(((☼~LIVING HERO~☼)))

Interview with Terry Riley

“Death costs a fortune, but life is free,” writes Living Hero Terry Riley, in a lyric for his composition Missy Gono. Riley is a true original, recognized worldwide for first bringing minimalist musical composition into circulation in 1964 with his now classic In C and thereby influencing a new generation of avant garde composers and acid rock bands. Dedicated to a life of deep listening, composition, and inspired performance, Terry joins us to share his insights into art, a healing spirit and life.
We talked about:
The inner experience of originality ● Terry’s Time Lag Accumulator ● Dipping into a sound current ● Music and altered states ● Creativity, discipline, spirit and nature ● Psychedelics and spiritual practice ● Our world and our path to healing ● Urban sound and sensitivity ● Raising kids in a creative household ● Terry's ongoing relationship with his works ● His creative influences ● Imagination as an aspect of intelligence ● Music as philosophy and a model of the world ● The story of Missy Gono ● 6500 pipes in the wee hours at Disney Hall
Enjoy the show! (The interview is about 40 minutes.)
Listen at your convenience!
Click through to buy some of Terry's CDs on Amazon right from this site in the sidebar to the left.
Visit Terry's website at terryriley.net

Interview with Suzi Gablik

She studied with Robert Motherwell, lived with the Magritte family, and hung out with Jasper Johns. In 1966, Suzi Gablik had a one-woman show of her collage paintings exhibited and catalogued in New York. She later brought a prodigious and caring voice to art criticism, as a respected reviewer of art in London for Art in America, and authored her engaging trilogy of scholarly writings on art and culture Has Modernism Failed?, The Reenchantment of Art, and Progress in Art. She also wrote Magritte, Conversations Before the End of Time, and her memoir Living the Magical Life. Currently, Suzi Gablik hosts a blog featuring her latest cultural and political essays at virgilspeaks.blogspot.com.
We talked about:
Is the human species fit to survive? ● The downside of technology ● The divided United States ● Obama's moral authority ● A burning house, a bus careening off a cliff ● 9/11 as political instigation ● The unbearable places we must go to heal ● Negative capability and extreme sports ● Suzi's magical life of receptivity ● The patriarchy and the black madonna ● The karmic thread of who you are ● How to face the darkness without despair ● Preciousness and unviability ● The artist as role model ● The paradigm of dead objects and the egocentric art world or an alternative: an aesthetic response to the cries of the world ● An alligator named Virgil
Visit: virgilspeaks.com
Enjoy the show! (The interview is about 55 minutes.)
Listen at your convenience!
Click through to buy some of Suzi's books on Amazon right from this site in the sidebar to the left.

Interview with Derrick Jensen

"We need to bring down civilization, because it's killing the planet," says our guest, author and activist Derrick Jensen.
Formerly a college professor and a commercial beekeeper, Jensen's prolific career as an author has given us A Language Older Than Words, The Culture of Make Believe, Endgame, Listening to the Land, Strangely Like War and Walking on Water. He also co-authored Railroads & Clearcuts and Welcome to the Machine: Science, Surveillance, and the Culture of Control. He has written for The New York Times magazine, The Sun, Audubon, and many other publications.
In 2008 Derrick Jensen was named one of Utne Reader's "50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World."
We talked about:
Preparation for truth-telling ● Above ground and below ground activism ● The only language destroyers understand ● The essence of Derrick's philosophy and passion ● Normalizing insane behavior ● Reform or revolution? ● What do we need to do? ● Living in the culture of make-believe ● The relationship between eroticism and violence ● Collapse and the shape of things to come ● Hypocrisy in the environmental movement ● Owning prejudices and shifting alliances ● Do we need to harden our hearts or to open them? ● Discernment, compassion, compliance and fierce love
Visit: derrickjensen.org
Enjoy the show! (The interview is about 52 minutes.)
Listen at your convenience!
Click through to buy some of Derrick's books on Amazon right from this site in the sidebar to the left.
This podcast episode contains explicit language.

Interview with John Taylor Gatto

State-run schools don't educate; they inculcate. They dumb people down! John Taylor Gatto gives us a stunning synopsis of his tireless scholarship and long-term experience as an award-winning guerilla educator in New York City public schools.
John Taylor Gatto resigned from school-teaching in the op-ed pages of The Wall Street Journal, the year he was named New York State Teacher of the Year. Since then, he has traveled three million miles lecturing on why we should abandon and subvert public schools, which deliberately ruin minds and mold lives of obedience to the system. Schools thwart imagination, self-reliance, and individuality and make good, dependent slaves of the industrial-consumer state.
Gatto is author of Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling; The Underground History of American Education and, most recently, Weapons of Mass Instruction.
We talked about:
The only thing anyone can teach ● The official outlook on human nature ● The chilling Western philosophical movements behind forced schooling ● Compulsory schooling and the University of Berlin ● Sacrificing justice and quality of life for predictable stability ● School, economics, and the social classes ● Overproduction and hyperdemocracy ● Power and the methods of power ● The crime of removing classics from the curricula ● How we will transform ● Superstar entrepreneurs who dropped out of college ● Liberty and the tyranny of measured time
Visit: johntaylorgatto.com
Enjoy the show! (The interview is about 51 minutes.)
Listen at your convenience!
Click through to buy John's book son Amazon right from this site in the sidebar to the left.

Interview with Stella Resnick

Sex and pleasure expert, Stella Resnick, PhD joins us to encourage, inform and delight you! Dr. Resnick is author of The Pleasure Zone: How We Resist Good Feelings and How to Let Go and Be Happy.
She is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Beverly Hills, CA and currently serves on the faculty of the Santa Barbara Graduate Institute. Formerly President of the Western Region of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality, Dr. Resnick is a Diplomate of the American Board of Sexology and an AASECT Certified Sex Therapist, CE Provider, and Clinical Supervisor, Stella has appeared many times on TV including the Oprah, Leeza, and Montel Williams shows, CNN Live, The O’Reilly Factor, KCBS’ Morning News, and UPN’s Evening News. Her seminar on The Pleasure Zone is featured in the PBS television series Body & Soul in the segment "Ode to Joy".
Stella is frequently quoted in popular magazines; such as, Reader’s Digest, Women’s World, Vogue, Cosmopolitan, Playboy, Self, Redbook, McCall’s, Men’s Fitness, Men’s Health, Glamour, Mademoiselle, Family Circle, Parenting, and the Utne Reader. She has written numerous professional papers, and authored cover stories for Self, New Age, and Psychology Today magazines.

We talked about:
Demonizing pleasure in a history of domination ● Fear of peace, fulfillment and pleasure programmed in our nervous systems ● The 8 Core Pleasures and how we resist them ● Pleasure and the stages of human and societal development ● Infant needs and our tenacious early experiences ● Societal health and childhood sexuality ● How we learn to be human ● Two kinds of discipline and your pleasure ● Relearning how to be sexual ● Of what is sexuality an expression? ● Bridging the gap between heart and libido in adult partnerships ● A role for conscious breathing in your life
Visit: drstellaresnick.com
Enjoy the show! (The interview is about 52 minutes.)
Listen at your convenience!
Click through to buy Stella's book on Amazon right from this site in the sidebar to the left.

Interview with Jonah Lehrer

Listen in on an illuminating conversation with science writer and author Jonah Lehrer as he shares insights on the work of eight historic creative geniuses and how contemporary neuroscience can lead us to more conscious and fulfilling lives. Lehrer is author of Proust Was a Neuroscientist and How We Decide and a frequent contributor to national magazines featuring his articles on what we're learning about the brain and how our minds work. He also hosts the highly regarded blog The Frontal Cortex.
We talked about:
Insight, intuition and introspection: roads to discovery ● Self Comes to Mind: collaborative work among artists and scientists ● Some common ground among cutting-edge creative artists ● Truth in fiction ● Metacognition and its pay-offs ● Getting better at the marshmallow task ● Making better decisions ● Asking the right questions of contemporary neuroscience ● The right side of our kindergarten report card ● Torturous moral dilemmas ● How to kill a rat with pleasure ● Some of Jonah's goals as an author
Visit: jonahlehrer.com and The Frontal Cortex
Enjoy the show! (The interview is about 46 minutes.)
Listen at your convenience!
Click through to buy Jonah's books on Amazon right from this site in the sidebar to the left.

Interview with Jim Merkel

Radical Simplicity! The Living Hero program presents an interview with author, educator, and activist Jim Merkel.
Jim began as a military engineer. Just after the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989, Jim quit his job and took immediate personal responsibility for his own part in global problems. This meant taking radical actions to scale back consumption and deeply reconsider life in all its dimensions. He subsequently authored Radical Simplicity: Small Footprints on a Finite Earth. Merkel received an Earthwatch Gaia Fellowship to research sustainable living in Kerala, India and in regions of the Himalayas.
He founded the Global Living Project and was hired by Dartmouth College to serve as its first Sustainability Director.
Jim lives the life of radical simplicity—cycling hundreds of miles to give lectures and workshops at colleges , universities, and community centers. He is a homesteader, growing and preserving his own food, and living on about $5,000 a year. Jim has given hundreds of hours of his time as a volunteer to share his wealth of knowledge on the new good life of sustainable living.

We talked about:
• the present pulse of the sustainability movement
• the real root of simplicity
• engaging the heart
• Jim's childhood and influences
• the real challenge of society: the common good
• how radical simplicity crosses party lines
• Jim's revolutionary shift after Exxon-Valdez
• what it means to exceed the carrying capacity of the Earth
• what is an ecological footprint
• Jim's view of the economic crisis
• living on $5000 a year in America
• the roots of violence and fear
• population control, women, and wisdom
• falling in love with the Earth

Enjoy the show! (The program is around 50 minutes)
Listen at your convenience!

Interview with Allan Luks

The healing power of doing good! The Living Hero program is honored to present an interview with author, lawyer, non-profit executive and altruistic leader, Allan Luks.
Allan’s steadfast commitment to improving the lives of disadvantaged youth in New York City, and his extraordinary contributions to the success of Big Brothers and Big Sisters of NYC, established the agency as one of the country's most prominent mentoring organizations. Mr. Luks has received numerous awards, including Crain's New York Business magazine's "Public Service Leader of the Year," and the national Lewis Hine award.
Allan Luks has developed programs to meet the special needs of NYC youth, including those affected by 9/11, teen mothers, youth with disabilities, and youth with siblings and/or parents in prison. He has successfully lobbied the New York State Legislature to pass "The Safe Mentoring Act." Allan also created the BBBS Center for Training and Professional Development, in partnership with Fordham University's Graduate School of Social Service, to bring the successful BBBS of NYC model to other city mentoring agencies.
Mr. Luks authored The Healing Power of Doing Good, which outlines the emotional health benefits derived by volunteers. He coined the term helper's high," used everywhere now in popular literature on volunteering. Allan continues to serve as a senior adviser to BBBS.
We talked about:
• alcohol and drug abuse and the necessary 12th step in AA
• wherein lies Doing Good's power to heal?
• helping and its effects on stress
• what is the underlying tension in the human, which needs relaxation?
• the real challenge of society: the common good
• finding the right kind of helping for you
• the basic truth underlying our lives
• the best ways to encourage helping
• the creative process and getting your work done
• the conception of Since I Became a Terrorist Target
• what's next?

Enjoy the show! (The program is 40 minutes)
Listen at your convenience!

Interview with Dr. Lauri Grossman

Integrative medicine as a creative force! The Living Hero program is delighted to present an interview with holistic health advocate, homeopathic practitioner, and healer, Dr. Lauri Grossman. Originally trained as a chiropractor, Dr. Grossman is an expert in integrative health care, specializing in homeopathic medicine.
She is a graduate of Cornell University, the New England School of Homeopathy and the prestigious Hahnemann College of Homeopathy in Berkeley, California, and is well-known and respected as a practitioner and educator. She has taught at Sloan Kettering-Memorial Hospital, the Hospital for Special Surgery and Columbia Presbyterian Hospital and at New York Medical College.
Lauri Grossman developed the curriculum in homeopathy and has taught in the holistic departments of the graduate schools at New York University, the College of New Rochelle and the New York Chiropractic College.
She will serve as Chair of the Department of Medicine and Humanistic Studies at the American Medical College of Homeopathy, expected to open in Arizona in 2009.
Her film, Natures, produced with the assistance of the National Geographic Film Archives, highlights the philosophy of homeopathy and its connection with the order found in nature.
Visit her website at homeopathycafe.com for more information.
We talked about:
• Lauri's life-defining emergency introduction to homeopathy
• how homeopathy differs from other natural therapies
• how a homeopath takes a case, makes a diagnosis and treats illness
• how homeopathy heals
• the scientific method and energy medicine
• the politics and history of homeopathy in America
• homeopathy on the rise
• the disorders for which homeopathy is most effective
• homeopathy, creativity and sensitivity

Enjoy the show! (The program is 54 minutes)
Listen at your convenience!

Interview with Carolyn Raffensperger

The Living Hero Podcast proudly presents an interview with environmental lawyer and public health advocate, Carolyn Raffensperger. Carolyn is executive director of the Science and Environmental Health Network, where she has worked since 1994.
In 1982, Ms. Raffensperger left a career as an archaeologist in the desert Southwest to join the environmental movement. She first worked for the Sierra Club where she addressed an array of environmental issues, including forest management, river protection, pesticide pollutants, and the disposal of radioactive waste. As an environmental lawyer she specializes in the fundamental changes in law and policy necessary for the protection and restoration of public health and the environment.
We talked about:
• faulty assumptions underlying environmental decision making
• the precautionary principle--what is it?
• a new report on health, aging and the environment
• reversing the burden of proof on the safety of industrial chemicals
• corporate structure and your inalienable right to a clean and healthy environment
• changing laws: rights of future generations and the commonwealth
• reform: the biggest obstacles and the greatest opportunities
• the essential nature of the arts and how they function in the process of change
• genetically altered seeds, the sex of plants, and the farmer-scientist breeding project
• “turning the Titanic,” ecological medicine and the economics of aging
Carolyn is co-editor of Precautionary Tools for Reshaping Environmental Policy published by M.I.T. Press (2006) and Protecting Public Health and the Environment: Implementing the Precautionary Principle, published by Island Press (1999). Together, these volumes provide the most comprehensive exploration to date of the history, theory, and implementation of the precautionary principle.
Carolyn Raffensperger is responsible for coining the term "ecological medicine" to encompass the broad notions that both health and healing are entwined with the natural world. She has served on editorial review boards for several environmental and sustainable agriculture journals, and on USEPA and National Research Council committees. Her bimonthly column for the Environmental Law Institute's journal Environmental Forum appeared from 1999 until 2008.
Our guest has also been featured in Gourmet magazine, the Utne Reader, Yes! Magazine, the Sun, Whole Earth, and Scientific American. Along with leading workshops and lecturing frequently on the Precautionary Principle, Carolyn is at the forefront of developing new models of government, which will depend on precaution and ecological integrity, and guardianship for future generations.
For more information, visit the websites of The Science and Environmental Health Network and of Guardians of the Future .
Enjoy the show! (The program is 45 minutes)
Listen at your convenience!