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Phenomena Finale: Not a Machine but a Flame [Takeover]

What is the “energy” in energy healing? Healers channel it. Patients reach for it. Ancient healing traditions built entire systems around it, and modern researchers are working to study it. But what is energy, biologically, physically, measurably…but also spiritually, and how does it move through the body to influence health and healing?

In this special feed takeover, we’re bringing you the season finale of Phenomena: The Science and Stories of Energy Healing, in which host Ivy Ross brings together three renowned scientists whose visions, taken together, begin to answer that question:

  • Martin Picard, PhD, of Columbia University, has spent his career studying mitochondria, the body’s cellular power sources, and has found them far more connected to our inner experience and consciousness than biomedicine ever assumed, and likely far more central to how we heal.
  • Richard Hammerschlag, PhD, co-authored the paper that helped define the modern science of the biofield: the organizing fields of energy and information that operate within the body and extend outward from it, echoing the nested qi fields of older healing traditions.
  • Neil Theise, MD, of NYU, helped identify the interstitium, a major recent discovery of a fluid-filled network running throughout the body that may explain how signals fundamental to health and healing actually travel.

Together, these three voices offer a compelling, deeply human vision of the body and mind not as a machine, but as a dynamic energetic ecosystem.

To close out the season, Ivy and researcher Meredith Sprengel also welcome special guest Jonathan Cohen, co-creator and executive producer of Mayim Bialik’s Breakdown, to help land these big ideas about energy, healing, and life.

This episode marks the finale of Phenomena‘s first season. To continue the journey and explore the full docuseries, visit phenomenahealing.com. →

Caroline Adams Miller: Getting Grit

Caroline Miller is one of the world’s foremost experts in positive psychology and the author of books such as Creating Your Best Life and My Name Is Caroline. With Sounds True, she has recently published Getting Grit: The Evidence-Based Approach to Cultivating Passion, Perseverance, and Purpose. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon and Caroline discuss the concept of “grit”—the ability to stay passionate and persistent in one’s long-term goals even in the face of considerable hardship. Caroline explains the different kinds of grit, including “false grit” that encourages stubbornness or flatters the ego. Finally, Tami and Caroline talk about the startling fact that we don’t become happy when we are successful; rather, we become successful because we’re happy first. (56 minutes)

Making ‘We’ the New ‘I’

Lama Surya Das is one of the foremost Western scholars of Tibetan Buddhism. He is the founder of the Dzogchen Foundation and the author of many books, including Awakening the Buddha Within. In this episode of Insights at the Edge the good lama and Tami Simon discuss his newest book, Make Me One with Everything: Buddhist Meditations to Awaken from the Illusion of Separation, focusing on the concept of “inter-meditation.” They talk about inter-meditating in nature, inter-meditating with difficult emotional experiences, and even inter-meditating with people we could call our enemies. Finally, Lama Surya Das expounds on some of the book’s potent aphorisms for leading an enlightened life. (68 minutes)

The Cello and David Darling in Love

David Darling, a Grammy®-winning cellist and maverick musician who redefines the way the cello is played and the way music is taught, speaks with Tami Simon about his unique perspective on music. With Sounds True, David has released a new record called In Love and Longing with vocalist Sylvia Nakkach, as well as Just Being Here, a collaboration with Coleman Barks featuring David’s music and the poetry of Rumi. In this episode, David and Tami discuss the cello as an instrument of melancholy, what it takes to be a good collaborator, and the art of good listening. (72 minutes)

See David Darling live in August 2014. Visit WakeUpFestival.com for more information.

The Sweet Ache of Longing and Loving Well

Tami Simon speaks with Oriah Mountain Dreamer, who was given her name by the elders with whom she studied shamanism. Oriah is a teacher, mentor, group facilitator, and the author of the internationally bestselling books The Invitation, The Dance, and The Call. With Sounds True, she has created an audio program called Your Heart’s Prayer. In this episode, Tami speaks with Oriah about her experience with vision quests, the role of the ancestral guides in her life, what it might mean to have faith in our longing, and the power of asking the question, “Did I love well?”
(56 minutes)

Sera Beak: Red Hot and Holy, Part 2

Tami Simon speaks with Sera Beak, a Harvard-trained scholar of comparative world religions and a dynamic new voice in modern spirituality. Sera spent years traveling the world to study with Sufi dervishes, Tibetan monks, Indian yogis, mystics, shamans, and more. She is the author of The Red Book, and with Sounds True her new book is Red Hot and Holy: A Heretic’s Love Story. In the second part of a two-part interview, Tami speaks with Sera about her experiences with sacred touch, shadow work, the power of “cosmic family therapy” to heal the wounds of someone in a different lifetime, and the revelation of knowing deep in our being that we are beloved. (61 minutes)