A Show of Hearts

Rosemary Pritzker
  • 4,9 (39)
  • DÉVELOPPEMENT PERSONNEL

The podcast about living from the heart, with Rosemary Pritzker

  1. 27 FÉVR.

    Kirtan for Strength & Peace with Rosemary Pritzker and Fernando Subirats

    Having a hard time with the state of the world? Listen to this powerful Kirtan (traditional Indian call-and-response mantra chanting) led by host, life coach and singer Rosemary Pritzker, with tabla (drum) player and vocalist Fernando Subirats. Rosemary, deeply rooted in Tibetan Buddhism since childhood (her mother is an ordained Lama), brings this wisdom into the Kirtan alongside traditional Sanskrit/Hindu chanting and English prayers, offering a well-rounded, immersive experience. You will be lead through the Kirtan with meditation and visualizations along with explanations as to who or what you’re calling in and why. So, no need for any prior experience! Beginners are more than welcome! If you have been feeling overwhelmed, lost, scared, confused, angry or otherwise upset about the state of the world or of YOUR world, this episode is a perfect antidote, to give your monkey mind specific things to focus on, like turning poison into medicine.  Join as Rosemary and Fernando chant and pray to bringing strength and the deepest peace possible into our own hearts and minds, and then to have that peace ripple out to as many people in the world as possible. Chanting together in community is a powerful, beautiful and uplifting way to connect with the divine that is all around us and within us. Guru Rinpoche   For more information about the predictions mentioned in this episode, visit seotproject.org To follow Fernando Subirats on Instagram, find him @fernandosubirats And as always, find us @ashowofhearts on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok   Mantra Sheet Invocations: Guru Brahma Guru Vishnu Guru Devo Maheshwara Guru Sakshat Param Brahma Tasmai Sri Gurave Namaha (last line 3x) Om Aim Saraswatyai Namaha Om Shanti Shanti Shanti Hari OM Moola Mantra: Om satchitananada Parabramha Purushothama Paramatmha Sri Bhagavati Sametha Sri Bhagavate Namaha (x3) Om tat sat Om Kali Durge: Kali Durge namo namah Mother I Feel You: Mother I feel you under my feet Mother I feel your heartbeating Heya heya heya, heya heya ho (x2) 7 Line Prayer to Guru Rinpoche: HUNG In the North West of the country of Örgyen On the pollen heart of a stemmed lotus Endowed with the wonderous supreme siddhis You are renowned as the lotus born Surrounded by a retinue of many dakinis I follow in your footsteps Please approach and grant your blessings GURU PEMA SIDDHI HUNG Guru Rinpoche Mantra: OM A HUNG BENZRA GURU PEMA SIDDHI HUNG Amazing Grace: (chorus) Amazing grace how sweet the sound That saved a wretch like me I once was lost But now I’m found Was blind but now I see Through many trials toils and snares I have already come ‘Twas grace that brought me here thus far And grace will lead me home (repeat chorus) OM A HUNG BENZRA GURU PEMA SIDDHI HUNG Dedication of the Merit: By this virtue having swiftly accomplished the lama of Örgyen May I bring all beings, without exception to that level Long Life Prayer to Tulku Sangak Rinpoche Barched Lamsel (Dusum Sangye): Düsum Sangye Guru Rinpoche Ngödrö kundag dewachen pö zhap Barched künsel düdü drag po sel Sölwa debso gyingyi lab dusöl Chinang sangwe barche zhiwa dang Sampa longyi drubpar jin gyi lob OM AH HUNG BENZRA GURU SIDDHI HUNG (X3) FULL TRANSCRIPT COMING SOON The post Kirtan for Strength & Peace with Rosemary Pritzker and Fernando Subirats appeared first on A Show of Hearts.

    1 h 17 min

  2. 01/06/2019

    Connecting with Your Divine Feminine Power through the Tibetan Buddhist Practice of Green Tara

    Fed up with the patriarchy? In this episode of A Show of Hearts, host Rosemary Pritzker dives into the Tibetan Buddhist practice of Green Tara, who is a beloved deity revered as the great mother. Doing this practice not only shows reverence for her but helps us to cultivate the divine feminine energy in ourselves and to recognize it all around us. Rosemary shares how she came to the practice 19 years ago in Montana, what it has offered her over the years, how she’s turned to it in times of need, and what you can expect to gain from doing it yourself. This practice can help you to feel empowered, offers a bridge from your everyday life to the divine, and it reminds us we are all part of the same ocean. A rich and complex practice, Rosemary talks about the concept of archetypes, explains who Green Tara was, guides you through the mantras of the practice, explains what they mean and what to visualize and then leads you through the practice itself. This episode was recorded as a live class in her home, so you’ll hear the experiences of attendees and their in-depth Q&A session about Tibetan Buddhism after completing the meditation. If you haven’t tried Green Tara practice before but love meditation, give it a try and connect to your inner divine feminine! Resources mentioned in the episode: Materials for beginners: Lama Tsomo Rosemary’s mom’s book: Why is the Dalai Lama Always Smiling For more advanced resources: Ewam Ewam Garden of One Thousand Buddhas: Buddha Garden Ani Tsering Wangmo singing Medicine Buddha Mantra Thanks so much for listening! If you like what you heard, please subscribe and give a five star review on iTunes, visit www.ashowofhearts.com or follow us @ashowofhearts on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook! Take a screenshot of this episode and share it in your Instastory and use the hashtag #ashowofhearts . Feel free to email us at info@ashowofhearts with any questions or comments! Transcript You’re listening to A Show Of Hearts, the podcast about finding the courage to live a deep and magical life. I’m your host, life coach Rosemary Pritzker. (singing) In today’s episode I’ll be leading you in the Tibetan Buddhist meditation practice of Green Tara, the Great Mother. You can think of it as kind of a sacred goddess practice, designed to get us in touch with the divine feminine. I began learning this about a month after I graduated high school, in the summer of 2000, when I did a two week Green Tara retreat with my teacher Tulku Sangak Rinpoche. Since then I’ve done Green Tara practice with my sangha or spiritual community, based in Montana, many times. And I’ve done it countless times on my own as well. So this practice is very close to my heart. Part of why I wanted to share it with you is because it’s one of the tools I’ve used to center myself in order to more effectively follow my heart in life. It’s allowed me to sort of commune with the divine, get my head on straight, and drop more deeply into my heart. Centering in this way is incredibly helpful in the pursuit of knowing yourself, feeling your own power, and listening to the intuitive guidance system within you. There have been times where I’ve really been struggling, usually with health problems, where I can turn to this practice and feel empowered and get a sense of solace in that connection with the divine feminine. It’s also allowed me to go more deeply into connecting with my lineage, which has been passed down from one lama to another for thousands of years. This ancient wisdom still has its place today because humans are humans, and we still suffer with a lot of the same basic issues of living everyday life. So, these are tried and true principles that can help just about anyone. Another reason I wanted to share this practice is, because Tibetan Buddhism is kind of complex, and it can be challenging to find any really good quality guidance or materials for newer practitioners, which makes it a little hard to break into, and I wasn’t finding much of anything that I could refer people to. When I’ve done online searches to try to find more information or instruction on Green Tara, I wasn’t able to come up with much, and I wasn’t really connecting with the few books I found. So, most of what I share in this episode, I learned directly from two people: the first is my mom, whose Tibetan name is Lama Tsomo. She speaks Tibetan and is an ordained lama, which is something similar to a minister or rabbi. She’s also the author of the book Why Is The Dalai Lama Always Smiling?, which is an introduction to Tibetan Buddhism for westerners. The other person I learned some of this information from is Namchak Khen Rinpoche. He’s the brother of my teacher, but he is an accomplished scholar and teacher himself. Now, I wanna give a little disclaimer, which is that I’m not ordained or certified in any way, so what I’m teaching here is just coming from my own experience and what I’ve learned from my teachers. But if you wanna go deeper, you’ll wanna seek out a more qualified instructor. I’ll get more into that at the end, and leave you with some resources. What you’ll hear in this episode today was recorded in a class I taught to a small group of people in my living room. First I gave a talk explaining what was going on, how it works, and why one would want to do Green Tara practice. And then we dove in and actually did it. But before we get started, I’d love to share the review of the month. This one is from Raphael, he wrote: “Touching. An absolute gem of a podcast, with heartfelt moments and inspiring stories. I highly recommend it.” Thank you Rafael. And if you wanna be featured as the review of the month, head over to iTunes and give a five star review, and be sure to leave your name. And now, let’s dive into the episode. So, the practice we’re gonna do tonight is to Green Tara, who is a deity in Tibetan Buddhism, who’s regarded as the Great Mother, the Mother of all Buddhas. She’s also referred to as the Great Liberator. So Green Tara was a princess actually in Sri Lanka, a really long time ago. We actually don’t know how long ago. And, her name was Yeshe Dawa, Dawa means moon. Yeshe is like a form of wisdom. And, yeah, she was Mahayana Buddhist and she lived at the same time as Amitabha, who is the Buddha of limitless light and life. And she was actually his benefactor. She would give food and whatever else to him and his monks. And, some of his students would say to her frequently, “Oh, you know, you’re getting such good karmic merit for helping all these people. You should pray really hard to come back as a man so you can reach enlightenment.” And, her response was to become very determined to reach enlightenment as a woman, and to keep coming back, keep reincarnating to help as many beings as possible to reach enlightenment, and to keep reincarnating as a woman. And, not only is this my favorite practice and has been for a really long time, but I also feel like it’s really important right now with what’s going on in the world, where the patriarchy seems to kinda be rearing its head. And, there’s a lot of Buddhist feminism I would sort of say around Green Tara. So it seems like the right thing to be bringing forth right now. And, yeah. So I first started doing this practice pretty much exactly 19 years ago, in a two week retreat with my lama and what was the beginnings of a sangha Buddhist community in Montana, where he taught us all about her, taught us details about the practice and her life, and all kinds of stuff. Then what was that tiny little group of people, sort of mushroomed into this huge thriving community that’s there now, that since then has built this place called The Garden of a Thousand Buddhas, it was meant to me like basically a pilgrimage site, now that most Tibetan people can’t live in Tibet and have built, you know, be where the pilgrimage sites there are. So, it’s called The Garden of a Thousand Buddhas because there are a thousand three foot high Buddha statues in the shapes of like the spokes of a wheel around this giant 24 foot high central figure of Yum Chenmo, which is another Great Mother figure who’s actually an emanation of Green Tara. The temple there, which is where all of the retreats and workshops and teachings and stuff happen, is a Tara temple. So, if anyone listening ever finds themself in Montana, definitely go check out The Garden of a Thousand Buddhas. I mean there’s like a constant stream of people stopping there to check it out all day ever day. And, it’s really beautiful and just so powerful. Anyway, so yeah, so Green Tara started out as a princess, did reach enlightenment or became a bodhisattva, which basically is someone who kinda stops just short of reaching enlightenment and dissolving into the ocean of existence, stops just short so that they can keep coming back and helping people to free themselves. And so, in that sense she has immense compassion. It was said that she liberated a thousand people every day before breakfast. So she was busy. Yeah, and her name as the princess as I said was Yeshe Dawa, and then once she became the bodhisattva, became Green Tara, the Tibetan name for Green Tara is Jetsun Dolma. So, this practice is considered a deity practice. Tibetans are known for doing deity practice, it’s kind of one of the hallmarks of Tibetan Buddhism. And, it’s really drawing on archetypes. So, you may have heard of archetypes in like the Jungian sense of, you know, you might have heard it as like the warrior or the priestess, et cetera. Each one of them has a different name and configuration and whatever. But, they’re basically seen as these principles of reality. A good example is the Great Mother. So, we see our mother as the Great Mother, ’cause that’s like our mother is our point of reference, but that Great Mother feeling is a principle of reality, that is ki

  3. 01/05/2019

    Tonglen and the Practice of Compassion with Rosemary Pritzker

    In this solo episode of A Show of Hearts, host Rosemary Pritzker dives into the subject of compassion: how to cultivate it for ourselves and others and what compassion and having an open heart means in today’s world. She shares her interpretations of the Buddhist concept of the Four Immeasurables: Lovingkindness, Compassion, Sympathetic Joy and Equanimity. Rosemary shares her own stories and recounts stories about compassion passed down from her teacher (a Tibetan Buddhist Lama). Then she leads listeners through a 15-minute heart-opening meditation for cultivating compassion, called Tonglen. Rosemary shares the personal story of how a childhood trip to Nepal and Bhutan opened her heart and helped her deal with childhood bullying by using Tonglen and learning to have compassion for both herself and the pain of those who hurt her. You’ll come away from the episode with tools for how to build your own meditation practice so that you can feel the benefits of implementing them into your day-to-day life. Resources mentioned in the episode: The Compassion Book by Pema Chödron When Things Fall Apartby Pema Chödron Why is the Dalai Lama Always Smiling? By Lama Tsomo The Compassion Institute Thanks so much for listening! If you like what you heard, please subscribe and give a five star review on iTunes, visit www.ashowofhearts.com or follow us @ashowofhearts on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook! Take a screenshot of this episode and share it in your Instastory and use the hashtag #ashowofhearts . Feel free to email us at info@ashowofhearts with any questions or comments! Transcript You’re listening to A Show of Hearts. The podcast about finding the courage to live a deep and magical life. I’m your host life coach, Rosemary Pritzker. (singing) Today’s episode is about compassion. We’ll talk about what it is, how to cultivate it, and why. A Show of Hearts is focused on why it’s essential to follow our hearts in life and the fact that it takes courage, bravery, and guts to do it. It’s not just rainbows and butterflies all the time. It can be really painful or scary to face ourselves and overcome our fears. So it’s important to me that this show include ideas and instructions on how to do all the things required in order to truly follow one’s heart. From time to time you’ll hear me share some of the tools and practices that have helped me the most. I’ve been a practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism for most of my life. And two things that have helped me the most with the long list of things that I’ve faced is training my mind through meditation and learning to better understand compassion. So that’s what I’ll be sharing with you today. But before we jump in I want to share the review of the month. This month’s review is from Keely Carney who wrote “I love this podcast. It makes me feel like I’m getting to know some of the most interesting people on the planet in a really in depth way. Always excited for new episodes and invariably end up inspired after listening.” If you want to be featured as the next review of the month, head over to iTunes and write a five star review. This helps make sure more people will find this show so they can be inspired to follow their hearts too. Albert Einstein said “A human being is a part of the whole called by us, universe. A part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts, and feelings as something separated from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.” There’s a set of concepts called The Four Immeasurables that exist throughout not just Tibetan Buddhism, but all forms of Buddhism. They’re also sometimes called The Four Boundless Qualities, and they are loving kindness or metta, compassion, sympathetic joy or mudita, and equanimity. So when we talk about The Four Immeasurables what we’re talking is these inherent qualities that we all have. That there are certain practices and concepts around cultivating these four. And in Buddhism there’s this thing called Buddha nature that we talk about. Unlike original sin, Buddha nature is basically saying that we all have the inherent qualities or key ingredients necessary for reaching enlightenment. We all have those qualities within us, they just need to be nurtured. And the ultimate goal of Buddhism is to reach enlightenment, but this whole enlightenment thing, it’s not just having no thoughts and being blissed out all the time. Although that’s kind of part it. But there’s also this sense of no longer avoiding our experiences and no longer feeling the separation of self and other. Being able to feel how connected everything is. So today were going to talk about compassion, which is a really good tool for not turning away from our experiences, for looking right at them. And we’re going to specifically work with a Tibetan practice called Tonglen, which means sending and receiving as a tool for looking at those experiences. Specifically experiences of suffering. Looking at them directly and working to transmute them. And I originally learned this practice when I was 15 in Asia in 1997. My mom took me out of high school for a month to take me to Nepal and Bhutan, which was an amazing experience and I learned so much about Buddhism and the various cultures in that region. It was kind of a pilgrimage and it really affected me. So I started doing this practice and it really helped me at the time to deal with some experiences I was having at the time, which I’ll get into more later. So I wanted to take a step back and talk a little bit about a couple of concepts in Buddhism that you may have heard of. One is samsara and the other is karma. Samsara is the cycle of existence basically. It’s all these different realms sort of existing on top of each other. The human realm, the animal realm, there’s God realms, there’s hell realms, there’s the insect realm, all kinds of things that we can see and also cannot see. And within that is what the Tibetans refer to as precious human birth. Which the way they look at it is you can be born anywhere in that cycle of existence but the one place you can be born that actually allows you to train your mind and work to free yourself from that samsara cycle of existence is human birth. You have the right mental faculties, the ability to read and understand teachings and all this stuff. So that leaves you poised to not only find the right guidance, but to actually be able to use it to reach enlightenment. And what keeps us stuck in samsara is karma. And the nature of samsara is basically suffering, is what they talk about in Buddhism. As long as you’re in samsara you’re going to be experiencing suffering. You may be happy for a while but there eventually will be more suffering because you’re still in samsara. This does not mean Buddhism is the path of suffering. Most of the practices in Buddhism can help you achieve more and more peace and joy and can really help you overcome a lot of pain. Nobody’s going to be completely blissed out all of the time. So then there’s karma which a lot of people have probably heard of. That you do various actions and have various thoughts that give you negative karma, positive karma, and those stay with you throughout all of your lifetimes. And so something that’s happening to you now is a result of something else that you did. Could be last week, could be several million years ago and it’s just carried through to this lifetime. So the karma that follows us keeps us stuck in this vicious cycle in samsara. And I say vicious cycle because, you may have heard the phrase hurt people hurt people. So if you’re hurting you might be more inclined to want to do actions that might hurt someone or that are just negative in some way and then that give you more negative karma and then you’re stuck in samsara for longer. And so a really good antidote to all of that is compassion. So the suffering that we experience in samsara is the best motivation for trying to seek liberation. So why would we want to try and reach enlightenment and get out of samsara? Well it’s because otherwise we will be suffering. So Tonglen, the Tibetan practice is about alleviating that suffering for all beings. That’s the motivation for doing Tonglen. So the Buddha was born … Actually he was a prince named Siddhartha. And when he was born his father got all of these predictions from holy men basically saying that his son was either going to be a great king or he was going to be a religious figure who was not going to want anything to do with the throne, if I remember correctly. And the kind was really worried about this and so he worked really hard to shield Siddhartha from experiencing or witnessing any form of pain, or suffering, or hardship of any kind. And then when Siddhartha was a young man he wanted to experience what real life was all about, more so than what he was seeing in the castle where everything was just perfect and wonderful all of the time. And so he got his driver to sneak him out of the castle grounds and he started seeing things like sickness, and old age, and all these things he’d never seen. And because he’d never seen them before it was more shocking and therefore made him so much more heartbroken for these people and wanted to help so deeply that that’s what ended up thrusting him in the direction of leaving the castle and going to work really hard to try and train his mind, and help others, and eventually reach enlightenment. It was the witnessing of the suffering that brought all of that about. I wanted to take a minute to distinguish between empathy, sympathy, and compa

  4. 02/04/2019

    Passion, Practicality, and the Magic of Music with Priya Darshini

    Priya Darshini is a Brooklyn based singer, athlete and philanthropist. In this episode of A Show of Hearts, Priya discusses her experience growing up in India, how she and her family began taking care of pediatric cancer patients and how she became the first Indian woman to complete the Himalayan 100 Mile Ultra Marathon. Listen to her and host Rosemary talk about having the courage to follow your heart and pursue your passions without sacrificing practicality and about how they believe music is a form of magic. Though she has musical influences from all over the world and sings in 18 languages, her roots are in Indian Classical music. She describes the inspiration her Indian upbringing provides her to this day, particularly her grandmother, an accomplished singer and dancer whose name was also Priya Darshini. Priya belongs to several bands that mix genres, cultures and languages, including The Epichorus, the Karsh Kale ensemble, and the recently launched Priya Darshini Trio. She co-leads Women’s Raga Massive, with whom she co-produces a festival called Out of the Woods, now in its third year. Priya occasionally sits in with her husband Max’s band, House of Waters, in which every member of the group is from a different country. In February, she teamed up with them at a house concert at Rosemary’s home in Miami, which was an extraordinary, intimate evening. Towards the end of the show, you’ll hear a clip of her from that night, singing a love song in Hindi. As you’ll experience, her otherworldly voice is multifaceted, pure and heartfelt. And, if you’re ever in New York, she regularly leads fascinating music workshops at The Met, explaining what’s going on in various forms of music, so you know what you’re listening to. On top of a thriving music career, she helps run her family’s organization focused on pediatric cancer and education, adopting and operating schools in India. Priya also founded her own social venture called The Wind Chasers, which organizes ultramarathons throughout the Himalayas, and supports the livelihood of many Sherpa people. She explains how her intense experience as an ultramarathon runner has shaped her thinking and her life decisions. Listen and enjoy her singing, her life story and her reflections. Priya Darshini’s website: https://priyadarshini.com/bio Priya’s organization, Jana Rakshita: http://www.janarakshita.org The Epichorus: http://theepichorus.com The Wind Chasers: http://www.thewindchasers.com/ Thanks so much for listening! If you like what you heard, please subscribe and rate on iTunes, visit www.ashowofhearts.com or follow us @ashowofhearts on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter! Take a screenshot of this episode and share it in your Instastory and use the hashtag #ashowofhearts – we’d really appreciate it. Transcript Rosemary Pritzker:        You’re listening to A Show of Hearts, the podcast about finding the courage to live a deep and magical life. I’m your host, life coach, Rosemary Pritzker. (singing) Priya Darshini is a Brooklyn-based singer, ultra marathon runner, and pediatric cancer philanthropist who was born and raised in Bombay, India. Her roots are in Indian classical music, but she has influences from all over the world. She belongs to several bands that mix genres, cultures, and languages including the Epichorus, the Karsh Kale ensemble, and she recently started the Priya Darshini trio. She co-leads Women’s Raga Masive with whom she co-produces a festival called Out of the Woods now in its third year. Priya also occasionally sits in with her husband Max’s band, House of Waters in which every member of the group is from a different country. In February, she teamed up with them at a house concert at my home in Miami which was an extraordinary intimate evening. Towards the end of this episode, you’ll hear a clip from her that night singing a song in Hindi. As you’ll experience, her other worldly voice is multifaceted, pure, and heartfelt. I hope you enjoy her singing, her life story and her reflections as much as I do. For now we’ll start with Priya with the Epichorus singing a song in Hebrew called Odecha. (singing) When someone talks about following the heart, what does that evoke for you? Priya Darshini:              What does that evoke for me? Often times when someone says follow your heart, as I’m getting older, the first thing my brain says is, “Oh, but you also have to be practical.” I didn’t really think like that when I was much younger. When I was younger, I just did anything that I wanted to and I just had this complete confidence. It felt like I had the world ahead of me and the entire world was … It was available for me to explore, and anything was possible. I just did all of that, and so when someone says that to me now, I do have that extra like this thing in my brain that says, “Yes, follow your heart, but also make sure that you’re making practical moves.” I often go back and tell myself that, “Hey, you’re here today because you followed your heart all your life, so don’t forget that and you’re going to be fine.” Rosemary Pritzker:        Yeah. It’s both like, yeah, you really do need to follow your heart in order to create a really wonderful life, and you do have to be practical so it’s got to be a balance. Priya Darshini:              It has to be a balance, definitely. I also think that when you really, really want something very bad, the universe conspires to make it happen for you, and you make that happen for yourself. If it doesn’t happen, you haven’t wanted it bad enough. I really believe that because when you really want something so bad, all your actions, and your thoughts, all of that just follows what you want and just everything starts to fall in place even if there are hurdles, when you’re in that passionate mode of really wanting something, hurdles seem so small. The biggest challenges seem small, and you really feel positive about it as well. If you don’t want it bad enough then even the smallest of hurdles, smallest of challenges just start to feel much bigger. Rosemary Pritzker:        I would love to know about your childhood in India, what that was like. Priya Darshini:              Wow. Rosemary Pritzker:        For those of us who have never been to India, and don’t know how different it is. Priya Darshini:              Oh, India is very, very different from any other part of the world, I would say. It’s hard to describe actually. I still struggle to find a word to describe what India is really like because every part of India is so different, and it’s so diverse. There’s so many languages, so many different types of cuisine. When they say Indian food in America or anywhere else, typically, everyone is talking about … Rosemary Pritzker:        Chicken tikka masala. Priya Darshini:              Yeah. From one state called Punjab. It’s all from one state. I’m saying every state has its own cuisine, and even within every state, there’s so many different versions of cuisines and you can imagine how diverse it is. I mean, if you try one dish, every day of your life, I feel like you could go on for years and not repeat a single dish. That’s how diverse the cuisine is. Cuisine, language, all of that, the kind of diversity that India offers, it makes us very unique type of person because you’re exposed to so many different things. You’re approach to life and the world just changes. India is also very difficult, it’s very difficult. I thought when I moved from Bombay to New York, everyone told me, “Oh, New York is going to be so rough. It’s like it’s a big hustle.” When I got to New York, I was like, “Oh, I know this. I got this.” It’s actually way more convenient. The train comes on time. I have to walk only two minutes for a subway. Are you kidding me? That’s awesome. The hustle is totally fine. I got it. I grew up in Bombay, and I was born in Chennai, in the south of India, and I was in Pondicherry for about a couple of years, and then moved to Bombay. Bombay, like I said it’s a lot like New York. It’s almost like New York on steroids or something. It’s crazy, but also it has this incredible energy about it. People are so positive about everything which I’m so glad that I had … I mean, I’m so glad I had that influence in my life. I used to go to school by train. I take a bus, and then a train like the local transport. I don’t know if you’ve seen those trains. It’s crazy. People are hanging out of the train. There’s no space to stand. I would take a bus and a train, and then walk to school, and even to college, I took these trains every day. You’ll see on these trains that the women especially because it’s such a patriarchal society still, unfortunately, the women you’d see that these are women who are working, the middle class women are working because they have to … Bombay is also incredibly expensive. If you go out to a restaurant, I almost spend more than I spend in New York for a good meal. Yeah, you wouldn’t believe. Bombay can be very expensive, but you can also get meals very cheap, but it’s a lifestyle thing. Middle class women have to work to support their families but because it’s so patriarchal they also have to do the cooking, and the cleaning and things like that. What I would find so inspiring is none of these women, they’re going to work, they’d come back from work and on the way in the train. On the train, firstly, there’s no space. We’re all crowded and cramped like this, and they’d be chopping vegetables, and singing songs. They would have women’s groups just like singing bhajans and all kinds of kirtans. Just movie songs playing this game called antakshari where you play like a tag thing that people play with songs. If you sing

    1 h 21 min

  5. 01/03/2019

    Strength, Dignity, and Resilience in Haiti with Jeff Feldman

    In this episode of A Show of Hearts, Jeff Feldman shares his experience working in Haiti for over a year and a half in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake in 2010. We talk about what it was like to be on the ground at the time, the many misconceptions about Haiti and acts of strength he witnessed in the wake of unimaginable hardship. We discuss the darkness but also the light – the magic of Haiti, the resiliency and pride of its people and a culture steeped in mysticism and creativity. Inspired by this creativity, Feldman produced a show of Haitian art called the Haiti Art Expo that drew attention to art from the area and raised funds for relief. Also hear a hilarious, eye opening story at the end about what we see on the news that may or may not be true. Feldman is a dear friend and, in addition to continuing to advocate for Haiti, is the Senior Vice President of Uribe Construction, which designs and builds commercial and residential real estate in Miami. Resources mentioned in the episode: JP/HRO Ayiti Community Trust Hand in Hand for Haiti How to Fix the Broken Humanitarian System: A Q&A with Paul Spiegel “Why Haiti Needs New Narratives: A Post Quake Chronicle” by Gina Athena Ulysse Thanks so much for listening! If you like what you heard, please subscribe and rate on iTunes, visit www.ashowofhearts.com or follow us @ashowofhearts on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook! Take a screenshot of this episode and share it in your Instastory and use the hashtag #ashowofhearts – we’d really appreciate it. Feel free to email us at info@ashowofhearts with any questions or comments! Transcript RP: You’re listening to A Show of Hearts, the podcast about finding the courage to live a deep and magical life. I’m your host, life coach, Rosemary Pritzker. Speaker 2: (singing) RP: My dear friend, Jeff Feldman, and I met at a sustainable business conference in Tucson almost 13 years ago. He’s the Senior Vice President of Uribe Construction, which designs and builds both commercial and residential luxury real estate in Miami, but what Jeff and I are focused on in this episode is his passion for Haiti and particularly his experience working there for a year and a half after the massive earthquake that happened nine years ago on January 12th, 2010. RP: When we sat down to talk last year, Pres. Trump had just called Haiti a shithole country, and Anderson Cooper had a strong emotional response on CNN. We picked up the conversation there. I’m just wondering what your response was to that video of Anderson Cooper, how it felt to watch it. JF: There’s too much emotion wrapped up. I was watching him go through this, and I was like, “You Know What?” I turned the TV off. I just turned the TV off, because I knew where he was going. I knew where he was coming from, and I didn’t really want to be there in the moment, and because my anger, I was so furious, and to see the leader of the United States make such a terrible and awful and completely false type statement like that was infuriating. I just had to turn it off. JF: He’s not the only person. A lot of people have the completely wrong picture of what Haiti actually really is. I mean, most people don’t really understand it. The visuals that we see on television here for the last 30 years have been of struggle and strife and despair, and there’s just so much more to it than that. It’s such a special place. It’s so different from anything that you’ve ever experienced. I mean, it’s one of the happiest and most beautiful and fruitful places as much, as they send the message that it’s not. RP: Jeff spoke of the dignity and resilience of the Haitian people despite all the negative narratives about Haiti in the international press. JF: I mean, these people are … Many of them go to sleep every night with less than a dollar to their name, millions of people, and particularly those in the capital in Port-au-Prince, but you can take everything away from them, their homes. You could take away jobs, food. You could take everything away from them, but you cannot take away their dignity. They’re the most dignified people. They’re the strongest willed people. They’re the most resilient people I believe anywhere in the planet. JF: If you were to look in any of the shanties or any of the homes or anything in Haiti throughout, you’ll see that they’re completely organized. They’re clean, top to bottom. The shoes are by the front door. The spices are on a rack. I mean, the places, they are just … Their fingernails are always clean. Their teeth are always clean. Their hair is always brushed, and that’s something that just runs through the entire population of that country. There’s just pride in yourself and dignity, and you can’t take that from them. RP: What was your relationship to Haiti like before the earthquake? JF: Well, it goes back to about when I was 12 years old, which is now 30 years. I was always, as a kid, working. I was a busboy in South Florida. I worked for a friend’s father’s diner as a 12-year-old, and all the dishwashers were Haitian, and I was a busboy, so my job was to bring the dishes back to the dishwashers. They were these unbelievably unique and different people. I also grew up in white suburbia, so they were the first black people that I really knew in mass. JF: I mean, there was definitely a few black kids throughout my schooling and all this other stuff, but this was an entire group of people, and they were from some island offshore. Being the way that I am, of course, I wanted to be their friends and learn their language and ask them how to say certain things, and they were the sweetest and the nicest and the kindest people. Even the ones that didn’t speak English, we had this unspoken, just affection for each other. It was part of the reason why I studied French in school growing up. JF: From being a busboy and then just throughout the course of my life, I’ve always been drawn to them, to Haitians. Then, in 2006, I actually went the first time to go surf, one of my buddies I went to high school with, a couple of Haitians that grew up here in Miami. They lived back in Port-au-Prince. Their family business is in Port-au-Prince, and so we all went down to surf. I went 2006 for New Year’s. 2007, we went back. I toured all over the countryside, off-road, surf, Safari, crazy, driving down goat paths, the whole thing. It was wild, wild. JF: In 2008, there were four hurricanes that had, in sequence, one after the other, passed right over Haiti and just absolutely annihilated Haiti, killing thousands. I should say thousands of people, but lots of people, stranding thousands of people, killing livestock, destroying crops. I mean, it just really was devastating, and I started a local supplies relief campaign, and then this thing happened a couple of years later, and I was a go-to guy after my experience there. RP: When the earthquake happened, what motivated you to go? JF: When we started our supply chain rally here in Miami Beach, there came a point in time where we had personally delivered so much stuff, pharmaceuticals, clothing, feminine hygiene products, medical products, just, I mean, so much stuff. We had transported dozens and dozens and dozens of aircrafts over the course of the first five days after the earthquake, that I said to the people with whom we were coordinating this at UM, University of Miami, “Whose, what’s happening with this stuff when it hits the ground? Where is it? How is it getting dealt with?” JF: The answer was, “We don’t really know.” It’s a disaster, and it was. I said, “Well, what if I can rally a group of eight of us to go down and sort it out, figure it out?” The answer was, “When can you go?” and so we went the next day. RP: What happened when you got there? JF: Well, we were on the first commercial airliner that was able to land at the airport. It was the first five days. The airport was destroyed. The actual physical building, the airport was destroyed and closed. The runway was unknown whether or not it was working or not working, but planes started landing there, and the US military got there very quickly. We were on the first commercial airliner that was chartered to get as many supplies, but also critical people down there to administer, I mean, from aid to prayer to security. I mean, you name it. JF: I was on an airplane, that you couldn’t make it up if you tried. There were priests, nurses, doctors, mercenaries with weapons, animals. I mean, you name it. It was crazy. The eight of us, our group from Miami Beach, we went down there, and as we were landing, before we touched down, I circled the group up and said, “Listen. When we land, when this plane touches the ground, there’s not going to be somebody here landing this plane and telling you, okay, welcome to Haiti, and unloading our bags and unloading the belly of the aircraft that was loaded to the gills with supplies.” JF: I said, “It’s going to be us. When we get off the plane, we’re going to be first off the plane, and we’re going to control the area around this aircraft,” which is exactly what we did. We unloaded the plane. We told all the people to stand over here and don’t move. Then, we started to daisy-chain all of the materials off the aircraft. As we saw people’s names on it or organizations’ names or whatever it was, people claimed it, and they took their stuff, and then they moved along. RP: What did it feel like to instantly have that responsibility on your shoulders? JF: It’s just the way I’m programmed. When there’s a situation, I’m the guy that jumps into the burning car in the accident. I’m the guy that takes control of a situation. RP: Why is that? JF: It’s just the way I’m programmed. I don’t really know any other way. It’s just how I am. One thing I’ve always known is, if you look the part and you act

  6. 31/01/2019

    Functional Medicine, Spirituality, and the Afterlife with Dr. Leo Galland

    Dr. Leo Galland is an accomplished doctor known as a founder of functional medicine and has had a long and varied career as both a world renowned physician and a international bestselling author of 5 books. His latest book Already Here: A Doctor Discovers the Truth About Heaven, is a more personal one about the story of losing his 22-year old son and how it sparked his belief in the afterlife. In this episode we talk about Leo Galland the doctor: what inspired him to go into the profession, his experience as a young doctor at Bellevue and how he arrived at using the approach of functional medicine. But we also speak at length about Galland the spiritual person: the experience he had raising and ultimately losing a developmentally challenged son and how that loss opened his mind and heart and ultimately changed how he operates in the world and how he approaches his patients. To learn more about Dr. Leo Galland, visit www.drgalland.com. Thanks so much for listening! If you like what you heard, please subscribe and rate on iTunes, visit www.ashowofhearts.com or follow us @ashowofhearts on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook! Take a screenshot of this episode and share it in your Instastory and use the hashtag #ashowofhearts . Feel free to email us at info@ashowofhearts with any questions or comments! Show Transcript RP:    You’re listening to A Show Of Hearts, the podcast about finding the courage to live a deep and magical life. I’m your host, life coach Rosemary Pritzker. (singing). RP:    Dr. Leo Galland is a highly respected physician, and one of the original founders of the principles of functional medicine. He’s an international bestselling author of five books, and has published many scientific articles. Dr. Galland attended Harvard University and NYU School of Medicine, and has received numerous awards throughout his career. His name also appears on lists such as Leading Physicians Of The World, and America’s Top Doctors. RP:    Dr. Galland has been my doctor on and off for a decade. His latest book, Already Here, is a departure from his usual subject of integrated medicine. In it, he shares the story of losing his 22-year-old son, Christopher, and what he learned about death, grief, and the afterlife. In this episode, we begin by discussing his worldview as a physician. I asked him if there is a common denominator among his most challenging and mysterious cases, and I think his answer will surprise you. RP:    Then we discussed his experiences after the death of his son, and what he learned from him. Christopher was a special needs child who was brain-damaged from birth. He liked to challenge everyone around him, but Leo later learned that what appeared as Christopher being difficult was actually him showing up as a very wise teacher. RP:    To learn more about Leo Galland, visit drgalland.com, or find the link in the show notes. When someone says, “Follow the heart,” what does that mean to you? What does that conjure for you? LG:    Well, I think the first thing is stop running around, pay attention, know what’s in your heart. I mean, listen to it, because the heart will speak to you. That’s where I start. RP:    Were there any early lessons in your life about that that kind of led you to thinking and feeling that way? LG:    Well, I would say that for me, there was always this kind of duality of heart and mind that I probably spent my life trying to learn how to bridge the division between them. For me though, it was always a question of how do you respond to things? I tried to understand that process as I became a physician, I think. LG:    That’s probably where I made the greatest strides, because what I learned was important to do was to be able to approach my patients with my heart as well as my mind, and that the subjective reactions that I had to my patients was really an important piece of information. It was just as important as what any lab test told me. LG:    It was a very slow process. I mean, I spent decades trying to bring the two together to the point where I didn’t have to think about doing it, where it just kind of automatically happened. Of course, compassion is a really important part of being a physician. RP:    What led you to becoming a doctor in the first place? LG:    Well, to begin with, I wanted to help people, and I was told, “Well, don’t say that when you go to medical school. Tell them it’s because of the intellectual stimulation, or whatever.” Yeah, I just thought that I wanted to be useful, I wanted to be able to be of service, and I felt that being the kind of person I was, that using my intellect and my mind to be of service was the path that I should follow. LG:    I like to try and solve problems, and more important than just solving problems myself, I really care about empowering people. What I really like to try and do is to help people learn how to solve their own problems. I went to medical school at NYU, and so the clinical training was at Bellevue Hospital. As soon as I got onto the wards of Bellevue and were dealing with real people who were very sick, it was like, “Wow, this is what I want to be doing. I want to be in this clinical environment. I want to be trying to help these people interact, learn, grow.” LG:    So I mean, it’s very much passion for the work that enabled me to do it. When I finished at Bellevue and started teaching, I realize that there was really something missing. I realized that there was an awful lot that we just didn’t know about people. The whole practice of medicine and the way it was taught was just focused on, “What disease does this person have?” Then you can treat the disease. LG:    But what I learned as a scientist when I was working in laboratories was that science is all about the details, that is you can change the outcome of an experiment by altering the temperature one degree, or by changing one ingredient that you’re using. If you’re trying to practice medicine as a scientist, then the details are really important. Details like what does this person eat? What does this person think? Who does he or she live with? What’s the environment like in which this person lives? LG:    That was being totally ignored, and still is to a large extent, which amazes me. I realized there was an awful lot that I didn’t know about my patients, and I wanted to learn how to get that information. I spent years studying nutrition, environmental health, behavioral medicine, physical medicine, and first thing I realized was there was a tremendous amount of research that had been done in these areas, it just hadn’t crossed over into the clinical practice of medicine. LG:    As I began applying it, I realized that this was really important, powerful information that could help people change their lives, and that once you start doing this, you never want to go back and act as if you … it’s impossible to go back to the model in which I had been trained, and which to a large extent still dominates medical practice in the U.S. LG:    When I looked at what was effective about what I was doing, and this is like maybe in the ’80s, I realized that I was just … I was thinking about the problems of patients differently. I was in New Haven, saw a lot of chronically ill people. Many of them had been to specialists at Yale. The more Yale specialists they’d seen without getting answers, the more likely I was going to be able to help them, because the specialists were all looking at the diseases, and the people who were coming to me were people for whom that approach had failed. LG:    I didn’t have to worry about, “Was this test done? Was this diagnosis made?” That had already been done. What I could concentrate on is, “What has everybody ignored about this person that we’re now going to try and shed some light on?” That’s been an approach that has really been very helpful to my patients. There’s information, and techniques, and knowledge that comes out of thinking that way that I’ve taught to other physicians, and it’s been very well accepted, and it helped to shape functional medicine, which has had significant impact on medical practice in the U.S. and elsewhere. LG:    For me, that’s been a very fulfilling enterprise, sometimes really frustrating. A lot of work. I mean, the work never stops because when you learn a set of skills and you get pretty competent at managing something, and then you go and you teach that to other doctors. Well, then the people that you wind up seeing have already seen those doctors, and so what you already learned that made a difference has already not helped those people, and your challenge, you’ve got to take it one step further. You’ve got to raise the bar on your practice and your understanding. LG:    I mean, I like doing that. It suits my personality well. It’s also very humbling, because you get to realize, “There is so much that I don’t know, and no matter how long I spend, and how hard I work, and how many breakthroughs I think I’m making, there’s just so much more that I need to address.” RP:    Yeah. Human bodies, and human psyches, and the coming together of those two things, it’s so complex. How is anyone supposed to get to the bottom of any of it? LG:    Right, and that’s one of the reasons why the only medicine that’s really sustainable and ultimately successful is one that brings the patient in as a partner with the medical team, because people ultimately heal themselves, and if someone’s not going to cooperate in that process, there’s a limit to what you as a physician can do, but if someone really gets engaged in trying to restore her health or his health, they can bring insights and understanding that I as a physician can’t really access without that person sharing them with me. RP:    Where do you think the d

  7. 09/05/2018

    Calling on the Ancestors with Chartwell Dutiro

    Chartwell Dutiro is from the Shona tribe of Zimbabwe and is a master mbira player and professor. Mbira is a traditional, mystical instrument that’s purpose is to call on the ancestors, and it’s also the instrument you hear at the beginning and end of this show. In this episode you’ll learn about the history  of the mbira and its influence on Zimbabwean culture, as well as how it’s used in a spiritual and ceremonial context. Chartwell holds a master’s degree in ethnomusicology from SOAS University in London, and is currently working on his PHD in Collaboration with Dialogue using mbira as the backbone. He has a great deal of knowledge and wisdom about both traditional cultures and modern culture and how the two can either be woven together in a beneficial way or how they can clash in a way that breaks us as individuals and as a society as a whole. You’ll also hear Chartwell’s thoughts on everything from Apartheid to what happens in cultures that don’t communicate with the spirits of their ancestors. This conversation was recorded two years ago, when A Show of Hearts was just a faint idea, so you’ll notice that the interviewing style and overall sound differ a bit from the other interviews on this show. But, his wise and insightful words are pretty timeless, and his perspective is unique and thoughtful. As you listen, you’ll get a sense of the respect and connection that he and Rosemary share, as he is her mentor and friend. Finally, you’ll hear one of his songs, Bukatiende, which means “get up let’s go” in Shona. To learn more about Chartwell, visit chartwellusa.wordpress.com or follow him on Instagram @chartwelldutiro Thanks for listening! If you loved what you heard, visit our website, ashowofhearts.com, subscribe on iTunes, and share with your friends @ashowofhearts on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter using #ashowofhearts. Feel free to comment on our social media or send us an email at info@ashowofhearts.com. Remember to choose courage, even when it’s scary, and join me in igniting the world with our hearts! Transcript Rosemary Pritzker:        You’re listening to A Show of Hearts, the podcast about finding the courage to live a deep and magical life. I’m your host, life coach, Rosemary Pritzker. Rosemary Pritzker:        (singing) Rosemary Pritzker:        Hi everyone. Welcome to the show. I’m so happy to introduce you to today’s guest, my dear friend and mentor, Chartwell Dutiro. He’s from the Shona tribe of Zimbabwe and is a master mbira player and professor. Mbira is a traditional mystical instrument that’s purpose is to call on the ancestors. It’s also the instrument you hear at the beginning and end of every episode of my show. So I’m thrilled for you guys to learn more about its meaning and history. Rosemary Pritzker:        Chartwell holds a master’s degree in ethnomusicology from SOAS University in London and is currently working on his PhD in collaboration with dialogue using mbira as the backbone. As you’ll hear in our interview, he has a great deal of knowledge and wisdom about both traditional cultures and modern culture and how the two can either be woven together in a beneficial way or how they can clash in a way that breaks us as individuals and as a society as a whole. Rosemary Pritzker:        This conversation was recorded two years ago when A Show of Hearts was just a faint idea. So you’ll notice that the interviewing style and overall sound differ a bit from my other interviews. But his wise and insightful words are pretty timeless. I hope you enjoy the unique and thoughtful perspective that he has to share. When we sat down, I asked Chartwell to talk about what the mbira is and the purpose that it serves in his culture. Chartwell Dutiro:          Mbira is a sacred, traditional instrument from Zimbabwe. It is made of three different components. It’s hand-forged metal pieces that are placed on very hard wood and at the bottom of the wood we have a metal plate that has anything that buzzes. Zimbabwe is landlocked and sometimes people use snail shells or sometimes ostrich egg shells, which I’ve used a lot. Now in this modern time, we put bottle tops. When we play mbira we use two thumbs and an index finger. So the thumbs are plucking down and the index finger is plucking up the high notes. Chartwell Dutiro:          Because mbira is so quiet, we then place it inside a gourd. You can imagine a gourd grows up like a pumpkin and we let it dry in the field. It changes color. It becomes a bit brown. Then we cut off the gourd. We cut off the top and scoop out all the seeds. Sometimes they’re hanged in a kitchen, hot, where it can smoke. It is this kind of shiny brown color. And then we put also bottle tops or shells around it for even more buzzing. But the resonance of the gourd gives the mbira a bit more volume. Rosemary Pritzker:        Can you talk a little bit about the purpose of the mbira? Chartwell Dutiro:          It has got a pivotal role and an mbira player is like a linchpin between the ancestors’ world and the living people. So we play mbira in these ritual ceremonies which are called Bira. Mbira is spelled M-B-I-R-A, mbira. We take off the M, B-I-R-A. That’s the name of the ceremony. Shona people for centuries have believed that we know there’s a creator there out who created people and things around the world. So to connect with the creator, we go through the ancestors. And to connect with ancestors, we have to have ceremonies and we have spirit mediums. Chartwell Dutiro:          In Shona culture, a spirit medium or a shaman is talked about as a pocket, like a pocket where you put things, or a vessel where the spirit of the ancestor come and temporarily inhabit for the night and talk through the medium. So the music summons the spirit of the ancestors to come and temporarily inhabit in a medium or a shaman. Rosemary Pritzker:        You’ve talked about how you started playing when you were four years old. Chartwell Dutiro:          I started playing when I was four years old and it wasn’t easy because at that time I was born in Rhodesia, which was a British colony basically. There was apartheid system. I grew up in what they called reserves, like reserves we know. The other word for it was TTL which means tribal trust lands, which means the missionaries, the British, decided that, “Let’s move these people out of the fertile land and put them into a gruffer land.” So- Rosemary Pritzker:        Sounds a lot like what happened here to the Native Americans being put onto reservations- Chartwell Dutiro:          Exactly. Rosemary Pritzker:        … in places that weren’t necessarily where their tribe actually had been. Chartwell Dutiro:          They were moved from the land, from the fertile land. Rosemary Pritzker:        Yeah. Chartwell Dutiro:          So growing up in that system where people are segregated because of the color of their skin and I grew up with Salvation Army. I like to call it Sully Army. It wasn’t easy for a young boy. I missed a lot of Sunday schools because I would have been playing mbira for the whole night for my ancestors. It was very uncomfortable. There’s a word, marumbe, in Shona, which means a vagabond, a young person not be a doctor or a teacher or something. Because of missing Sunday schools as a young boy, I was also in trouble with Salvation Army, Sully Army. Chartwell Dutiro:          But my mother was always there. She was also singing. She said, “You have to play music for your ancestors.” So playing mbira at the age of four was not easy. At some point I was even shy to carry my mbira, but my mother would carry the mbira. Rosemary Pritzker:        Did you guys have to hide the fact that you were playing mbira because of the apartheid system? Chartwell Dutiro:          Well, that happened before even when I was born. The mbira was banned and the spirit mediums were hanged in actual effect. The whole history of Zimbabwe is based on a woman called Nehanda. She was a powerful spirit medium who was resisting from colonialism, so she mobilized the whole country and told Shona people to go and get guns and fight for independence. But the missionaries didn’t like this, so she was hanged and executed. They cut off her head and took it to England. That was in 1897. Chartwell Dutiro:          So the music was then banned. The ceremonies were banned because they were looked at as worshiping the devil. So by the time I grew up things were a little bit relaxed, but still when the ceremonies are happening, you would be watching out in case some authority might come. But when you ban something it doesn’t mean it disappears. We have got an intellectual problem, an academic problem in that sense which is basically science versus cultures. Rosemary Pritzker:        Well, and head versus heart. Chartwell Dutiro:          Yes. Rosemary Pritzker:        And masculine versus feminine. Chartwell Dutiro:          Yes. Yes, I agree. I agree. Science believes that you want to talk about something, you’ve got to measure it. We don’t have a device really that can measure how many cycles per second is this spirit traveling before it enters the body. So the argument we can’t measure it, so it can’t be real. This is the problem we have because then if you are connected with the spiritual world like I do, I can’t talk about the ancestors coming as a spirit comfortably or I can’t talk about a dream that I have dreamed about that came true because people will think I’m weird. But in Shona culture, you could probably say the whole culture is weird in that way. Chartwell Dutiro:          That’s the impact of Roman Catholic, Chu

    48 min

  8. 11/04/2018

    Gun Violence and Movement Building from the Heart with Marianne Manilov

    “Love is not something that’s optional. In a time of hate and fear, love is one of the most potent things that we can do in movement building.” -Marianne Manilov Social change organizer and movement strategist, Marianne Manilov, shares her insights and experiences of approaching large scale activism from a place of love and connection. Hear her talk about what it felt like to be at The March for our Lives, what the Parkland students announced they will focus on now that the march is over, and what action she herself is taking on gun violence. Hear Rosemary refer to Martin Luther King’s words about the importance of being “tough minded and tender hearted” instead of being soft minded and hard hearted. She and Marianne discuss how to find compassion for someone when it’s really hard, and how to get past feelings of contempt by listening deeply so the person feels heard, and looking for points of connection rather than “othering”. Rosemary and Marianne also discuss the importance of healing ourselves first from the inside out, before trying to take action in the outside world. Hear how Marianne learned the difference between being ok and being joyful, and she and Rosemary share their advice on how to change the world and heal yourself at the same time. They talked about how in order to get people to take significant action, they first need to feel deep connection. The takeaway: do something simple and sustainable and connected, and do it in community with people who feel good, because movements are built from the heart. “I think for a lot of people they get into social change because they have a wound and they don’t want to walk through that wound. But on the other side of that wound is freedom. And when you yourself get free, you realize that your journey is tied to everyone, and that you’re not actually getting anyone free, that we all get free together.” -Marianne Manilov To learn more about Marianne’s work, visit engagenet.org Transcript Rosemary Pritzker:        You’re listening to A Show of Hearts, the podcast about finding the courage to live a deep and magical life. I’m your host, life coach Rosemary Pritzker. Rosemary Pritzker:        (singing) Rosemary Pritzker:        Welcome everyone. Today’s guest, Marianne Manilov, is a social change organizer and movement strategist. 13 years ago she founded The Engage Network which helps organizers build the strong networks and personal relationships necessary for powerful movement building. Marianne has long history of social, political, and environmental activism and organizing that goes back decades. She has deep wisdom to share on what makes an effective movement and how each individual within it can contribute to that effectiveness. When we sat down, she had just come from the March For Our Lives which took place the day before our interview. We started by discussing the overall feeling in the air these days. Rosemary Pritzker:        So there is something happening in our country right now, starting in my eyes on election day where we had this big shock of Trump winning and for me that day I was actually in Peru in the jungle and there was that initial knee jerk shock and … you know. But, pretty much immediately the thought that came to me was this needed to happen because Trump is basically aa virus that’s going to kick up the immune system of our country, because we’ve gotten too complacent. And it seems to me like that is what’s happening right now. Since then, we’ve had the Women’s March, MeToo, and now March For Our Lives. So you were at The March yesterday, could you just share a little bit about sort of what was the feeling in the air? What did it feel like and what did it feel like it meant? Marianne Manilov:        Well, I think the first thing I want to say is that I agree with you that this is a time of enormous change. But, I also think similar to the analogy you used with flu, some people will die. People are being deported and there is enormous chaos and crisis, hopefully not war, but we’re now looking today at a person coming into the White House who has spoken on Fox News in ways that people, if his practice matches his rhetoric, we will go to war. So I think that was one of the feelings of yesterday, which is that there has been a lot of death and harm and that people want it to stop. And the second … And that was very present throughout, there were a lot of people wearing survivor buttons and carrying pictures of people and a lot of tears, and a lot of hugging, and a lot of sense of the pain. And there was also a sense that we were at purpose and about to break through. I was with a team of people, 700 strong, from Chicago and some of them from Florida, and they were chanting “Chicago strong, Chicago strong”. Marianne Manilov:        And I could feel many of these people, mothers, children, who’ve lost over and over, because Chicago is like a war zone, just like Indianapolis, so many of our cities, and you could feel the power literally as we were moving towards the place where there were eventually 800,000 people on the mall, of literally almost when your heart gets really beating fast and there is something strong happening. And then, everyone is feeling it. So you could feel that it was a breakthrough moment, you could feel that our country was going to chance, you could see the different movements coming together, the DREAMers, Black Lives Matter. I saw this one sign that made me pause for a minute, that said, “Student lives matter.” And it’s the coming together of all of these movements that then I don’t think they’ll just break through on gun violence. If you register all of the students who are in high school to vote they’d take over the state. If they’re gong to take over the state, that is going to impact immigration, it’s going to impact the police, it’s going to impact prisons. It’ll impact all of the breaking movements that students care about. Rosemary Pritzker:        Hmm. Yeah. I think when we feel isolated we can forget how powerful we are, and we are so much more powerful when we come together, which is part of why it feels so powerful in a setting like a massive march. I wasn’t there, but I did march when the Eric Garner verdict came out. And that was so powerful, so potent to all those people as far as the eye could see, you know. And there was actually this moment where the organizers somehow super skillfully, all they had was one bullhorn, got everyone, the sea of people, lying down on their backs silent. In the middle of 34th and Broadway I think it was silent. All we could hear was helicopters. There was magic to it, it felt kind of like being in like a church or something like that. And I think that that sense of everyone coming together and sharing in the deep immense emotions around what’s happening, around what happened to Eric Garner, around what happened at Parkland can fuel the resistance, it can help us process so that we then have the strength and the courage to then take the actions that are necessary to cause change. Rosemary Pritzker:        But, what do we do now? Now that the march is over, what’s next? Marianne Manilov:        What I think what you said is deeply important. There was moment yesterday where Emma Gonzalez held silence. And, again, same thing the feeling in the moment in a crowd of 800,000 people in silence was enormous. People were weeping and they didn’t know what she was doing, but she was actually saying this is how long it took to change my life and to take all these lives. And I do think mobilization has a very particular feel to it. Unfortunately, it’s like the difference between. I mean, you and I talk a lot about meditation, but there are ecstatic moments in our life, we were talking about this earlier, where something feels like you’re totally connected and everything is so magical, but most of life isn’t that way and if we’re constantly searching for those moments it would really suck to live the rest of life. And organizing is similar. It’s wonderful that people come in through mobilization, but sometimes I wish they came in through the hard stuff of phone calling and. Marianne Manilov:        And that’s why the connection becomes so important, because not only are you overwhelmed with the issue, but perhaps you came in in a moment of mobilization where it’s one of those connected amazing moments, but the actual doing of organizing, spending all day in a car and going to lobby or writing a letter, these are not particularly. It’s kind of what Jack Kornfield says like, “And then the laundry.” These are laundry tasks. So how we bring about love and connection, and I’m most worried about connection, because what you felt in that moment was the sense of possibility, of breakthrough, and connection. And then, you go home and you’ve got this practice that’s alone and like doing the laundry, and of course you don’t stay in it. And most of the breakthroughs, I was listening to some of the, again, journalists this morning analyzing, and they were talking about the 10 years between these kinds of moments and when the change actually happens: civil rights, different places. Like the moment that Rosa Parks sat down to the actual legislation was 10 years. Marianne Manilov:        And I thought, “Oh, not another 10 years on this.” And I don’t know. I think things are happening faster today because of social media and a lot of other things, but I do know that what comes next is we have to dedicate to being in the practice, and similar to anything, doing that alone really sucks. So I’m going to focus on the don’t do it alone, because I know that if people do it alone their chances of staying in it for the amount of time we need, for the scale we need, to have the change happen are

    1 h
Tout afficher (14)

4,9
sur 5
39 notes

À propos

The podcast about living from the heart, with Rosemary Pritzker

Informations

  • Création
    Rosemary Pritzker
  • Années d’activité
    2018 - 2025
  • Épisodes
    14
  • Classification
    Contenu explicite
  • Site web de l’émission
    A Show of Hearts