Succeed in Every Communication And Everyone Wins

Every word you think and speak projects, sets up, and establishes the world you experience as your life. Let this be both very scary and very exciting. When you speak unconsciously you get unconscious results in your life-very scary; when you speak consciously you get conscious results in your life-very exciting. This applies to your relationships with yourself, partner, children, parents, community, and even your government. This evening we will become aware of the effects of our unconscious language, learn specific domains and upgrades of language (with handouts), and explore new ways to affect our world through the words we think and speak. What if we all spoke in open, honest, direct, heartfelt, life-affirming, outcome producing language?

PRODUCER: Bernard Corrigan

 Bernard Corrigan has a private practice as a humanistic / transpersonal psychotherapist, consults with individuals, couples and families to communicate successfully, and is a Certified Language of Mastery® trainer. Bernard continues to be fascinated by the potential of who we are becoming as individuals and as a new species in this time of accelerated evolutionary change. 

Ecocide and the Human Predicament

Given the absence of any discussion about an ecological crisis in the presidential campaigns one might be forgiven for forgetting that there might be such a thing.  However, in the background and periphery of our awareness, every environmental indicator is worsening at an accelerating rate.  This month, we will review those specific markers that will directly impact humanity, not because they are necessarily the most important at the planetary scale, but because we are human-centric.  We are most concerned about ourselves, our loved ones and our children, even sometimes, and when we’re at our best—all humanity.  The loss of forests and other species, the shifts in climate, the desertification of land and oceans, although perhaps eliciting a moment of genuine sadness, hardly gets our adrenaline pumping.  Famine and societal collapse do, however.  This is part of the human predicament, the place in which we now find ourselves, where we have to change our living paradigm to survive, but to change means to perhaps abandon all that we have known and want.  I must reiterate the mission of this series: Our intention is not to paralyze, but to inspire with hope and action.  Our assumption is that right action is based on right awareness. 

PRODUCER: Carleton Schade

For nearly a decade now I have been researching the many facets of the ecological crisis and the human predicament.   In 2010, I co-authored a paper with Dr. Pimentel of Cornell University in the journal Environment, Development and Sustainability, entitled Population Crash: Prospects for Famine in the Twenty-First Century (find attached).  This will serve as the second chapter of a book entitled Dieback: the Science and Soul of the Coming Collapse.  I hope to complete this project sometime next year, as there are numerous other pursuits that are calling. 

Wake Up Now, Be in Compassion, And Save Our Planet

As we heal any unfinished business of our life “story”, including blame, judgment, and even beliefs about ourselves and how life works, we naturally live more and more deeply in compassion. We move from ”me” thinking to “we” thinking until eventually we see Gaia and God in all of us. We will begin this evening with an exploration of who we think we are as individuals. From there we will consider who we may be, independent of our “story”. We will then imagine where we may be heading as a new species and what we can do, specifically, to embody the new species we are becoming.

PRODUCER: Bernard Corrigan

Bernard Corrigan was the Director of the East/West Center for Holistic Health in Manhattan, founding president of The Guild of Holistic Practitioners, and the founder of Metaphysical Books and Tools, both in Sag Harbor. He began his private practice as a humanistic / transpersonal psychotherapist in 1978 and continues to be fascinated by the potential of who we are becoming as individuals and as a new species in this time of accelerated evolutionary change.

Astrology: Planetary Implications of a Transformative Transit

Our evening will start with a brief discussion of what astrology actually is: Its philosophical and cosmological world view, what a birth chart can tell you and what it can't, its psychological and spiritual uses and in what sense it is a predictive tool. Then, using the astrological chart of the United States and other salient countries, we will look at the implications of a major, transformative transit which has been impacting the world (and very specifically the US) since 2008 and which will continue to challenge the structure and leadership of the US for the remainder of the decade. No prior knowledge of astrology is necessary for the evening. At the outset I will introduce a few abc's of this symbol system and that should be sufficient for the discussion. 

PRODUCER: James Haigney

James Haigney is a playwright and an astrological councilor with a background in philosophy, comparative religions and Renaissance literature. For 25 years his work has focused on individual horoscopes, as well as on the charts of businesses and countries.

Pure Happiness: Through Death to Life

"I have no money, no resources, no hopes. I am the happiest man alive." - Henry Miller

As a certain history of man comes to a close we must see how life is regenerated out of death: how the organic arises out of dead matter - how emotion and consciousness arise out of biology - and how play arises out of self consciousness. This is the Act of Being: the full cycle of existence that unfolds dialectically. Pure happiness is good fortune - neither by chance nor fate - where the mundane and the miraculous merge. Man has no task left but the conquest of the death drive and this is not by turning away but by going though death to life. 

PRODUCER: Scott Von

Dr Scott Von practices poetry, philosophy, psychoanalysis, and medicine in an integral fashion. He is the founding director of the New Clinic for Integral Medicine & Psychiatry (newclinic.org) in New York and a professor in the Integrative Doctor of Medicine program at the American College of TCM in California. 

Ikaros of My Life, Calling All the Spirits

Ikaros of my life, Calling all the spirits.

For thousands of years in the Amazon jungles of Peru, curanderos (shamans) have been using sound to heal. Alongside with powerful plant teachers these magical songs, called Ikaros, are the key, linking the spiritual and supernatural worlds.

With the guidance of these potent allies, the curandero, diagnoses, heals,and guides.

Tonight we will explore those realms in which all our reasoning disappears as we open our hearts, emotions and understanding creating the space in which all is possible...

Ikaros are songs that are not written or learned, they are the direct connection to the plant spirit world.
 

PRODUCER: Jackie Bobrowsky

"For the past 12 years, Jackie Bobrowsky, a Peruvian native who has lived in the United States since 1981, has led dozens of groups of intrepid seekers of all ages on transformational journeys to the Amazon jungle and the Andes Mountains.  He has worked intensively with master shamans and healers and is dedicated to the transmission and preservation of the indigenous cultures of Peru. His compilations of sacred songs from the Amazon, “El Canto del Tiempo” and "Versos Maestros" are available on his website, www.mamancuna.com (or at iTunes, amazon, and CD Baby).

"Jackie has created an extensive personal network inside Peru to provide a unique and authentic experience. His goal is to help people reconnect to the earth and with the wisdom of the indigenous peoples of his native land. He sees himself as a bridge and a translator between North and South, between our twenty-first century high-tech digital culture, and the sophisticated plant-based spiritual technologies of jungle and mountain. Jackie is an expert guide to little known worlds of indigenous Peru, its sacred teachings and remote places of startling beauty. He is pathfinder and trustworthy leader into the heart of the powerful, exotic worlds of the Amazonian and Andean peoples." 

Chords of Being: Living Music of the Spheres, Levels of Inner Listening, and Silent Attunement to Life as We Know It

David Hykes's inspiring "evening" of our states of mind will include a presentation of his "music of the spheres," Harmonic Chant, with live video mandala projections made by the voice. The main part of the evening will be actual practice of some of the different dimensions of theHarmonic Presence work of the past 40 years, including deep awareness work with the voice, sound, breath, listening, sensation and vibration, as a path to well-being and creative and spiritual inspiration. The work links music, healing sounds, and contemplative awareness practices. 

Along the way David will share some key insights from his journey into wisdom traditions, music and science, evoking Taos Pueblo, Tibetan Buddhism, sacred world music, cosmology, and the Mind and Life Institute (which brings together neuroscientists and contemplative practitioners).  There'll be some rare glimpses of transforming encounters with remarkable people like His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Native American elders, the Gyuto Monks and nuns of Nagi Gompa in Nepal, and his Tibetan Buddhist teachers,  filmmaker Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, Tsoknyi Rinpoche and Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche. Science, spirituality and the arts all show how contemplative awareness practicehelptransform the mind and the cultivation of our the deepest harmonic qualities ofbeing-- joy, compassion, tolerance, presence and openness. 

PRESENTER: David Hykes

David Hykes, visiting from France to give concerts and teachings at Brown University and in New York, is a pioneering sacred world music composer, singer, meditation teacher and visual artist. He leads contemplative music and meditation retreats around the world, exploring relationships between the mind, music, meditation and medicine. In 1975 he founded Harmonic Chant, an approach to "the music of the spheres" based on the harmonic series, found in all music and throughout the universe since the Big Bang (the Cosmic Microwave Background, or CMB), and the Harmonic Vision system for transforming music into visual mandalas. He was the first western musician to study and collaborate with musician-practitioners from Tibet, Tuva, and Mongolia, collaborating with the Dalai Lama, the Mind and Life Institute and the Gyuto Monks.  He is a noted “sacred cinema” composer ("Travellers and Magicians”, "Baraka”, "Meetings with Remarkable Men"...) as well as for films like "Ghost," and "Dead Poets Society."  Hykes’s work has been honored by UNESCO, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, and NYSCA. His 12 albums include "Hearing Solar Winds," the best-selling "throat-singing" album of all time. Information: www.harmonicpresence.org.

Reiki Practice: The Subtle Power Of Self-Healing

Reiki treatment is a system of healing that promotes balance and overall well-being.  Reiki treatment is gentle and non-invasive.  A Reiki practitioner uses a soft, light touch to focus subtle vibrations into areas on the body. Many people find that Reiki treatment greatly reduces anxiety, depression, insomnia, indigestion, constipation, chronic pain, fear of change, weight gain, and fatigue.  After Reiki treatment, people often report feeling uplifted and a sense of deep connection with themselves, to each other and to Source!

How do we talk about deep healing experiences unless we have all experienced it ourselves?  How do we get through the “mind stuff” and begin to pierce the center of our being, which is perfectly balanced with all of nature, and speak from the heart?

Come experience the healing and balancing energy of Reiki.  We will gather in a Reiki healing circle where each person will receive a “mini” Reiki treatment in order to feel and experience our own innate healing abilities, thus further uniting ourselves to each other and to the cosmos.

PRESENTERS: Martha Stotzky and Jennifer Frasher

Martha Stotzky is a teacher, artist, and Reiki practitioner.  She has studied the Reiki System of Natural Healing with Joanna Crespo and Pamela Miles.  She is currently completing her Reiki Master Practitioner training.  Martha has been a meditator for twenty years.  In addition to her Reiki training, she has an MA in Art History from the Institute of Fine Arts at NYU, and has taught art and art history for the past 25 years. 

Jen Frasher, born in Germany, raised in Sag Harbor, is a certified Yoga Instructor who currently teaches Yoga in the Hamptons community. She has been practicing and teaching Yoga for over ten years to both adults and children. As well as guiding people deeper into their own inner dimensions through the practice of yoga, meditation and chanting, Jennifer is a Level 1 Reiki Practitioner, under Pamela Miles. She assists the Reiki healing circle at Mandala Yoga in Amagansett with Martha Stotzky.  She also combines her Reiki practice with Acupuncturist and Theta healers.  Jennifer is also a level 1 Pranic Healer and uses essential oils in all of her practices and daily life. 

2012: Can we face the enormity of our dilemma? Or: Twilight of the Idols

The human dilemma can be visualized as two trajectories rocketing into the future at ever dizzying velocities. On one rides the exponential rise in human misery and the accelerating degradation of “our” life-support system.  On the other rides the information and innovation explosion, the cross-fertilization of East and West, the increase of longevity, wealth, beauty, sophistication and consciousness, the Gates Foundation and venture capitalism‘s four trillion dollar interest in the great Green hope.  The bifurcation of our human family threatens collapse in Africa, the Middle East and much of Asia, and simultaneously promises smart homes, singularity and an enlightened citizenry within the First World.   For complexity, the American Empire teeters on joining the Second World FSU, with its own home-style bifurcation.

And so what does a 21st century collapse look like?  Is it a neo-Malthusian nightmare of famine, war and epidemics, much like the collapses of some dozen previous civilizations and societies?  Or is it a continuation of present circumstances, where half the human world suffers nearly invisibly, despite You Tube ubiquity.   To many, collapse sounds like an exotic news story heard (in part) on the way to yoga class or the wine tasting.  But should one become overly concerned, one can always be brought back into the fold with a quick genuflection before any of modernity’s saviors: Technology, the Wisdom of the “free market” and the Growth of the Economy, the Demographic Transition, or the Evolution of Consciousness.   These will get us through times of no Nature more comfortably than Nature will get us through times of no savior.  That is, unless one believes that nature and future generations really matter.  If so, then we may, as Thomas Berry suggested, “fix our minds on the magnitude of the task before us,” not to paralyze us, but rather to grant us the strength to wisely serve. 

PRESENTER: Carleton Schade

Traveling in the hostile desert lands of Ladakh was a transformative experience for me, because there, in the shadows of the Himalayan mountains, exists a people who live as sustainably and happily by farming as do the “primitives” by hunting and foraging.  Even more than just sustainably, for, in this world of harsh winters and piercing summer sun, more trees grace the valleys now than when these people arrived some two thousand years ago.  In 1994, I completed my yearlong travels through the human multitudes in India, Nepal and Southeast Asia and witnessed a similar human omnipresence in Europe, and then again felt viscerally the very thickness of it in my adopted city of twenty-two years, New York City.  Now, here on the East End the fresh ocean winds allow me to forget that we all live here by the grace of a borrowed ecological footprint.  Since 2001, I have been teaching, writing and giving talks on the subjects of sustainability, dieback and spirituality.