraOutgrowing Modernity by Vanessa Machado de OliveiraThe Anxious Generation by Jonathan HaidtIntraConnected: MWe (Me + We) as the Integration of Self, Identity, and Belonging by Daniel J. Siegel, M.D.
Empire of AI By Karen HaoMore Everything Forever by Adam Becker Why Do We Tell Ourselves Scary Stories About AI? by Amanda GefterPodcasts & Audio
Your Undivided Attention - Tristan Harris, Aza Raskin, and Daniel BarcayThe Emerald - Joshua Michael SchreiThe Great Simplification - Nate Hagens
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Simon Wickhamsmith is a Buddhist monk turned scholar, computer musician, and one of the only translators of Mongolian literature into English. He teaches in the Writing Program at Rutgers University and has been traveling back and forth to Mongolia since 2006. In this conversation he traces his spiritual path from Catholicism through Tibetan Buddhism and back to medieval Christian mysticism, introduces the Mongolian poet Mend-Ooyo, and takes us deep into the life and poetry of the 19th century Buddhist polymath Danzanravjaa — a figure Simon considers his primary teacher — including a live reading of the poem Twos, a stunning meditation on nonduality from the Mongolian steppe.
Topics
00:00 — Introduction 00:02 — Simon's spiritual path: Catholicism, Opus Dei, the Desert Fathers, and Zen 00:04 — Discovering Tibetan Buddhism, Samye Ling monastery in Scotland, and ordaining as a monk 00:06 — The three-year retreat, his mother's illness, and returning to the world 00:07 — Returning to medieval Christian mysticism: Julian of Norwich, Meister Eckhart, The Cloud of Unknowing 00:10 — How SAND connected with Mend-Ooyo in Mongolia — and how Simon met him 00:12 — Teaching himself Mongolian by translating Danzanravjaa's complete works 00:13 — Introducing Mend-Ooyo: born 1952 into a nomadic herding family, poet and cultural guardian of Mongolia 00:16 — The underground literary group GAL (Fire) and Mend-Ooyo's role in Mongolian literary culture 00:18 — Mend-Ooyo's mission: reconnecting Mongolia to its nomadic heritage after Soviet collapse 00:19 — Mend-Ooyo's new novel The Solitary Tree: Robin Hood, shamanism, Buddhism, and falcons 00:23 — Who was Danzanravjaa? Born in the Gobi Desert, recognized as the fifth reincarnation of the Noyon Hutagt 00:26 — Danzanravjaa's approach: spontaneous, impromptu poetry as dharma teaching 00:28 — Mongolia's first traveling theater troupe and the poems as dictated teachings 00:31 — Live reading and analysis of Perfect Qualities — a love poem, a guru poem, and a poem of nonduality simultaneously 00:33 — The three levels of meaning in Danzanravjaa's poetry: outer, inner, and secret 00:38 — Bhakti yoga, Ram Dass, Maharaji, and the connection to direct transmission beyond doctrine 00:41 — Danzanravjaa and the land: the Shambhala vortex at Hamriin Hiid 00:44 — Horses, landscape, and the spiritual path in his poetry 00:45 — Simon's personal experience of the Shambhala site and animist relationship to land 00:49 — If Danzanravjaa were alive today: his anti-Manchu politics and primary focus on deepening practice 00:50 — Live reading of the poem Twos — nonduality in full 00:54 — On translation: humor, layers of meaning, and the paradox of the poem itselfResources & Links
Simon Wickhamsmith
Rutgers University faculty page Suncranes and Other Stories: Modern Mongolian Short Fiction — Columbia University Press, 2021 Politics and Literature in Mongolia (1921–1948) — Amsterdam University Press, 2020 The Hidden Life of the Sixth Dalai Lama — Lexington Books, 2011Mend-Ooyo Gombojav
Official website: mend-ooyo.mn Altan Ovoo (Golden Hill) — translated by Simon Wickhamsmith Gegeenten (The Holy One) — novel about Danzanravjaa The Solitary Tree — Mend-Ooyo's most recent novel, published 2025, translated by Simon Wickhamsmith Wikipedia: Mend-Ooyo Gombojav SAND Event — Nature of Mind and Mind of Nature: A Local Event with Mongolian Poet Mend-Ooyo Gombojav (2026)Danzanravjaa (referenced poems)
Perfect Qualities (also known as The Five Senses / Five Offerings) Twos — read in full during the episode Mend-Ooyo's essay on Danzanravjaa: mend-ooyo.mn/content/86.htmlReferenced spiritual figures & texts
The Cloud of Unknowing — anonymous 14th century medieval Christian mysticism text Julian of Norwich and Meister Eckhart — medieval mystics Simon returned to after Buddhism Samye Ling Tibetan Buddhist Monastery, Scotland — where Simon did his retreat Ram Dass and Maharaji — referenced in discussion of bhakti yoga and direct transmission John Cage — Simon's original entry point into Zen BuddhismConnect with more talks and films from the SAND film Series The Eternal Song
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Researcher, author, and PhD candidate Chiara Baldini has spent two decades tracing the roots of ecstatic culture in Europe — from the rituals of Dionysus all the way back to Bronze Age Crete and the ancient Minoans, a civilization that thrived for over a thousand years before classical Greece. In this conversation, Chiara makes a compelling case that the Minoans may have been the only advanced civilization of their era not built on domination — their palaces functioning as community spaces rather than elite residencies, their frescoes showing priestesses, dolphins, and bull-jumping athletes rather than kings and conquest. She explores what their art, architecture, and animist relationship to nature might offer us now — not as a culture to imitate, but as proof that patriarchy is not inevitable, and that a radically different set of values has thrived before.
Chiara Baldini is a scholar, author, speaker and freelance curator from Florence (Italy). She investigates the evolution of the ecstatic cult in the West, particularly in Minoan Crete, ancient Greece, and Rome, contributing to anthologies, psychedelic conferences, and festivals. She was a member of the Boom Festival team since 2010 and the curator of Boom’s cultural area Liminal Village from 2014 to 2023. She has co-curated the anthology “Psychedelic Mysteries of the Feminine.” She is currently a PhD candidate at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS). She lives in Portugal and she expresses her deep love for music by playing as DJ Clandestina.
Topics
00:00 Welcome02:02 Reconnecting with Chiara and Recent Life Changes03:31 Dionysus and Ecstatic Traditions06:38 Going Back to the Minoans10:07 Bronze Age Patriarchy and War18:02 Minoan Palaces and Community Life21:18 Frescoes Dolphins and Priestesses26:34 Seal Rings and Undeciphered Script32:18 Bull Jumping and Gender Fluidity37:20 Why Minoans Matter Today44:31 Modern Crete LARPing and Animism49:30 Courses, Books and ClosingResources & Links
Chiara Baldini
Website & contactInstagram: @iamalwayschiaraAcademiaFacebookSoundcloudPsychedelic Mysteries of the Feminine (co-edited with Maria Papaspyrou and David Luke) — available via Inner TraditionsDionysus: Rave, Ritual and Revolution — online course (advaya)Minoan Crete course — online course (advaya)Power Without Patriarchy: Minoan Crete — online course (Morbid Anatomy)Dionysus course — Morbid AnatomyPsychedelic Mysteries of the Feminine (co-edited with Maria Papaspyrou and David Luke) — available via Inner TraditionsChiara's earlier SAND talk (2019)Books mentioned
The Chalice and the Blade — Riane Eisler — the foundational text on dominator vs. partnership societies, essential context for this conversationKey figures discussed
Arthur Evans — Wikipedia — British archaeologist who excavated Knossos beginning in 1900, named the Minoan civilization, and controversially reconstructed the palaceThe Prince of the Lilies fresco — the contested Knossos fresco Chiara discusses as an example of Evans projecting masculine elite identity onto ambiguous fragmentsKnossos Palace, Crete — the largest Bronze Age archaeological site on Crete, centerpiece of Minoan cultureInstitutions mentioned
CIIS — California Institute of Integral Studies — where Chiara is completing her PhD in Philosophy, Cosmology and ConsciousnessBoom Festival — transformational arts festival where Chiara curated the Liminal Village cultural area for over a decadeConnect with more talks and films from the SAND film Series The Eternal Song
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Recorded live at a SAND Community Gathering (March 2026).
Something is cracking open in the spiritual and wellness world; and it has been for a while. Have wisdom traditions containing genuine gifts been composted into a product that only serves the very forces those traditions were born to resist?
It is no news that some powerful spiritual leaders with devoted followers have, for a long time, abused that power for dominance and, in many cases, for sexual exploitation. The Epstein files are not an interruption to the pattern; they are the pattern, made suddenly impossible to scroll past.
We want to reflect on the conditions—not just the men, not just the crimes, but the architecture of silence that held it all in place. What kind of spiritual culture produces that silence? What kind of spiritual culture makes it possible to look at harm and call it a lesson in perception? What has gone awry with our approach to spirituality when the latter can be used as a cover for abuse? How come much of the therapeutic and spiritual communities remain silent in the face of crimes witnessed by the entire world?
To explore these and related issues, this discussion brought together mytho-poetic spiritual teacher Bayo Akomolafe Ph.D., writer & podcaster Matthew Remsiki, author & playwright V, spiritual teacher & psychologist Tara Brach and author & physician Gabor Maté in a wide-ranging discussion that will also invite audience participation.
The intention is to leave participants encouraged to find the spiritual inner strength needed to pursue truth without losing discrimination in the process, without giving away their power; to discuss compassionately, without judgment but with clarity, what the Epstein revelations can tell us about who we are, about our culture, and about the nature of how we construct reality; to move beyond a so-called equanimity and “non-attachment” that is indistinguishable from numbness and passivity in the face of harm, in the face of evil.
Topics:
00:00 Welcome and Intentions01:30 Opening Prayer and Invocation08:38 Ashe and Grace in the Fire12:26 Guided Breath and Heart Presence16:14 Moderator Sets the Context18:44 Pat on Accountability and Betrayal23:00 Bayo on Rage and Virtue28:52 Tara on Cult Silence and Bystanders35:46 V on Sacrifice and Reporting Systems44:53 Matthew on Critique and Accountability Research50:40 Key Question Abusive Teachers52:50 Residential School Aftermath54:51 Prep School Indoctrination56:25 Deep Truth From Flaws58:12 Tourettes And Moral Switch01:01:01 Charisma And Inner Circles01:04:34 Privilege Patriarchy Power01:08:03 Architecture Of Silence01:13:12 Anger Grief And Courage01:18:08 Indigenous Survival And Trickster01:22:56 Speaking Out And Fugitivity01:27:09 Spirituality’s Inward Turn01:32:52 Accountability And Healing01:35:53 ClosingLinks:
Gabor Maté – https://drgabormate.com/Bayo Akomolafe – https://www.bayoakomolafe.net/Pat McCabe – https://www.patmccabe.net/ Tara Brach – https://www.tarabrach.comV (formerly Eve Ensler) – https://www.eveensler.orgMatthew Remski – https://matthewremski.com/Watch the full video of this conversation – https://scienceandnonduality.com/event/the-architecture-of-silence-in-spiritual-culture/
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Recorded live at SAND's Wisdom of the Ancestors event for the launch of the film series The Eternal Song, four powerful voices converge to address colonization, extractivism, and ecological injustice — and what it takes to move toward healing. Moderated by Rae Abileah, social change strategist, Jewish faith leader, and co-creator of the global Climate Ribbon art ritual.
Abby Reyes, author of Truth Demands and Director of Community Resilience at UC Irvine, shares her harrowing personal story of the 1999 murders of her partner and colleagues near U'wa territory in Colombia, and a landmark recent Inter-American Court victory for Indigenous collective rights. Osprey Orielle Lake, founder of WECAN International and author of The Story Is in Our Bones, brings a worldview-shifting lens to the climate crisis as a justice and relational emergency. And Casey Camp-Horinek, elder, actress, and Hereditary Drumkeeper of the Ponca Nation, grounds the conversation in Indigenous sovereignty and the Rights of Nature. Together they call for community-rooted action, mutual aid, and what they name "post-traumatic growth."
Topics:
00:00 Host Welcome and Land Acknowledgment03:12 Session Theme and Intentions04:48 Meet the Panelists08:10 Why We Are Here18:59 Indigenous Rights and Knowledge25:14 Casey on Nature and Purification34:29 Abby Story and Legal Victory43:56 Meaningful Action and Getting Started50:32 Community Practice and Post Traumatic Growth57:58 Closing Reflections and ThanksResources
Rae Abileah
CreateWell — WebsiteBeautiful Trouble BioAbby Reyes
WebsiteTruth Demands — Penguin Random HouseUC Irvine Community ResilienceOsprey Orielle Lake
WECAN InternationalThe Story Is in Our Bones — New Society PublishersCasey Camp-Horinek
Movement Rights BioSAND FeatureConnect with more talks from The Wisdom of the Ancestors in the SAND film Series The Eternal Song
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Patty Krawec is Ojibwe Anishinaabe, a retired social worker, and author of Becoming Kin and her new book Bad Indians Book Club. In this conversation she explores kinship beyond blood, land as ancestor, and why reading together — slowly, in community — might be one of the most quietly radical things we can do right now.
Topics
00:00 Introduction00:56 Meeting Patty Krawec02:00 Land Lineage Roots04:17 Becoming Kin Origins06:43 Bad Indians Book Club10:12 Reindigenizing The Future14:55 Reclaiming The Word20:28 Reading Together Power25:06 Attention In The Feed25:27 Relearning Deep Reading26:10 Notebook Trick for Focus26:54 Building a Genre Mosaic29:00 Indigenous Horror and Futures31:53 Read Widely Use Libraries32:18 Curated Lists and Book Browsing34:26 Bookstore Serendipity36:30 AI Pushes Us Offline38:18 Books as Time Alchemy41:58 Ghost the System Together44:10 Deep Time Reading Lineage47:14 New Projects and Ojibwe Stories49:59 Thanks and FarewellResources
a thousand worldsMedicine for the Resistance Why We Are Both Oppressed and Oppressor: Patty Krawec
Becoming KinBad Indians Book Club
The Eternal Song
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Recorded from a live SAND Gathering (February 2026). From Los Angeles to Minneapolis, communities are turning toward one another in a time of uncertainty, remembering that care begins close to home. Beyond public action, quieter networks of support are taking root: block-by-block relationships grounded in land, lineage, and love.
This gathering explores how spiritual practice, trauma-aware care, and neighborhood organizing are being woven together as living traditions. We ask what it looks like to shift our energy from reactive mobilization toward steady, proactive organizing that can sustain us for the long haul. Drawing from Indigenous memory, Black freedom traditions, diasporic Jewish practices of care, and contemporary grassroots work, we reflect on how mutual care—feeding one another, tending grief, protecting children, honoring the dead—can be reclaimed as daily sacred practice.
This is a conversation about blending spiritual practice and movement practice; about thinking smaller, closer, and more relational; and about learning from quiet, resilient forms of organizing that move people from isolation into coordinated courage.
This conversation invites attunement: How do we stay grounded in grief without collapsing? How do we strengthen relationships across differences? How do small, steady acts of care help communities move from fear toward shared courage?
This is an invitation to listen to the wisdom already alive in our histories, our bodies, and our neighborhoods.
Topics
00:00 Welcome and Context02:33 Grounding Breath Practice03:22 Why We Gather Now05:19 Meet the Speakers07:36 Lyila June on Collapse09:12 Chaco Canyon Lesson12:36 Kaira Jewel on Flow16:39 Rejoicing and Ancestors20:04 Rabbi Jessica in Minneapolis24:54 Sacred Geography and Duty29:59 Lyla June on Forgiveness36:22 Liberation for Everyone37:32 Grace and Sobriety Story39:06 Jewish Wisdom and Mutual Care41:27 Feasting Fuels Mutual Aid45:53 Spirituality Is Not Neutral49:11 Sacred Criticism and Fierce Love53:49 Mycelium and Small Acts59:51 Resources and Community Questions01:03:30 Heart Practice for Overwhelm01:06:17 Reweaving Interdependence01:08:46 Warrior Love Closing01:14:31 Final Announcements and FarewellDecolonial Mental Health Practice: Clinical and Ethical Insights from Palestine with Dr. Samah Jabr (March 1, 8, 15 & 22, 2026 • 9:00 – 11:00am PST online with SAND)
Please consider donating to Rabbi Jessica’s GoFundMe campaign in support of students at Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis. The students are using creative arts to process the trauma of recent encounters involving ICE and U.S. Border Patrol.
In collaboration with local artists, they are developing an art installation intended to uplift and inspire both the school community and their neighbors, while continuing to advocate for justice and safety for all. This project offers a meaningful way to strengthen community bonds and foster collective healing.
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Dr. Liza J. Rankow, author of Soul Medicine for a Fractured World, explores healing justice in a time of social and ecological upheaval. She names oppositional dualism and domination as the root fracture of our world and invites a shift toward lived non-duality as the ground of lasting transformation. The conversation touches the “crucible of the in-between,” apocalypse as death and renewal, grief as medicine, and the movement from commodified self-care to soul care rooted in spirit, community, and nature. The conversation emphasized deep listening, silence, and relationship with the living world. Today’s episode closes with a simple guided breath practice for self, loved ones, and the world.
Topics
00:00 Opening 01:20 Why This Book Now03:41 What’s Fracturing Us07:21 Crucible of the In Between14:52 Medicine in the Wound20:11 Grief as Collective Wisdom26:28 Soul Care vs Self Care32:02 Mystic Activism and Oneness34:57 Breath And Service35:59 No Spiritual Bypass37:00 Oneness With Perpetrators39:18 Mysticism And Justice41:08 Nature As Practice44:23 Purpose And Gifts47:44 Deep Listening53:25 Silence And Reckoning56:13 Darkness As Source58:20 Closing Practice And BookResources
LizaRankow.orgSoul Medicine for a Fractured World
“Mysticism and Social Action” by Dr. Howard ThurmanSoul Work for Times of Uncertainty - SAND Podcast with Francis Weller Engaged Contemplation - SAND Podcast with Fr. Adam BuckoGlissando of Consciousness - SAND Podcast with Andrew HolecekSupport the mission of SAND and the production of this podcast by becoming a SAND Member
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Recorded live at a SAND Community Gathering (Feb 2026)
Dr. Samah Jabr, a Palestinian psychiatrist and author of Radiance in Pain and Resilience, joins Dr. Mays Imad (with questions from the audience chat) for a conversation about what it means to stay human when the structures meant to protect people are the ones doing the harm. Drawing on decades of clinical work inside the occupation, Dr. Jabr moves past the “sanitized” versions of trauma to speak directly to the heart of colonial harm in Palestine.
Central to this dialogue is an exploration of the deep ontological differences between Western psychiatric models and Palestinian lived experience. While Western frameworks often pathologize the individual through the lens of PTSD, Dr. Jabr introduces the concept of iptila—viewing tribulations through a framework of agency, faith, and collective endurance. She challenges the frequent romanticization of sumud (steadfastness), reframing it not as a poetic trope, but as a grueling relational practice and an ethical refusal to disappear when everything conspires toward Palestinian erasure.
In a reality where the harm never ends, memory becomes a battlefield, grief a form of testimony, bearing witness an active refusal to normalize the unacceptable, and storytelling a vital survival infrastructure against the assassination of memory.
Join Dr. Samah Jabr · March 1, 8, 15 & 22, 2026 • 9:00 – 11:00am PST
Decolonial Mental Health Practice: Clinical and Ethical Insights from Palestine
A four-part webinar presented by SANDTopics
00:00 Welcome & Why We Need a New Framework for Trauma and Justice02:15 “If I Must Die”: Carrying Memory, Refusing Normalization03:13 Introducing Dr. Samah Jabr’s Work: Pain, Power, and a Counter-Narrative07:55 A Childhood Lesson in Naming: Robinson Crusoe and Colonial Language10:10 Clinic Stories: When Political Reality Shapes Symptoms14:14 Beyond Western Psychiatry: Language, Resilience, and Context as the ‘Pathology’17:19 The ‘Fear of Dogs’ Case: History, Colonial Violence, and Clinical Meaning20:40 When Systems Collapse: Gaza’s Crushed Mental-Health Response & Organic Community Care25:04 Collective Healing & the Kite Intervention: Building Agency and Connection29:31 From Mobilization to Organization: Global Solidarity and Liberation34:31 How to Keep Working: Hope, Spirituality, and Protecting Health Workers41:58 Meaning-Making in Crisis: The Palm Tree Story and Spiritual Grounding45:22 Spirituality as Resilience: Listening for What Helps Each Person47:13 Scaling Mental Health Support in Palestine: Training Community Helpers49:00 Creating “Healing Spaces”: Group Support for Journalists, Youth & Displaced Women53:22 Reporting Gaza From Afar: Citizen Journalism, Narrative Control & Ethical Witnessing59:44 How to Support Palestine Sustainably: Remote Mental Health, Publishing & Advocacy01:05:37 Colonialism, Patriarchy & Horizontal Violence: When Trauma Damages the Social Fabric01:10:03 Meaning-Making Under Protracted Trauma: Tila, Agency & Shattered Belief Systems01:15:16 Diaspora Palestinians: From Helping Family to Leading Global Political Solidarity01:21:55 Closing Charge: Being Human After Mass Violence + Upcoming Webinars & FilmsResources
Dr. Samah Jabr’s bookArt by Fernando Martí and Jess X. Snow, inspired by Huda Suboh’s quote:“In the heart of Gaza, where the echoes of war reverberate through the streets… each day, glimmers of hope that dance across the sky—kites.” — Rafah, 2024Support this conversation by donating to Sumud Network for Mental Health and Healing for GazaWhere Olive Trees Weep (Film by SAND on Palestine (2024) with more Resources and a course on Palestine)
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What if language was not a tool for naming things, but a vibration of relationship?
What if intelligence wasn’t a human asset, but an ecological rhythm?
What if consciousness is not what happens in our heads—but what happens between us, through us, with the land, with water, with wind?
Come gather for a conversation with Tiokasin Ghosthorse, Cheyenne River Lakota elder, host of First Voices Radio, master musician, and steward of relational ways of knowing. Rooted in the vibrational teachings of the old Lakota language, a language shaped by Earth and used to speak with, not about, Tiokasin invites us to unlearn the dominance of human-centered thought and listen again to Earth as consciousness.
First Voices Indigenous Radio
Butterfly Against the Wind
Topics
00:00 Introduction and Greetings00:48 Introducing Tiokasin Ghosthorse01:28 Tiokasin's Background and Philosophy04:36 The Concept of Land Acknowledgement05:59 Relational Values and Indigenous Wisdom08:02 Language and Consciousness16:09 Mystery and Present Consciousness27:54 Environmentalism and Connection to Earth35:04 Understanding WIA and Innocence36:34 The Role of Elders and Wisdom37:58 Relational Intelligence vs. Western Education39:14 Cultural Trauma and Language Suppression45:41 Earth Consciousness and Modern Anxiety50:04 The Illusion of Control and AI58:38 Ceremony and Earth Cycles01:03:32 Final Thoughts and GratitudeConnect with more with Tiokasin and dozens of other speakers and elders in the SAND film Series The Eternal Song
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In this conversation, Ellen Emmet reflects on her path into Jungian analysis and how the teachings of Carl Jung continue to shape her inner life, clinical work, and spiritual inquiry. Together, we explore what it means to hold depth psychology and nondual realization in the same field—without collapsing one into the other.
The dialogue moves through questions of decolonizing therapy, the subtle dynamics of spiritual bypass, and the kind of deep listening required when working with the unconscious—both personal and collective. Ellen speaks to the body as a threshold into the psyche’s wilderness, and to the necessity of staying in relationship with what is unresolved, uncomfortable, and unfinished.
Threaded throughout is a concern for the wider world: how collective trauma, ancestral memory, and the current socio-political moment ask to be included in spiritual and therapeutic work—not bypassed. This is a conversation about remembrance, embodiment, and the slow work of integration in times of upheaval.
Ellen offers meetings and retreats through The Awakening Body, an experiential exploration rooted in nondual inquiry, Authentic Movement, and direct listening to lived experience. She also maintains a private psychotherapy practice and facilitates Authentic Movement groups.
EllenEmmet.com
Topics
00:00 Introduction and Guest Overview01:05 Reflecting on Past Conversations01:41 Journey into Jungian Analysis02:50 Exploring Carl Jung's Theories05:31 The Process of Individuation13:17 Decolonizing Therapy16:40 Spiritual Bypassing and Social Issues20:48 Facing the Darkness: Confronting Fear and Avoidance22:17 The Deadly Silence: Censorship in Spiritual Spaces23:19 Heartbreak as a Spiritual Connection26:09 The Power of Collective Healing28:03 Listening with Reverence and Reverie36:09 The Wildness of the Body: Embracing Natural Movement39:39 Concluding Thoughts and Future ConnectionsSupport the mission of SAND and the production of this podcast by becoming a SAND Member
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From a SAND Community Gathering (December 2025), Francis Weller joins SAND co-founders Zaya and Maurizio Benazzo for a wide-ranging conversation on grief, initiation, and the sacred thresholds of a changing world.
They speak of rough passages and necessary descents—of what must burn away, and what endures. With Francis’s steady guidance, sorrow, longing, beauty, and vulnerability are reclaimed not as weaknesses, but as profound sources of strength, orientation, and soul knowledge.
Rooted in the soulcraft teachings of his book In the Absence of the Ordinary, the dialogue unfolds in a spirit of reverence and remembrance. Together, they explore the unraveling of the familiar as an invitation into deeper belonging—grief as a living portal, and beauty as a practice of staying close to what is sacred, even in times of descent.
Topics
00:00 Introduction and Acknowledgements01:09 Guest Introduction: Francis Weller02:02 Opening Reflections on Soul and Rhythm03:17 The Modern Frenzy vs. Soul's Rhythm05:32 Therapy and the Soul's Healing Process12:09 The Role of Wounds in Soul Work16:35 Confession and Community Healing23:17 Collective Psyche and Modern Challenges28:39 Historical Roots of Disconnection31:25 Grief and Ancestral Memory33:47 Understanding Grief in a Shallow Culture35:06 The Three Layers of Experience35:18 The Role of Ritual in Processing Grief36:00 Fear and Control in Grief Expression36:22 The Importance of Containment Fields36:48 Cultural Rituals and Their Significance40:21 Creating Personal Rituals50:32 The Long Dark: Embracing Uncertainty56:13 The Sacred in Everyday Life59:13 The Role of Elders in a Fragmented World01:03:12 Concluding Thoughts and Reflections
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Blackfoot scholar Dr. Leroy Little Bear shares foundational Indigenous ways of knowing—revealing a worldview built on energy, motion, and relationship rather than matter, time, and separation.In this conversation, Little Bear illuminates how Blackfoot philosophy understands reality through "interpretive templates"—cultural lenses shaped by language, land, and cosmology. Where Western thought centers singularity and fixed answers, Blackfoot ways embrace flux, transformation, and "all my relations."
00:00 Introduction and Welcome00:45 Guest Introduction: Dr. Leroy Little Bear01:42 Blackfoot Tradition and Identity02:59 Western vs. Blackfoot Worldview10:15 Energy Forces and Relationships27:39 Impact of Colonization34:26 Language and Interpretive Templates54:38 Closing Remarks and Gratitude
Dr. Leroy Little Bear is a Blackfoot legal scholar, professor emeritus, and prominent Indigenous rights advocate from the Blood Tribe. He is a founding member of the Native American Studies Department at the University of Lethbridge, served as the director of the Harvard University Native American Program, and played a crucial role in shaping Canadian constitutional law to recognize Indigenous rights, including contributing to Section 35 of the Constitution Act. His work extends to international advocacy, advising the United Nations on the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and he has received numerous honors, such as the Order of Canada and the Alberta Order of Excellence.
Topics
Explore more in Indigenous Worldviews in the SAND film Series The Eternal Song
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This episode was recorded live at The Eternal Song Film Gathering in 2025. Zaya and Maurizio Benazzo welcome Dr. (Uncle) Paul Gordon and Joe Williams, featured in the upcoming SAND Film In the Circle of Life premiering January 20, 2026. In this conversation they discuss the profound importance of connection to the land, cultural heritage, and traditional practices in achieving wellness. The conversation reveals how Indigenous wisdom can address modern societal woes and highlights the importance of respecting and maintaining a deep relationship with the natural world.
Topics
00:00 Introduction and Episode Overview00:47 Meet Uncle Paul Gordon01:59 Language and Cultural Connections03:01 Introducing Joe Williams16:26 Joe Williams' Journey and Spiritual Awakening22:07 Aboriginal Perspectives on Wellbeing and Grief26:23 Understanding Time and Connection to Country29:40 Ancient Knowledge and Star Stories30:50 Connection to Country and Ancestral Wisdom44:25 The Role of Ceremony and Responsibility52:22 Healing Through Connection to Nature57:55 Final Thoughts and ResourcesResources
In the Circle of LifeThe Living Country CommunityRecorded live at The Eternal Song Seven Day Film Premiere summit with Indigenous voices
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From a recent SAND Community Gathering (December 2025). This urgent conversation, facilitated by Ashira Darwish and rooted in Haidar Eid’s new book Banging on the Walls of the Tank, moves through the fractured present of Gaza, bringing forth a chorus of resistance, mourning, refusal, and clarity.
This is a dispatch from within the rubble, the classroom, the lull between airstrikes. Together. Eid and Darwish hold the line inside the unbearable: the grief of ongoing genocide and the insistence on liberation; the impossibility of hope and the necessity of imagining otherwise.
Their conversation refuses erasure, insists on dignity, and carries the clarity of those living under siege with purpose and memory intact.
This conversation carries the vibration of Gaza’s resistance outward, inviting listeners not just to witness, but to respond.
Topics
00:00 Introduction and Opening Remarks00:58 Context of the Gaza Genocide02:23 Introducing Haidar Eid and Ashira Darwish02:32 Haidar Eid's Background and Experience03:19 Ashira Darwish's Introduction and Role05:42 Haidar Eid's Personal Account of the Genocide07:17 The Impact of the Genocide on Haidar's Life09:51 Tribute to Fallen Colleagues and Students11:55 The Importance of Palestinian Narratives14:57 Historical Context and Ongoing Genocide27:34 The Human Cost and Personal Stories29:00 Protecting Stories and Dignity29:40 Understanding Israeli Society and Zionism32:33 The Role of International Support34:08 The BDS Movement and Palestinian Civil Society35:47 The Call for Global Solidarity43:18 Banging on the Walls of the Tank53:12 A Shift in the Global Narrative58:17 Final Thoughts and Call to ActionResources
Project Hope PalestineCatharsis Holistic Healing PalestineBDS MovementAshira Darwish’s Website
Where Olive Trees WeepSupport the mission of SAND and the production of this podcast by becoming a SAND Member
- Visa fler
