Awakin Call

When Dr. Akil Palanisamy recounts his recovery from a debilitating illness during medical school, he says it began with two words: "bone broth." In hindsight, this may not sound so surprising, because Akil (or "Dr. Akil," as his patients know him) has been a doctor, author, and educator at the forefront of the food-as-medicine movement for the past 20 years. Dr. Akil has been described by leading integrative doctor Mark Hyman as "a unique triple threat in the field," combining expertise in functional medicine, Ayurveda, and the Paleo diet and ancestral lifestyles. At the time that bone broth was given to him as a "prescription," however, Dr. Akil was a vegetarian. He had renounced meat a few years earlier "for ethical, environmental, and spiritual reasons" and had become an active member of the San Francisco Vegetarian Society while in medical school there, having completed his undergraduate work at Harvard. The Ayurvedic practitioner he had sought out for his ailment -- because conventional medicine and phys

No individual can truly thrive without looking inward. The same is true for societies. - Thomas LegrandAuthor and sustainable development leader Dr. Thomas LeGrand invites us to co-create a new development paradigm focused on "being" and human flourishing instead of a materialistic "having." Through his work as a social scientist, spiritual search, and 20 years of professional experience in microfinance and sustainability for the UN and other public and private sector entities, Thomas has come to believe that sustainability and paradigmatic systems change in and across sectors require activating the latent power of inner-transformation. "The inner pathway to change is so foreign to our cultural software, that its potential is left untapped," said Thomas. "And while culture has been referred to as the fourth pillar of sustainable development [...] we understand very little about creating conditions for bringing out the best in humans." Currently, Thomas serves as the Lead Technical Advisor for the Conscious F

***Please note the special time for this call, to accommodate the time zone of our guests and other Australian participants.*** Danny Almagor and Berry Liberman are pioneers of impact investing in Australia. In 2007, the married couple founded "Small Giants", a rare 100% impact family office that invests in businesses driving positive impact for people and planet. Sounds like a dream job? But this wasn't the dream they started with. As a child, Danny wanted to be an astronaut. He enrolled in aerospace engineering as an imagined pathway to be Captain Jean Luc Picard of the next Starship Enterprise. But witnessing a devastating earthquake while travelling in India planted seeds for a different form of service. Straight out of college, he let go of a lucrative job opportunity and founded "Engineers Without Borders" in Australia, mobilizing thousands of engineers to make a difference via aid work and education in marginalized communities across the world. Berry, on the other hand, was deeply drawn to storytel

How does it feel to see yourself as an "error" in the system? When you try out over 40 jobs and you fit into none? From system error to futurist, Ali Mahlodji discovered his sense of purpose in the midst of his life's difficulties. Having zigzagged his way from refugee to technology entrepreneur and CEO to global thought leader, he helps children and at-risk persons navigate the multiple paths to a sense of purpose in an uncertain world and often amid difficult circumstances. And he does so by drawing on his own inner and outer journey. As a boy, Ali had no idea what kind of career he wanted when he grew up. He envisioned a Handbook of Life Stories that would feature people in a variety of jobs from all around the world and would be available for anyone to borrow from libraries. When he was 30, he launched that vision as a digital platform (whatchado.com) with a few friends - an opportunity made possible by enhanced technology, social media, and the internet. At the time of its launch, whatchado.com featured

"Every person - every place is a map to somewhere else." - Michael Nye Alejandro went hungry as a child and describes hunger as a "lion in your stomach that wants to be fed." Christine became a mother at 15 and expresses her hopes to "build a home across the street from my parents." Taylor reflects on her brother who lives with mental illness: "The great thing about him is he is always creative," and, "Unfair things that people shouldn't say are 'crazy' and 'are you retarded?'" What these individuals have in common is that they are all subjects of the soft lens of photographer and audio documentarian Michael Nye, who has been traveling the world for 30 years to capture unique stories, images, and voices. "Each face invites you to listen," he writes. "Stories are often found resting on the edges of surprise and revelation. Everyone knows something important and valuable, a precious wisdom born from experience." Michael's work focuses on remembering and holding on to voice and story and image and presence.

Stephen Lewis, a social catalyst of community transformation and healing, was shaped by the classroom and medicine making activities that existed within his grandparents' kitchen. Without a college education, Stephen's grandparents held degrees in the practice of hospitality, leadership formation, and business. They were wise elders, farmers, food alchemists, educators, and community healers who imparted wisdom about life, the Sacred, and responsibility to family, friends, and neighbors who visited, ate, or graced their kitchen. Today, Stephen leads and instigates change and healing in faith communities, higher education, and social entrepreneurship. He is an innovative, organizational change strategist and a leadership development specialist serving as president of the Forum for Theological Exploration (FTE). He is also creator of DO GOOD X, an accelerator and a community of support designed for underrepresented and under-resourced social entrepreneurs who are passionate about developing businesses that do

"All bodies are radiant but not all radiance is visible: stars radiate visible light; planets and donkeys and couches radiate infrared waves. (If your couch is emitting visible light GET UP IMMEDIATELY!)" -- Amy Leach Everything is visibly illuminated under Amy Leach's virtuosic pen. Whether she's writing about beavers, migratory birds, mesquite trees, or the moon, to read her words is to see things in a new light. To see in things a new light. And to find your mind being woken up, your conventions jostled, and your ribs being tickled multiple times along the way. Arguably no other writer in the world waltzes so delightfully between scientific fact, poetic digression, philosophical conjecture, and a flair for the comedic. Her debut essay collection, Things That Are, shines a spotlight on everything from the passionate yearning of pea tendrils, and the particularity of panda bear palates, to the perturbability of caterpillars, the oracular nature of mushrooms, and the dynamic between planets and their moons.

"We must remember we are exhaustible. We need renewal. Silence, quietude, time alone, naturally gives that. Then we can come back in to serve others in small ways. That we do. Then we take time for renewal. Jesus, the Buddha, Mahatma Gandhi and all the great sages recognize the importance of connection with others to serve, then step back from that into quietness, then renewal, and then serve. This is the great rhythm of life." Christopher Titmuss, a former hippie turned Theravada Buddhist monk turned social critic, is Britain's senior Dharma teacher. Having once lived on 39 British pounds per year for ten years, he has sat beneath The Tree of Enlightenment in Bodhgaya, India and, so impacted by the experience, returned to Bodhgaya for years afterward to offer retreats there. For five decades, he has been teaching Dharma around the world for free. Living primarily on donations since 1970, Christopher has noted his intention to stay true to the spirit of dana, a practice of cultivating generosity. Christophe

**Note: This is a special experiential and participatory workshop. The movements will entail sitting or working on the floor. Please wear comfortable clothing and find a quiet, carpeted or lightly padded area. What allows painful events to continue affecting us over time? How can we transform our relationship to these events, to reduce their traumatic impact? These are the questions Breema Bodywork teachers Angela Porter, MFT, and Alexandra Johnson, MD, will explore in a special experiential and participatory workshop.** Breema Bodywork is a "teaching of the heart, an expression of the unifying principle of Existence." Angela and Alexandra will lead a variety of somatic (body-based) movement practices to help nurture connection between the body and mind, open possibilities to process events in a new way, and strengthen the capacity to assimilate, heal, and live fully. "To experience unity in our life, we must be unified within ourselves. A first step in this process is to bring body and mind together to b

*** This will be an interactive workshop that is two hours, not the customary 90 minutes. See the description below for more details. To Mayuka Yamazaki, a high-level business executive who sits on the boards of three Japanese public companies, ikebana -- the ancient Japanese art of floral creations -- is not just about arranging flowers. It is about attuning to the wisdom and beauty of nature to become more whole. A master of the art form, she launched an initiative in 2017 called IKERU to bring the wisdom of ikebana into business and leadership development. Previously, Mayuka was Assistant Director of Harvard Business School Japan Research Center, where she co-authored over 30 HBS cases related to Japan, and also worked as a management consultant at McKinsey. Mayuka was an Awakin Call guest in January, 2023.** We are delighted to share that this Spring she will be offering a special Wildflower Ikebana workshop to the Awakin Calls community! The two-hour workshop will include a presentation on what ikeban

As a seven-year-old living in Shiraz, Iran, Ari Honarvar stood on the rooftop of her home with her family one night, a "simmering terror brewing in her belly." Beholding the sky, she was aware that their electricity was just shut off, warning of an imminent attack. Missiles shot across the darkness. Sirens blared throughout the streets. Then, from a neighboring rooftop, Ari bore witness to a different kind of explosion: Even if, from the sky, poison befalls all, I'm still sweetness wrapped in sweetness wrapped in sweetness... A verse from Rumi, a burst of joy! Then, joining in from another rooftop: While others sing about love, I am the Sultan of love!" "I could feel the ecstasy of these verses in my heart, radiating to every cell of my being," Ari recalled of that moment amid the Iran-Iraq War that would last eight years and kill over a million people. "In an instant, my world not only became sane, but infinite and glorious. And what bomb could ever touch that?" When Ari's family sought to secure a

Chris Hoffman, a lifelong humanitarian serving in crisis situations in dozens of countries around the world, realized after nearly two decades of intense work in the field that humanitarians often do more harm than good – largely because they themselves are “not well”. Being passionate individuals who move from crisis to crisis, country to country, in short-term stints on behalf of international organizations, humanitarians often are suffering from the trauma they already embody as well as from what they experience afresh in crisis and conflict situations – to the detriment of their clients, their families, and their own effectiveness. Realizing after 20 years in the field that he was losing touch with what was most important to him (his family and his programs’ clients), Hoffman came to see a more generalized crisis of both well-being and effectiveness in the humanitarian and international aid sector. So he stepped out and stepped back to consider how he could suppo

In July 2021, Neil Douglas-Klotz gave an inspiring Awakin Call: Breathing life into words, prayers, and scriptures. A renowned teacher, scholar, author, and musician who specializes in the native traditions and ancient Semitic languages of the Middle East, Douglas-Klotz shared with this Awakin community his personal discovery of what he calls the “Aramaic Jesus” — or Jesus before the religion of Christianity — and guided some moving meditations in Jesus’s original words and sounds. Now he returns to share this wisdom even more deeply, both as specific to Jesus’s culture and time, and to its relevance today. Douglas-Klotz’s most recent book, Revelations of the Aramaic Jesus: The Hidden Teachings on Life and Death, released in October 2021, is the culmination of his life’s work over 40 years. By examining the “heart talks” of Jesus — the Lord’s Prayer and the Beatitudes — he addresses universal themes and challenges like, How do

"Pay attention to your attention." Amishi P. Jha came to her pathbreaking work studying the neuroscience of mindfulness and attention when, as a young professor of cognitive neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania, she lost feeling in her teeth. She had been grinding them as a profound stress response to burnout from her responsibilities as a wife, mother, and tenure-track professor. Knowing from her academic work that the brain can change, she told herself at the start of summer, “before I quit my own career, let’s see if I can get my own brain to change.” She had just heard a talk about the power of meditation to change brain images from another neuroscientist. And although she had grown up in a Hindu family, born in the Indian city of Gandhi’s ashram – where meditation practice was “in the air” – she had never discussed it or practiced it (and her scientific mind had earlier dismissed some spiritual practices from her youth). But that summ

**Please note the special day for this event — the call falls on Monday, instead of our usual Saturday time. “The key to creating health,” says Dr. Mark Hyman, “is figuring out the cause of the problem and then providing the right conditions for the body and soul to thrive. It isn’t taking another medication.” Whether he’s in a gray suit or hospital scrubs, Mark Hyman, MD, is often carrying in his pockets a pack of walnuts, coconut butter, turkey jerky, or some other nutrient-dense snack. A family physician, author, and public figure, Hyman has been transforming the landscape of Western medicine for the past 30 years. His latest book, Young Forever: The Secrets to Living Your Longest, Healthiest Life, aims to provide a prescription for healthy longevity, challenging the public to go beyond the status quo of the average lifespan riddled with “diseases of aging.” At 63, Hyman says he feels better than he did when he was half his age; by scientific me

David Rothenberg is a writer, philosopher, ecologist, and musician, speaking out for nature in all aspects of his diverse work. He investigates the musicality of animals and the role of nature in philosophy, with a particular interest in understanding other species by making music with them. As a professor of philosophy and music at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, he “teaches engineers nonquantifiable things.” He is also an acclaimed composer and jazz clarinetist known for his integration of world music with improvisation and electronics. Originally intending to be a scientist, music pulled Rothenberg away during his high school years – ultimately becoming the modality through which he would explore nature and deep ecology. Looking back at those high school years of the 1970s, Rothenberg told The New York Times, "I was influenced by saxophonist Paul Winter's Common Ground album, which had his own compositions with whale and bird sounds mixed in

*** Please note the special day for this event -- the call falls on Sunday, instead of our usual Saturday time.  When Zachary Shore was a sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania, he called his parents to tell them he was dropping out. Legally blind by age 16, his vision had continued to deteriorate, and he found himself socially isolated, fearful, and debilitated by eye strain. After an encounter on campus with a fellow blind student who had just returned from a solo excursion with seeming ease, Zach had a moment of awakening: “My problem wasn’t my blindness. It was my lack of skills and confidence.” He would indeed come to find a remarkable set of skills and confidence — eventually earning a doctorate from Oxford University, becoming a distinguished scholar of international conflict and an author of six books, and traveling to more than 30 countries, many of them as solo journeys. Zach credits his strong sense of self to the nurturance of his parents. But his abil

We are living with a global epidemic of injustice, but we've been choosing to ignore it.  More than 25 years ago, Vivek Maru told his grandmother that he wanted to go to law school. “Grandma didn't pause,” he recounted. “She said to me, ‘Lawyer is liar.’” Though he went on to fulfill that desire, Vivek soon realized that his grandmother wasn’t entirely wrong. Vivek came to see that “something about law and lawyers has gone wrong.” Law is “supposed to be the language we use to translate our dreams about justice into living institutions that hold us together” – to honor the dignity of everyone, strong or weak. But as he told an audience on the TEDGlobal stage in 2017, lawyers are not only expensive and out of reach for most – worse, “our profession has shrouded law in a cloak of complexity. Law is like riot gear on a police officer. It's intimidating and impenetrable, an

***Please note the special time for this event, to accommodate the time zone of our guest and other Asia-based participants. “In order to let flowers live, we need to calm ourselves and empty our mind — otherwise, we cannot listen to what flowers tell us.”  To Mayuka Yamazaki, a high-level business executive, ikebana — the ancient Japanese art of floral creations — is not just about arranging flowers. It is about attuning to the wisdom and beauty of nature and enriching our experience of being human. As a master of the art, she explains that ikebana is a word derived from the verb ikeru (to bring alive) and hana (flowers), or combined, “letting flowers live.” For over 20 years, Mayuka has been letting flowers live, and most recently, she has brought this practice to help restore wholeness to schools, international organizations, communities, and most notably, corporations. As a young child in Japan, Mayuka was drawn to “finding beauty in the small chang

When he was ten years old, Balakrishnan Raghavan was moved to tears listening to a centuries-old Tamil hymn about Lord Shiva, sung by musician M S Subbulakshmi.  “I was wailing. Subbulakshmi’s voice soaring high and low, calling out to that divine-beloved, the voice of the poet who lived hundreds of years before us, the fierceness of their devotion, the ultimate surrender of the devotee, the madness of love, the pathos of separation, and the anticipation of union; all of this is etched in my memory,” he recalls. From that experience, Indian classical music became a fount of his practice. Raghavan is a lifelong student of the arts, whose outlook on life and living is steeped “at the intersection of kindness, spirituality, sensuality, music, flow, and poetry.” The poems of the saints from the spiritual traditions of India have shaped “how I engage with, make sense of and access the world around me.” He strongly believes in the power of the collective kindness of h