Love Drum: An Inside Look at Divine Heart Vibration and Mystical Experiences

During this evening of discussion and drumming, we will share experiences in which we have found inspiration. We will recount our stories of divine Mystical experiences, how they show up as confirmation, and how they led us to our individual drumming paths. We will talk about the challenges of "letting go" and allowing the heart to open fully through the practice of unconditional love, and we will describe how confirmations show up in many forms. Drumming channels energy through the self and deeply connects everyone involved. By highlighting the experience of drumming in a circle and the cymatic energy created there, we will illustrate the transcending experience often felt by all who participate

Producer: James Henry

James is a local artist and drum maker living in the Northwest Woods, East Hampton. Originally from Babylon NY, James spent sixteen years at sea working as a commercial fisherman. His many tales of adventures on the ocean capture the raw beauty of human nature and the presence of divinity when out on the ocean. After a few bumps in James's life path, he discovered the awesome healing power of West African drumming. His stories of heart-opening experiences and connecting with the vibrant drum community on the East End give listeners chills and inspires them with a sense of hope and faith. James has dedicated his creative energy to building his own African drums and is currently building a brand for his drum business.

The Plight, Hopes and Personal Stories of Refugees at Crossroads: A Volunteer's Experience

In April-May of 2016, Debra McCall served as a humanitarian volunteer working with Syrian, Iraqi, Kurdish, Yezidi, Afghan and Pakistani refugees on the Greece-Macedonia border at the makeshift Idomeni and EKO camps with medical teams from the Salaam Cultural Museum (SCM) Medical Mission, Seattle, and the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS). Despite the harsh conditions and EU political stalemate regarding refugees, there was a vibrant communal, entrepreneurial spirit. Debra will share stories and photos that capture the resourcefulness, hope, and generosity of the camp residents, as well as their compelling personal narratives. She will also speak to the work of volunteers and how one can support organizations aiding in the relief efforts for what has become the largest migration crisis in history, now having surpassed that of WW II.

Producer: Debra McCall

A choreographer and historian, Debra McCall has served on the graduate faculties of New York University, Adelphi University, Prescott College, and Pratt Institute, where she was Mellon Lecturer. A Certified Movement Analyst, she is a Senior Research Associate at the Institute of Movement Studies. A long-term collaboration with the author and psychoanalyst James Hillman coincided with a move to Italy where she founded a movement analysis/therapy program and functions as an Honorary Board Member for Art Therapy Italiana, Bologna.

Locally, she has worked in a variety of positions at the Ross School--from Head of School, to Dean of Cultural History, Director for Upper School Curriculum, Director of the Teacher Academy and teacher of World Dance. She also served on the Education Committee of the Watermill Center.

McCall is the recipient of two Choreography Fellowships plus an InterArts Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, along with a Research Fellowship and Summer Scholar Fellowship on the Arab Spring from the National Endowment for the Humanities. As Advanced Design Fellow at the American Academy in Rome, she conducted research in southern Italy, Sicily, Greece, and Egypt to choreograph Psyche's Last Task, based on the second century CE Metamorphoses of Apuleius.

In the 1980s she reconstructed the 1920s Bauhaus Dances of Oskar Schlemmer. As part of her research, she traveled to East Germany to the recently restored Bauhaus, rediscovered Schlemmer's original notes and sketches rumored to have been destroyed in WWII, and worked with the sole surviving performer of the pieces, Andreas Weininger, to reconstruct the dances. After premieres at The Kitchen and The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, they toured nationally and internationally, including a return to the original Bauhaus.

Her interest in working with refugees came about as a result of teaching medieval history of the region; travel throughout the Middle East; following the Arab uprisings real time on Twitter; study with Middle East experts at UC Davis on the roots of the Arab uprisings; and her mother's stories as a child refugee from Nazi occupied France.

This Body, Our Most Intimate Teacher

In the 50s, deeply immersed in a modern dance career, performing with Martha Graham and Anna Sokalow and other groups, I experienced a spinal injury that cut off my future professional future. At that time in the late 50s early 60s, not much was available for treating this condition other than chiropractors and orthopedists.

And out of the blue through the mysterious workings of the universe, I was introduced to a process that completely changed the direction of this life. There were two teachers, both from Germany, where this training had been going on for some time. Carola Speads called her work physical re-education, and Charlotte Selver called her approach sensory awareness. This investigation of the organic nature in each of us of body, mind and spirit was the beginning of the unfolding of my lifes' work. This is the subject I will be sharing in this presentation.

To what extent can we, through awareness, live in more harmony with ourselves?

Producer : Dorothy Friedman

I received a BS from NYU and Masters from Columbia on dance and movement exploration.

Through a series of circumstances, I was led to Insight Meditation Center around 1980. They had only been open since 1976. It was the continuation of earlier explorations into the spiritual worlds, and with growing intensity I entered the Buddhist way.

I had experimented for many years before searching for a way that might feel like home to me. In this course, I had become a Sufi and practiced with two Hindu gurus before I found my way to Buddhism. After what feels like life times of practice I am now designated as a monk, priest and sensei in the Zen tradition.

The Arab world and the United States: How did we get here? Where do we go now? Perspectives from an American who straddles the divide

Producer: Ken Dorph

Ken Dorph is a consultant who strengthens banks and financial systems worldwide.  Ken is fluent in French, Spanish, Arabic, and other languages, and has a special connection to the Middle East. Since studying as a teen in Morocco in 1972, Ken has lived or worked in every Arab country. He has become the World Bank's "go-to guy" for strengthening financial systems in Arab economies. Since the Arab spring he has worked in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Palestine,Yemen, Iraq, and Syria as well as Saudi and the Gulf. Ken has also worked in several non-Arab Muslim countries, including Turkey, Pakistan, Indonesia, and Malaysia, and has special expertise in Islamic finance. When not consulting, Ken speaks often on the Middle East. He has been invited to lecture or has led panels at UC Berkeley, the Wharton School, the University of Michigan, the New School, Georgetown University, the World Bank, the C3 Summit, and at Harvard's Arab Weekend. Since September 11th, Ken has been introducing the Arab world at high schools, colleges, and to the public. In April 2014, Ken presented "An Evening with My Friends the Arabs" at Bay Street Theater.

Ken has a Masters in Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Michigan, including a year as a Fulbright Scholar in Damascus, and an MBA in International Finance from the Wharton School. Ken lives in Sag Harbor where he is known as "the Bike Guy" for his advocacy or as "Leyla's and Darius's' dad."

As someone who travels often between Sag Harbor and the Middle East, Ken bestrides two cultures that increasingly distrust each another. He will share his thoughts on how this crisis evolved, where the greatest misperceptions lie, and how we might heal some of the fear and anger that poison our relations with the Middle East. 

Relating to Biodiversity: Music as a Medium

We are in the midst of Earth's sixth mass extinction. How can we, as human animals, begin to wrap our minds around this concept in an emotional, rather than purely cerebral way? How can we relate to the rest of the planet's inhabitants as more than commodities for our consumption? In the information age, where we can know more about them than ever before, how can we experience a personal connection to the awesome beauty and natural intelligence of living things, at the very moment that we stand to lose them? 

In this salon, we will discuss some of my personal attempts to find this connection through music and video. I will then invite the group to join me in a vocal experiment, using our voices for a brief exploration into how expressive sound may help us tune in to our more intuitive selves, and possibly bring us closer to the animal psyche. 

This interactive presentation will be followed by an outdoor celebration of the abundance of summertime. While I play some live music, we will mingle and enjoy life in the beauty of twilight. 

Producer: Ashlynn Manning

Ashlynn Manning is a sound healer, massage therapist, children's yoga teacher, and singer/songwriter. For 5 years she was one half of the Brooklyn-based electro-pop duo Suspicious Package, during which time the duo titled their unique genre of entertainment "Bio-Pop." Their goal was to create captivating pop media that drew the audience closer to the truly awesome details of natural living creatures. Ashlynn graduated Oberlin College with a degree in music, and in the decade since she has traveled the world writing, performing, and exploring music, with the earth and its biodiversity as her muse.

Energy: Everything You Didn't Want to Know and a Whole Lot More

This presentation attempts to convey a basic energy literacy and to analyze current energy trends at the various societal scales.The aim of the talk is to stimulate a conversation about our notions of energy, to make clear our biases and value-judgments about energy, and to help people make small decisions that may lead to a  healthier, happier, and more esthetically pleasing Civilization and planet.   

Producer: Eric Robinson

An engineer by training, Eric Robinson has had -- for the better part of two decades -- an interest in energy, the environment, and the policies surrounding them.  A scientist at heart, he tries to dispel common mis-conceptions and to take practical approaches to the problems facing the energy industry and humanity as a whole

Better Living By Motorola: Cell Phones, Fitness Supplements, and the Future of Persuasive Media

This discussion considers how health risks have affected the design and use of communications media in the United States. Concentrating upon one technology (the cell phone), and one health risk (coronary heart disease) in the late 1960s, I look at how a virtually unknown, peculiarly fanatical company - Motorola - was determined to build the world's first high-tech fitness supplement: a portable, wireless telephone that would encourage Americans to exercise and reduce their susceptibility to heart disease. 

Drawing upon mortality statistics, health insurance premiums, and Star Trek in equal measure, Motorola's fever-dream design challenge spawned a 26 billion dollar market for healthcare media while raising a host of provocative questions. How will gadgets like cell phones alter our ties to mainstream medicine in the coming years? Will doctors and pharmaceutical companies begin to lose their authority to Silicon Valley darlings like Motorola, Apple, and Fitbit? And are consumer technologies -- slick, expensive, and always in danger of obsolescence -- really the best way to get people to take care of their health? Beyond these questions, a larger concern looms. If conglomerates such as Motorola have decided to intervene in the most intimate aspects of our individual lives, what does this mean for our relationship to other institutions - such as our government - which have traditionally attempted to support our health? 

Producer: Paul Gansky

Paul Gansky is a Media Studies instructor at the Ross School in East Hampton. He recently received his PhD from the University of Texas at Austin. His research spans media archaeology, the social construction of communications media, and the history of healthcare, with sporadic forays into the domestic technology, convenience culture, industrial design, and film. His writing has appeared in Design Observer, The Journal of Design History, Flow,The Journal of Popular Culture, Mediascape, and Film History.

Inequality by the Numbers

Many now question the need for feminism as an ongoing movement. That is, there's a common perception that the goal of gender equality has already been achieved and there is little left to be changed. However, this view is not only incorrect, it is a potentially dangerous assumption that promotes complacency. I will be speaking about the multi-media exhibit I created as a senior project. Using data from a wide range of socio-economic, political, institutional, individual, and existential markers, the presentation unequivocally demonstrates the prevalence of gender inequality across society's sundry spheres. The multi-media format deconstructs and helps visualize information in a manner that is accessible and understandable to the general public, while simultaneously stirring an emotional reaction.  In this way, I hope to shed some light on the history and necessity of this movement.  

Producer: Katie Morgan

Katie Morgan is a high school senior studying at Ross School in East Hampton. She has developed a passionate interest in feminism, advocacy, and activism and, for her senior thesis project, produced an academic body of research on the topic. She will be attending college in the coming fall and intends to delve further into issues of inequality. 

I Am What? A Deconstruction of Materialism.

This month, I would like to continue the philosophical explorations of some of our recent presenters. Whereas we have rightly celebrated -as Matt Aldredge argued last May-- the Enlightenment's rise of individualism over the dogmas of authority, as well as the separation of religion and government, numerous others (particularly Robert Kuisis, Ken Foldes, Wafa Hallam, James Haigney, Scott Von, Mark Wilson, and Evelyn and Paul Moschetta) have intimated, if not detailed, a deep sense of loss in the modern era. The rise of the secular, they collectively suggest, has stripped life of its spiritual possibilities.

Secular materialists seem to describe a reality that is devoid of meaning and have - in a few short centuries - left us a civilization that is alienated from the rest of nature and in a state of environmental and existential crises. These consequences have led many to vilify or outright dismiss science and its philosophical materialist underpinnings. Curiously, however, Science is often held up by many of its detractors as a kind of gold standard to legitimize all sorts of theories that try to go beyond the limits of materialism in describing more spiritually meaningful realities. There are, for example, those who will borrow principles from quantum mechanics to describe phenomena such as love, human connectivity, and consciousness. The inconsistency may be inadvertent, yet it perpetuates the unnecessarily contentious and confusing relationship between the two modes of thinking, idealism and materialism.   

My aim is perhaps too ambitious for my talents. I will attempt to deconstruct scientific materialism in order to pay it its due, to circumscribe its limits, and to suggest where its findings may dovetail with idealist and spiritual worldviews. A starting point will be in analyzing the "I" in "I am." Here, Science, Buddhism, and various other Eastern schools have come to similar (although not necessarily the same) conclusions about consciousness. I propose that ultimately we consider a nondualistic approach, which asks us to reevaluate the false division between the material and the spiritual. Rather than the "either or" inherent to specific schools and ideologies, reality is perhaps more readily understood within an inclusive process of "and, and, and," where, by acknowledging the limits of each individual's human consciousness, we allow for a wondrous and awes-inspiring reality that is likely cognitively unimaginable, yet still within the possibilities of awareness.  

Producer: Carleton Schade

Carleton's interests include cosmology, consciousness, earth systems, futurism, meditation and literature. He is currently involved in two futuristic projects - one a book entitled Dieback: the Science and Soul of the Coming Collapse, and the second, a website Radical Mind Shift. He's found passion in traveling, teaching, and writing; comfort and love as a householder and friend; and peace through meditation and yoga.

Is Belief Possible in a Secular Age

Is belief possible in the secular age we live in? The philosopher Charles Taylor has written a descriptive and historical account of our present age, including its conditions for belief.  He says believers and nonbelievers feel a cross-pressure between immanence (meaning found only in the natural and material world) and transcendence (meaning found in a dimension beyond matter).  We inhabit an immanent frame and can find significance and meaning in a humanism without transcendence.  And yet we are haunted by the memory of transcendence or seek a fullness or enchantment lacking in our existence.  I would like to open a discussion using Taylor's description of our age and this modern dilemma and invite explorations of whether and how we experience it and our forms of personal response.  Hopefully we can avoid any tidy but false polarizations of belief vs. disbelief or religion vs. secularism or reason vs. belief. 

Producer : Robert Kuisis

Robert Kuisis, Ph.D. is a psychologist/psychoanalyst in practice in Bridgehampton. He has an interest in the psychology of religion and a lifelong intrigue with "ultimate concern".