Gandhi once said, “The most violent weapon on Earth is the table fork.” Dr. Will Tuttle asks us to consider one of the primary driving forces behind a whole network of problems we face as human beings is the mentality of violence, exploitation, exclusion and privilege that is required for us to eat animal foods. Will Tuttle, Ph.D., is a professional pianist, composer, and teacher who holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. For more than two decades he has presented at progressive churches, vegetarian and human potential conferences, and intentional communities throughout the United States. He trained in Korea as a Zen Buddhist Monk and has worked extensively in Tai Chi, Yoga, and meditation. He also works with his artist wife Madeleine Tuttle who contributes to his presentations, books, and albums. He is the author of many books including: Your Inner Islands: The Keys to Intuitive Living (Will Tuttle - revised 2017), The World Peace Diet: Eating for Spiritual Health and Social Harmony (Lantern Books 2005), He also has many original piano albums including: Ascension: A Journey Beyond and Islands of Light.

Interview Date: 1/12/2020 Tags: Will Tuttle, vegan, veganism, vegetarian, vegetarianism, plant based eating, Stephen Gaskin, The Farm, grass fed meat, free-range chickens, animal agriculture, ahimsa, non-harmfulness, compassion, Donald Gilbert, intuition, Buddhist five precepts, Buddhist four immeasurable, microbiome, complex carbohydrates, sacred feminine, Health & Healing, Meditation, Spirituality, Social/Change/Politics, Peace/Nonviolence

Next to birth, death is one of our most profound experiences. Dying is not without its pain but it can be meaningful and we can decide to be more aware and more conscious in how we orient ourselves toward the inevitable end of our lives. Dr. Miller advises us to be clear on our “goals of care” and to “participate.”

B.J. Miller is a hospice and palliative medicine physician who has worked in many settings, inpatient, outpatient, hospice facility and home. He now sees patients and families at U.C.S.F. Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center. Miller speaks all over the country and beyond on the theme of living well in the face of death. He’s also the founder of the Center for Dying and Living. BJ Miller is co-author, with Shoshana Berger, of A Beginners Guide to the End: Practical Advice for Living Life and Facing Death (Simon & Schuster 2019)

Interview Date:12/3/2019 Tags: BJ Miller, hospice, medical directives, advance directives, advance care planning, silver tsunami, Health care systems, chronic pain, suffering, acute suffering, acute pain, resistance, palliative care, hospice, pain management, death certificates, prognosis, Steve Scheier, prognosis declaration, Death & Dying, Personal Transformation

Mackey writes both prose and poetry and has published many novels and books of poetry. She reveals her writing and creative process and how each kinds of writing requires a different approach and describes her process of “creative trance” that helps her to move into her own unconscious. She takes us from Western Kentucky to the Brazilian Rainforest.

Mary Mackey is a novelist, screenwriter, and poet. She’s Professor Emeritus of English and former Writer-in-Residence at California State University, Sacramento. During her twenties, she lived in the rain forests of Costa Rica. Recently, she’s been traveling to Brazil incorporating her experiences in the tropical rainforests into her fiction and poetry. She's the author of The Year the Horses Came (HarperSanFrancisco 1993), The Horses at the Gate (Amazon Digital Services 2011), The Fires of Spring (Amazon Digital Services 2011), The Village of Bones: Sabalah’s Tale (Earthsong Series) (Create Space Independent Publishing 2016) and Immersion (iUniverse 2013)

Interview Date: 11/27/2019 Tags: Mary Mackey, poetry, Eric Hoffer Book Award, Harvard, creative trance, automatic writing, Amapa, Richard Evans Schultes, ethnobotany, the Amazon, Jaguars, Western Kentucky, the Brazilian rain forest poems, writer’s block, publishing, Art & Creativity, Women’s Studies, writing