The New Dimensions Café

Jane Hirshfield is an award-winning poet, essayist and translator. She's the author of ten books of poetry and two collections of essays. She has edited and co-translated four books presenting the work of world poets from the past. Her books have received the Poetry Center Book Award, the California Book Award, and the Donald Hall-Jane Kenyon Prize in American Poetry. Her poems appear in a wide ra...

Rizwan Virk (known as Riz) is a successful entrepreneur, video game pioneer, venture capitalist, and founder of the start-up accelerator Play Labs @ MIT. His interest and expertise ranges from video games, the metaverse, simulation theory, meditation, consciousness, and the intersection of science, science fiction, religion, and philosophy. He’s a graduate of MIT and Stanford and is currently a fa...

Vasavi Kumar a first generation Indian American and is a life coach and licensed therapist who holds degrees in social work and special education from Hofstra and Columbia Universities.. She runs the Say It out Loud Safe Haven community for coaches, creatives, and entrepreneurs. She is the author of Say It out Loud: Using the Power of Your Voice to Listen to Your Deepest Thoughts and Courageously...

Margaret Renkl is a contributing opinion writer for The New  York Times , where her essays appear weekly. She has been recognized with numerous prestigious awards for her writing. She is the founding editor of  Chapter 16 , a daily literary publication of Humanities Tennessee. A graduate of Auburn University and the University of South Carolina, she now lives in Nashville. She...

Mark Nepo is a poet and philosopher and a most eloquent spiritual teacher. In 2015, he was given a Life-Achievement Award by AgeNation and in 2016 was named by Watkins: Mind Body Spirit as one of the Most Spiritually Influential Living People. He was part of Oprah Winfrey’s The Life You Want Tour in 2014 and has appeared several times with Oprah on her Super Soul Sunday program on OWN TV. As a can...

Daniel Pinchbeck has been described as a radical futurist. He’s a philosopher and keen cultural observer. He was featured in the 2010 documentary, 2012: Time for Change and host of the talk show, MindShift , on Gaiam TV. He directed the think tank Center for Planetary Culture. His essays and articles have appeared in a vast range of publications, including the New York Times, Esq., Rolling Stone ,...

Cathy Wild is a creativity expert and has developed creative processes for both private and corporate clients. She’s a pioneer in somatic counseling, the expressive arts, and the field of life coaching. She has founded Body-Centered Healing, an experiential process that supports clients on a personal journey of transformation. Her private practice is located in Northern California. She is the auth...

Judith Orloff, M.D. is assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at U.C.L.A., and has been a presenter at medical schools, hospitals, universities, and the American Psychiatric Association. For more than two decades she has helped patients achieve physical and emotional healing through the synthesis of traditional medicine with intuition, energy, and spirituality. She is the author of: The Ecstas...

Larry Brilliant, M.D. is a pioneering physician, visionary technologist, and global philanthropist. He was the first executive director of Google.org, and he currently serves as chair of the Skoll Global Threats Fund. He cofounded the Seva Foundation, whose programs and partners have restored sight to more than four million blind people in dozens of counties. He cofounded one of the first digital...

William Keepin, Ph. D. is a mathematical physicist, environmental scientist, and has been a practitioner on the contemplative path of divine love for over 35 years. He cofounded the Satyana Institute, as well as the Gender Reconciliation International project with his wife, Rev. Cynthia Brix. The Satyana Institute is a nonprofit service and training organization based near Seattle Washington. Toge...

Hank Wesselman, Ph. D. (1941-2021) is a respected paleoanthropologist who has worked with noted anthropologists around the world including in Ethiopia investigating the mystery of human origins in the Great Rift Valley. Besides his training and scientific work, he is a shamanic student, practitioner, and teacher, now in the 30th year of his apprenticeship. He lived with his wife Jill in Hawaii. In...

Karen Casey Ph. D. received her doctorate in philosophy with an emphasis on Native American studies. She’s an accomplished author with over two dozen books and is the 2007 winner of the Johnson Institute American Honors Recovery Award for her contribution to the field of recovery. Karen’s focus as a writer and spiritual teacher is to strengthen our connection to a Higher Power, which is the invisi...

Rupert Spira is a pre-eminent non-dual teacher. At an early age he was deeply interested in the nature of reality. At 17 he learned to meditate and began a 20-year period of study and practice in the classical Advaita Vedanta tradition. During this time he immersed himself in the teachings of P.O. Ouspensky, Krishnamurti, Rumi, Ramana Maharshi, and others until he met his teacher, Francis Lucille,...

Dan Drasin is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and has been a photographer and media producer for more than six decades. He’s also the Operations Manager of New Dimensions and the announcer whose voice you hear on each program. His short 1961 documentary film titled Sunday was widely acknowledged as the first social-protest film of the 1960s and is part of the permanent film collection at Ne...

Wes “Scoop” Nisker is a Buddhist meditation teacher, journalist, and author. He is founder and co-editor of the Theravada Buddhist journal, Inquiring Mind, and an affiliate teacher at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California. His delightful humor accompanies his philosophy and experience of Buddhist insight meditation. Prior to being a meditation teacher, he was a well-known radio ann...

Rt. Rev. Dr. Marc Andrus is the eighth Bishop of the Episcopal diocese of California, elected in 2006. Raised among the hills and lakes of East Tennessee, Bishop Marc developed an early love for the beauty of the earth and a call to protect it. His activism, grounded in contemplative prayer, has focused on key issues related to peace and justice, including immigration reform, civil rights for LBGT...

Rajiv Parti, M.D. is a world-renowned specialist in pain management with over thirty years as a cardiac anesthesiologist. In addition to being Chief of Anesthesiology at Bakersfield Heart Hospital for more than a decade, Dr. Parti is founder of the Pain Management Institute of California. His study in complementary and alternative medicine has led him to formulate an integrative approach to total...

Rick Hanson, Ph. D. is a psychologist, senior fellow at the University of California, Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, and a summa cum laude graduate of UCLA. He’s founder of the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom. Also, the founder and president of the Global Compassion Coalition. He is the author of Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love,...

Deborah Zucker, ND is a naturopathic physician and transformational health coach who helps people find transform their fundamental relationship to health. She’s the founder of Vital Medicine and offers many virtual and retreat-based programs. She holds a docorate in naturopathic medicine from Bastyr University where she has also served as adjunct faculty. She is the author of The Vitality Map: A G...

Ellen Dee Davidson is an advocate for the health of forests. Besides her memoir, she’s the author of a number of children's books, also worked as an elementary, piano, and creative writing teacher and raised two daughters. She lives with her husband in the redwoods of northern California where she regularly sits with trees in a form of “forest bathing”. She is the author of Stolen Voices: In a Cit...

Jake Eagle, LPC, is a psychotherapist, mindfulness instructor, fellow member trainer of the International Association of Neuro‑Linguistic Programming, and cofounder of Live Conscious. After thirty years in private practice, Jake now works part-time as a meta-therapist, working with people who want to go beyond the bounds of traditional therapy. Together, he and his wife, Hannah, lead life-changing...

Neil Theise, M.D. Is a practicing pathologist and leading stem cell researcher as well as an explorer in the nature of consciousness and its relationship to us and the cosmos as revealed in complexity theory. He is also a senior student of Zen Buddhism at the Village Zendo in New York City under the guidance of Roshi Enkyo O'Hara. He is the author of Notes On Complexity: A Scientific Theory Of Con...

Matthew Fox, Ph. D. is a priest and was a member of the Dominican Order of the Catholic Church for thirty-four years. He holds a doctorate in History and Theology of Spirituality and is a scholar in residence with the Academy for the Love of Learning in Santa Fe, New Mexico, as well as founder and president of Friends of Creation Spirituality. He is the author of more than thirty books Tags: Matth...

Carolyn Baker, Ph. D. was a psychotherapist in private practice and a college professor of psychology and history. Now through her webinars, podcasts, live workshops, books, and articles, as well as one-on-one life coaching, Carolyn is touching the lives of thousands to assist them in deeply adapting and becoming resilient in the face of the unprecedented changes confronting humanity. She works cl...

Carolyn Resnick is the founder of The Resnick Method of Horsemanship and offers many online courses, clinics, retreats, and certification opportunities that create a magical connection with horses using rituals that are innate to the horse. She is a master horse communicator who grew up with horses and spent three summers of her childhood gradually becoming accepted into a community of wild horses...