Howl in the Wilderness

Richard Miller is a clinical psychologist, author, researcher, yogic scholar, spiritual teacher and founder of the iRest Yoga Nidra protocol for healing trauma.  For over 40 years, he has devoted his life and work to integrating the nondual wisdom teachings of Yoga, Tantra, Advaita, Taoism, and Buddhism with Western psychology and neuroscience. Among his mentors were Jean Klein, T.K.V. Desikachar,...

Larry is founding president of the International Association of Yoga Therapists and director of the Yoga Therapy RX certification program at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.  In our conversation we talk about how meeting some of the legends of modern yoga inspired his move from working as a successful advertising executive to becoming one of the founders of Yoga Therapy in America. Larr...

Rachel Harris is the author of Listening to Ayahuasca, New Hope for Depression, Addiction, PTSD, and Anxiety, and a psychologist with both a research and a clinical background. She was in the 1968 Residential Program at Esalen Institute, Big Sur, CA and remained on the staff for a number of years. She also worked as a psychological consultant to Fortune 500 companies including the UN. Rachel was i...

On this episode, I speak with yoga therapy pioneer Gary Kraftsow. Gary has been instrumental in the development of yoga therapy in America over the past 40 years.  He began his study of yoga in India with T.K.V. Desikachar in 1974 and received his Masters Degree in Psychology and Religion from the University of California at Santa Barbara in 1983. In 1999, he founded the American Viniyoga Institut...

In this episode I speak with Bhagavan Das, who became famous in the early 1970s after Ram Dass featured him in the book that started the American yoga boom, Be Here Now.  His fame led to him becoming something of a rockstar in the burgeoning spiritual scene, leading kirtans for thousands of people all over the world, gaining followers and groupies and infamy as a “spiritual playboy”. Recently, Bha...

Michael Meade, D.H.L., is a renowned storyteller, author, and scholar of mythology, anthropology, and psychology.  He is the author of The Genius Myth, Fate and Destiny: The Two Agreements of The Soul, Why the World Doesn't End, The Water of Life: Initiation and the Tempering of the Soul; editor, with James Hillman and Robert Bly, of Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart; and editor of Crossroads: A Ques...

Emily Shaw is a wellness entrepreneur and owner of ama-veda.com, creating products and detox programs using principles of Ayurveda combined with Amazonian plant medicines. In this episode we talk about her journey from kitchen witch to opening one of the first whole foods restaurants in Toronto to her current work leading home detox programs and week-long retreats around the world. If you’re an en...

This is a unique episode because for the first time, it’s me on the receiving end of the questions. Recently I was honoured to be invited onto Peter Lavoie and Scott Simon’s Spirit Bros. podcast to talk about my journey as a yoga practitioner and teacher. It’s an epic 2.5 hour conversation and we go pretty deep into a number of areas including:  What inspired me to start this podcast Advice for be...

Jim Sanders is a father, husband, filmmaker, ayahuasquero and founder of Tonkiri, a healing and wellness centre in Manitoba, Canada. Jim shares openly about his background as an raging anarchist activist filmmaker, the challenges of balancing his family life with his calling to become a healer, hist apprenticeship with master shaman Juan Flores, integrating his whole family into his medicine work,...

Bonnie Greenwell Ph. D. is a transpersonal psychotherapist and non-dual teacher in the lineage of Adyashanti who specializes in kundalini awakening. She was a founder of the Kundalini Research Network in 1990 after publishing “Energies of Transformation: A Guide to the Kundalini Process”, based on her dissertation research. In 2015 she published “The Kundalini Guide” and “The Awakening Guide” base...

J Brown is a writer, podcaster and independent yoga teacher. In this conversation we talk about practical strategies for the independent yoga teacher to grow their reach, make a good living, and maintain work-life balance. We also pick up an old conversation about the yoga sutras, non-duality and tantra. The podcast ends with my attempt to clear up some misunderstanding of TKV Desikachar’s definit...

Debbie Stapleton is an astrologer, singer, artist and herbalist who uses the art of chart analysis to illuminate the dynamics at play in an individual’s life, in relationship to self or another so that the potential of the soul can be realized. She also happens to be my wife and partner of 15 years. If you’re a regular listener, you know how much I appreciate her and how important our relationship...

In this episode I share some of what I've learned about icaros, the healing songs of ayahuasca shamanism, and include some samples from my recent trip to Mayantuyacu, Juan Flores' plant medicine centre in Peru. Learn more about Mayantuyacu: http://www.boilingriver.org/mayantuyacu/

Susana Bustos PhD is a transpersonal counselor, professor of psychology, and independent researcher on entheogenic shamanic traditions of the Americas. Her main body of research and clinical work has focused on Peruvian Amazonian Vegetalismo practices, particularly on the effects of song (icaros) and plant diets on healing processes, as well as on the integration of experiences with plant medicine...

Dr. Leanne Whitney is an independent scholar in the fields of depth psychology and consciousness studies.  She specializes in the intersection of Western psychology and the Eastern liberatory traditions. In addition to her book, Consciousness in Jung and Patañjali, she has published several academic papers including Jung, Yoga and Affective Neuroscience: Towards A Contemporary Science of the Sacre...

Author, editor, and shamanic explorer Matthew J. Pallamary is an award winning writer, musician, and sound healer who has been studying shamanism all of his life.  He incorporates shamanic practices into his daily life as well as into his writing and teaching. He has fourteen books in print that cover several genres, many of which have been translated into foreign languages. For more information,...

Itzhak Beery is a leading shamanic teacher, healer, speaker, community activist and author of three bestselling books. He teaches at a number of centres around the world and leads webinars, shamanic circles, and trips to the Andes and the Amazon.  For over 22 years, he’s bridged the spiritual and practical wisdom his indigenous teachers entrusted in him with a powerful contemporary approach releva...

Mary K. Greer  is an independent scholar, writer, teacher, and professional tarot consultant, known for her innovative teaching techniques.  Featured at most Tarot conferences in the U.S. and abroad, Mary travels the world teaching Tarot. In 2007, Mary received the International Tarot Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association for Tarot Studies and is a research partner in Le Tarot Associazio...

Dr Ben Sessa (MBBS BSc MRCPsych) is a consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist. He trained at UCL medical school, graduating in 1997, and he is interested in the developmental trajectory from child maltreatment to adult mental health disorders.  Dr Sessa is an approved MDMA and psilocybin psychotherapist, currently a senior research fellow at Bristol and Imperial College London Universities, w...

This is the second in a series of short episodes that celebrate the beloved yoga teacher TKV Desikachar who died in 2016.  Desikachar was the son of legendary yoga master T Krishnamacharya and teacher to the philosopher J Krishnamurti. He was a pioneer in the field of yoga therapy and author of the influential book The Heart of Yoga, published in 1995.  This episode features highlights from an int...

This is the first in a series of short episodes that celebrate the beloved yoga teacher TKV Desikachar who died in 2016.  Desikachar was the son of legendary yoga master T Krishnamacharya and teacher to the philosopher J Krishnamurti. He was a pioneer in the field of yoga therapy and author of the influential book The Heart of Yoga, published in 1995.  This episode features highlights from an inte...

Shawn Dinkel is a Licensed Professional Counselor and a Certified Addiction Counselor (CACII) in the state of Colorado. Over the past 14+ years, he has facilitated more than 9,000 therapy sessions, 5,000 of those in group therapy. I had Shawn on the podcast a couple of episodes back to talk about male anger issues, and I received so many positive comments that I wanted to have him on again and con...

Jivana Heyman, C-IAYT, E-RYT500, is the founder and director of Accessible Yoga, an international non-profit organization dedicated to increasing access to the yoga teachings.  Accessible Yoga offers Conferences, Trainings and a popular Ambassador program. Jivana is the author of the book, Accessible Yoga: Poses and Practices for Every Body (Shambhala Publications), co-owner of the Santa Barbara Y...

My beautiful friend Laraaji returns to the podcast for a free flowing conversation about staying serene while living in New York City, how 5Rhythms dance helps his creative process, the yumminess of silence, and the connections between music and psychedelics. Laraaji Nadabrahmananda is a meditator, laugh-master and cosmic musician who has performed in Europe, Asia and the United States with his sp...

Part two of my conversation with author Thomas Moore.   Thomas Moore is the author of the number one New York Times bestseller Care of the Soul. He has written twenty-four other books about bringing soul to personal life and culture, deepening spirituality, humanizing medicine, finding meaningful work, imagining sexuality with soul and doing religion in a fresh way.   In this episode we speak abou...