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Staying Awake – with Mark Nepo

Most of us can remember a time when we felt completely awake—fully present, deeply engaged, our heart and mind wide open. We also know those periods of sleepiness when our purpose is unclear, we lose our way in relationship, and life’s challenges seem more than we can bear. In Staying Awake: The Ordinary ArtMark Nepo invites us to inhabit our truest selves “in all ways in all directions,” as we find our own voices in the One Conversation in which each of our lives is a story waiting to be told.

With a poet’s keen view of the vast and often hidden territory of the inner life, Mark Nepo talks directly about what a gift it is to be here and about the resources that the mysteries of being and experience reveal. Informed by his journey through cancer, he explores the lessons brought to us by the press of love and suffering. For each of us is born awake and yet it takes courage to stay awake, to remember that all we encounter is real.

Sharing his own rich poetry along with the inspired writing of luminaries across generations, Nepo guides us in the central practice of staying awake: to be who we are, no matter what we face, and to enter our days and moments to the fullest. We do this, he teaches, by holding nothing back—by bringing all of who we are to every situation, enlivening our connection with everything life has to offer. Using teaching stories and a series of exercises and reflections, Nepo invites us to listen to our own stories and to find our own wisdom.

Enjoy this short video from Mark on staying awake.

The Power of Emotional Connection

Tami Simon speaks with Raphael Cushnir, a leading voice on emotional connection and present moment awareness. He is a faculty member of the Esalen Institute, the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health, and the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies. His books include Setting Your Heart on Fire, and with Sounds True he has created an audio based on his book The One Thing Holding You Back. In this episode, Tami speaks with Raphael about the nature of emotional connection, what he calls “emotional surfing,” and a way that two people can intimately collaborate through a method that he calls communing. Raphael also shares a practice to deepen the emotional connection process. (69 minutes)

Mark Nepo: Becoming the Poem

Tami Simon speaks with Mark Nepo, a New York Times #1 bestselling author and a cancer survivor who has taught in the fields of poetry and spirituality for over 35 years. Mark has created several audio programs with Sounds True, plus a new interactive video learning course called A Pilgrimage of the Heart: Discovering Your Authentic Voice and Inner Courage, which launches March 19th. Mark will present at Sounds True’s Wake Up Festival this August, including a pre-festival workshop on writing and spiritual growth. In this interview, Mark speaks about how to relate helpfully to our pain, sincerity as a specific type of intelligence, the role of pilgrimage, and the spiritual path of the artist. (64 minutes)

HeatherAsh Amara: Becoming an Artist of the Spirit

HeatherAsh Amara is the founder of Toci—the Toltec Center of Creative Intent—which is an organization devoted to the development of an authentic and aware global community through a blend of Toltec wisdom, European shamanism, Buddhism, and Native American ceremony. With Sounds True, she has created The Warrior Goddess Online Training: Becoming the Woman You Are Meant to Be, an eight-week training filled with insights, meditations, and question-and-answer sessions for embracing one’s divine womanhood. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon and HeatherAsh discuss the concept of “stalking oneself” and how to explore the challenge of everyday moments. They also speak on the necessity of becoming intimate with oneself no matter the discomfort that may cause. Finally, HeatherAsh talks about her apprenticeship with don Miguel Ruiz and her days as a firewalking instructor—as well as how each helped her to embrace every aspect of her being.
(67 minutes)

Albert Flynn DeSilver: Awakening Through Writing: The ...

Albert Flynn DeSilver is an author, poet, and leader of writing workshops held worldwide. In addition to work appearing in dozens of literary journals, he has published the books Beamish Boy, Letters to Easy Street, and Walking Tooth and Cloud. With Sounds True, Albert has released the new book Writing as a Path to Awakening: A Year to Becoming an Excellent Writer and Living an Awakened Life. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon speaks with Albert about the difference between writing as a creative endeavor and writing as a gateway to spiritual inquiry. They talk about the exploration of difficult subjects such as failure and death through writing, and how those deep inquiries can help open us to the present moment. Finally, Albert comments on the cultivation of discipline and how the concept of time is one that we create for ourselves. (57 minutes)

Stefani Goerlich: Understanding Kink and Advocating fo...

You’re kinky but your partner is vanilla. Or maybe it’s the other way around. Perhaps you’ve always known; perhaps you just found out. So how do you talk about it? And what happens next? 

In this podcast, Tami Simon speaks with “edge expert,” certified sex therapist, and master social worker Dr. Stefani Goerlich about her new book, With Sprinkles on Top: Everything Vanilla People and Their Kinky Partners Need to Know to Communicate, Explore, and Connect. Give a listen to this much-needed discussion about destigmatizing kink and expanding our definition of a healthy relationship, as Tami and Stefani discuss: reassessing our sexual attitudes; how kinky became taboo; bringing kink into the “cultural redemption arc”; the misconceptions about trauma and kink; the concept of authority exchange; surrender and relaxation; kink as a relational, not a sexual, behavior; moving from secrecy to shared knowledge; decorating and enhancing one’s “core vanilla-ness”; discovering your fantasies; the nature of fetishes; understanding your erotic map; and more.

Note: This episode originally aired on Sounds True One, where these special episodes of Insights at the Edge are available to watch live on video and with exclusive access to Q&As with our guests. Learn more at join.soundstrue.com

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