The Mystical Positivist: April 2013

Saturday, April 27, 2013

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #115 - 27APR13

The Mystical Positivist is now a weekly radio show on KOWS-LP 107.3 FM, Occidental, CA. Listen live on Saturday evenings from 4:00 - 6:00pm, PST, via the web at KOWS Live Stream.

This week's podcast features:

A conversation with Gus diZerega, Ph.D. Gus diZerega is a Third Degree Elder in Gardnerian Wicca. He studied closely with Timothy White who later founded Shaman’s Drum magazine, and also studied Brazilian Umbanda for six years under Antonio Costa e Silva.

Dr. diZerega has published widely on the social sciences in the academic press as well as on spirituality. His second book Pagans and Christians: The Personal Spiritual Experience won the Best Nonfiction of 2001 award from The Coalition of Visionary Resources. His third, co-authored with Philip Johnson, is Beyond the Burning Times: A Pagan and a Christian in Dialogue. His art frequently appeared in Shaman’s Drum, and the ecological journals Wild Earth, and The Trumpeter. He blogs and writes for many online publications on wicca, environmental issues, and politics.

DiZerega combines a formal academic training in Political Science with decades of work in Wicca and shamanic healing.

More information about Gus diZerega's work can be found at:

Gus diZerega's Website: dizerega.com
Gus diZerega at Patheos: Patheos

Saturday, April 20, 2013

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #114 - 20APR13

The Mystical Positivist is now a weekly radio show on KOWS-LP 107.3 FM, Occidental, CA. Listen live on Saturday evenings from 4:00 - 6:00pm, PST, via the web at KOWS Live Stream.

This week's podcast features:

A conversation with Rev. Dr. John Mabry. John R. Mabry is a pastor, teacher, musician and writer. He holds a master’s degree in Creation Spirituality from Holy Names College and a doctorate in Philosophy and Religion from the California Institute of Integral Studies. John has served as editor for Creation Spirituality magazine and Presence: An International Journal of Spiritual Direction, and as managing editor for the Episcopal Diocese of California's Pacific Church News.

John currently serves as pastor of Grace North Church in Berkeley, Calif., an Anglican-rite Congregational parish. John is the Director of the Interfaith Spiritual Direction Certificate Program at the Chaplaincy Institute for Arts and Interfaith Ministry, where he also teaches world religions and interfaith theology.

John is the author of numerous books on spirituality and spiritual guidance, including Growing Into God: A Beginner’s Guide to Christian Mysticism, Faith Styles: Ways People Believe, Noticing the Divine: An Introduction to Interfaith Spiritual Guidance and The Way of Thomas: Nine Insights for Enlightened Living from the Secret Sayings of Jesus.

He also writes fiction, poetry, and music. John lives in Oakland, Calif.

More information about Rev. Dr. John Mabry's work can be found at:

John Mabry's Blog: Transgressive Theology: Dangerous Thoughts About God and Faith
The Chaplaincy Institute: chaplaincyinstitute.org
Grace North Church of Berkeley: Grace North Church

Saturday, April 13, 2013

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #113 - 13APR13

The Mystical Positivist is now a weekly radio show on KOWS-LP 107.3 FM, Occidental, CA. Listen live on Saturday evenings from 4:00 - 6:00pm, PST, via the web at KOWS Live Stream.

This week's podcast features:

A conversation with Dr. Robert Schmidt, spiritual director of Tayu Meditation Center. Rob Schmidt met and began intensive, 24-hour study with Tayu Meditation Center founder Robert Daniel Ennis in 1977. After five remarkable training years, he received ordination as a minister of Tayu, and co-taught with his teacher until Mr. Ennis’ death in 1998. His work with Mr. Ennis included co-writing and publishing a book entitled God Is Gay: An Evolutionary Spiritual Work. Rob succeeded Mr. Ennis as Tayu spiritual director, a post he still holds, in collaboration with yours truly. With Stuart Goodnick and Jim Wilson he co-founded Many Rivers Books & Tea in Sebastopol in Sebastopol, CA, in 2002.

Currently he’s collaborating with practitioners of many spiritual traditions to create The Festival of Conscious Parenting, a community event scheduled for 2014 in Santa Rosa, CA. Along the way, Rob completed a Ph.D. in anthropological archaeology at UC Berkeley, where he was co-editor with his grad student colleague Barbara Voss of the award-winning Archaeologies of Sexuality, the first academic edited volume to examine the phenomenon of sexuality as a object of knowledge in archaeological contexts.

More information about Tayu Meditation Center can be found at:

Many Rivers Books and Tea Website: www.manyriversbooks.com
Tayu Meditation Center Website: www.tayu.org/~tayu/
Old Many Rivers Blog: www.manyriversbooks.com/blog1/
Website for the Festival of Conscious Parenting: www.festivalofconsciousparenting.org
FaceBook page for the Festival of Conscious Parenting: FOCP

Saturday, April 6, 2013

The Mystical Positivist - Radio Show #112 - 06APR13

The Mystical Positivist is now a weekly radio show on KOWS-LP 107.3 FM, Occidental, CA. Listen live on Saturday evenings from 4:00 - 6:00pm, PST, via the web at KOWS Live Stream.

This week's podcast features:

A conversation with Lodro Rinzler, a practitioner and teacher in the Shambhala Buddhist lineage. He began meditating as a child and sat retreats as a teenager, even going as far as attending a silent month-long retreat during which he shaved his head and took monastic robes and vows.

When he left for college he received two heirlooms from his parents: from his father, a mala which he had used to recite mantras; from his mother, her father’s flask. He utilized both greatly in the four years ahead. During that time Lodro became a Vajrayana student of Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche. He also established Buddhist House, an eighteen person dorm at Wesleyan University which hosts a large meditation room. He began teaching meditation at that time.

After leaving college he was recruited to the position of the Executive Director of the Boston Shambhala Center. He began leading numerous workshops at meditation centers and college campuses throughout the United States. Lodro served as the Head of Development for Shambhala internationally before founding his own non-profit, an authentic leadership training and job placement organization.

His column, What Would Sid Do, appears regularly on The Huffington Post and The Interdependence Project and his writing has appeared in Shape Magazine, Real Simple Magazine, The Shambhala Sun, Buddhadharma, and The Good Men Project. He is the author of two books: The Buddha Walks into a Bar and Walk Like a Buddha. Lodro writes from his apartment in New York City, which he shares with his dog Tillie and his cat, Justin Bieber.

More information about Lodro Rinzler's work can be found at:

Lodro Rinzler's Website: lodrorinzler.com
Lodro Rinzler on YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/LodroRinzler
Lodro Rinzler at The Huffington Post: www.huffingtonpost.com/lodro-rinzler/

"The Mystical Positivist" Radio Show

The Mystical Positivist is a weekly radio show on KOWS-LP FM 107.3 Occidental, CA, and on the web at KOWS-LP Live Feed, Saturdays from 4 - 6pm PST. Coming up on The Mystical Positivist:

April 20: A pre-recorded conversation with Ken McLeod, Buddhist teacher and author of the newly released book, The Magic of Vajrayana. In this conversation, we plan to explore a compelling quote from Ian McGilchrist's The Matter with Things: If you had set out to destroy the happiness and stability of a people, it would have been hard to improve on our current formula: remove yourself as far as possible from the natural world; repudiate the continuity of your culture; believe you are wise enough to do whatever you happen to want and not only get away with it, but have a right to it—and a right to silence those who disagree; minimise the role played by a common body of belief; actively attack and dismantle every social structure as a potential source of oppression; reject the idea of a transcendent set of values.

One of the more innovative Buddhist teachers today, Ken McLeod is known for his clear explanations, poetic translations, and pragmatic approach to practice. He is one of the first generation of Western teachers in the Tibetan tradition and one of the few to be authorized to transmit the full scope of these teachings to students. In particular, his approach resonates strongly with those whose path lies outside established institutions.

After graduating with a degree in mathematics, Ken cycled across Europe to Istanbul and then continued his journey overland to India. In 1970 he met his principal teacher Kalu Rinpoche at his monastery near Darjeeling. There Ken began a study and practice in Tibetan Buddhism that lasted more than twenty years. He completed the traditional three-year retreat program two times, translated for many teachers, and helped set up Buddhist centers in Canada and the United States. After his teacher's passing, Ken moved away from the hierarchical structures of Asian Buddhism to explore new approaches.

In 1990, he founded Unfettered Mind in Los Angeles. His approach of one-on-one consultations roiled the Buddhist world in the early '90s, but was quickly recognized as a viable way to teach and guide students in the West. He made individual interviews a central feature of the many retreats he taught in California, New Mexico, and British Columbia. Through numerous small groups in Southern California, he developed the materials that became the encyclopedic meditation manual, Wake Up to Your Life.

Now retired from formal teaching, he lives in Northern California where he hikes and writes. His writings and translations include The Great Path of Awakening (1987), Wake Up to Your Life (2001), An Arrow to the Heart (2007), Reflections on Silver River (2014), A Trackless Path (2017), and The Magic of Vajrayana (2022), as well as a corpus of articles and translations in Tricycle and other Buddhist magazines.