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Damien Echols: We Are Unconscious Angels
Damien Echols is an author and artist who teaches classes on magick around the country. The story of his wrongful murder conviction was documented in the films Paradise Lost and West of Memphis. With Sounds True, Damien has published the book High Magick and the complementary audio program A Course in High Magick. In this podcast, Sounds True founder Tami Simon speaks with Damien about his forthcoming book, Angels and Archangels,which offers us a practical set of tools for working with these timeless forces for divine wisdom and healing power.
Steven Hayes PhD: Self-Acceptance and Perspective-Taki...
Steven Hayes is a professor, the chair of the Department of Psychology at the University of Nevada, and the author of more than 35 books and 500 scientific articles. The cofounder of the acclaimed Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (known as ACT), Steven is a contributor to the Sounds True book The Self Acceptance Project: How to Be Kind and Compassionate Toward Yourself in Any Situation and the author of the Sounds True audio program Acceptance and Commitment Theory. In this episode of Insights of the Edge—which previously aired as part of an interview series on self-acceptance—Tami Simon and Steven discuss his experiences living with a panic disorder at a young age, and how his own bouts with anxiety shaped his clinical studies. They talk about the practice of perspective-taking and how it can be a powerful bulwark against self-recrimination. Finally, Steven offers his perspective on spirituality and how that perspective informs the core tenets of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.
Heidi Smith: Bringing People to the Flowers
Heidi Smith is a psychosomatic therapist, flower essence practitioner, and registered herbalist. She is the author of The Bloom Book: A Flower Essence Guide to Cosmic Balance, a comprehensive guide for working with flower essences in order to bring about healing, transformation, and awakening, at both a personal and collective level. Heidi is Tami Simon’s guest in “Bringing People to the Flowers,” a podcast exploring humanity’s call to enter into a deeper relationship with flowers. Heidi and Tami also discuss flower essences as a “verbal and vibrational” medicine, the power of intention, how to begin working with flower essences yourself, and much more.
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How Trees Boost Your Immune System
Qing Li, the medical professor in Tokyo, put together a list of basic rules to create the ideal interaction between forest trees and the human immune system. Professor Li is one of the leading scientists in the area of forest medicine. He advises:
- Remain in a woodland for at least two hours, while walking approximately 1.5 miles (2.5 km). If you have four hours to spend there, hike about 2.5 miles (4km). In order to boost your natural killer cells and anti-cancer proteins over a longer period of time as well, it is recommendable to spend three days in a row in a forest.
- Make a walking/hiking plan that suits your physical condition. Make sure you don’t get tired during your time in the woods.
- If you feel tired, take a break whenever you want and as long as you want. Look for a place in the forest where you feel comfortable.
- If you’re thirsty, try to drink water or tea.
- Pick a place in the forest that you spontaneously like and invites you to stay. Stay there for a while, sitting and reading, for example, or meditating, whatever you want, but enjoying the gorgeous ambiance and relaxing.
- To lastingly maintain the number and activity of your immune system’s natural killer cells and anti-cancer proteins, Qing Li recommends staying in a forest region two or three days per month and advises spending about four hours each day in the woods.
- In addition to his advice, I’d like to add the following tips that I consider very helpful:
- The contents of the anti-cancer terpenes in the forest air change over the seasons. The highest concentration is in summer and the lowest in winter. They increase rapidly in April and May, and in June and August, reach their peak. During these months, there are the most terpenes in the woods for your immune system to absorb.
- Furthermore, you can find the highest concentration of terpenes in the middle of the forest, since tree population is the densest there. The tree leaves and needles form an especially rich source. Additionally, the dense canopy prevents these gaseous substances from escaping the forest. Therefore, it is advisable to go further into the woods and not just spend time on the edges.
- When the air is moist, for example after rain or during fog, a particularly large amount of healthy terpenes is swirling around the forest air. This means we weren’t going crazy when we felt especially good during a walk in the woods after rain showers.
- By the way, anti-cancer terpenes are the densest in and near the ground, where we humans are normally present. Higher up, some of them are destroyed by the sun’s UV light that manages to get through the canopy here and there. Thus, it appears as if the distribution of this healthy substance was actually tailored to our body size.
Important: Don’t forget that forest medicine is especially helpful when it comes to preventing disease. However, if you are already sick, or feel sick, please go straight to your doctor. Forest medicine is under no circumstances a replacement for conventional medical check-ups.
Looking for more great reads?
Excerpted from The Biophilia Effect by Clemens G. Arvay.
Clemens G. Arvay, MSC, is a biologist and nonfiction writer who studied landscape ecology and applied plant science in Vienna and Graz. He centers his work on the relationship between man and nature, focusing on the health-promoting e?ects of contact with plants, animals, and landscapes. His most recent book is The Healing Code of Nature (Random House Germany, 2016). He lives in Austria. For more, visit arvay.info.
The Courage to be Vulnerable
Dr. Brené Brown is a research professor at the University of Houston’s graduate college of social work who has spent the past decade studying vulnerability, courage, authenticity, and shame. Brené is the author of the number-one New York Times bestseller Daring Greatly, and with Sounds True she has created the audio learning course The Power of Vulnerability: Teachings on Authenticity, Connection, and Courage. In this episode, Tami Simon speaks with Brené about the cultural myth that equates vulnerability with weakness instead of recognizing it as the greatest measure of our courage. They also examine Brené’s research into the qualities that allow someone to live in a wholehearted way. (66 minutes)
Shinzen Young: The Science of Enlightenment, Part 2
Shinzen Young is a renowned mindfulness teacher known for his live gatherings, where he uses a scientific, “algorithmic” approach to explain the many aspects of meditation. With Sounds True, he has published the decades-in-the-making book The Science of Enlightenment: How Meditation Works. In the second half of an extensive interview on Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon and Shinzen talk about how to bring equanimity to both pleasurable and painful sensory experiences and how that has a purifying effect on consciousness. In order to ground this experience, Shinzen leads Tami and the audience on a guided practice to help give a “taste of purification.” Finally, Shinzen shares a quick, powerful technique for starting on the path to enlightenment and something intensely personal—his happiest thought. (75 minutes)