Cancer, Medicine, Faith and Community

This week's episode of Paradigms, and next week's (it's a two parter!) focus on the experience of Dave and Rebecca.  At 35 weeks pregnant Rebecca was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer in March of 2015.  Since then she has had a baby, undergone numerous different cancer treatments, been a catalyst for community, and worked with faith and prayer.

I've known Rebecca and Dave for some time, not super well but in the context of permaculture and spiritual community.  I've been following their story, if you will, since the diagnosis.

In these two episodes of Paradigms Dave talks about what happened.  He tells the story from before the diagnosis to the present.  There was too much for just one episode so I decided to make it a two parter.  The first part will air this Sunday, May 8, and explores a lot of the story, what happened when, stuff like that.  The second part will air May 15, and goes into some of the more esoteric and community based aspects of Dave and Rebecca's experience.

Rebecca chose not to be interviewed, but with her consent Dave and I spent some time together via Skype, and he told the story.  We shared funny moments, tearful moments, and joyful moments.  Tune in and let this story of love and commitment inspire you.

Notes on the April 17 Paradigms

This week's episode will be among many people's favorites!  Sha'an Mouliert, my old friend and fellow GMTI colleague, tells some of her story.  Sha'an started out in Queens, New York, and has been living in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont for quite a few decades now.  Listen to the episode and I think you'll enjoy her very much, and of course the music (which Sha'an picked!) is excellent.

This episode follows a theme that Paradigms has been actively exploring for 7 years; Justice.  Whether it's racial, gender, sexuality, economic, ability, environmental...Justice (and I use the capital "J" on purpose) is an elusive goal which, while we may never fully achieve it, as Kinan Azmeh said on last week's show, we must keep striving for.

Kinan Azmeh on Paradigms April 10, 2016

This week's Paradigms features Kinan Azmeh.  Kinan is a clarinetist and composer.  He's from Damascus, Syria and currently resides in New York City.  I enjoyed our conversation very much.  I found Kinan to be a thoughtful, wise, deep thinking person, whose musical talent is informed by his intelligence and ethics.  His music is not run-of-the-mill and you will probably find yourself exploring some less-traveled territory in your own awareness, while you listen.

Paradigms is now available on 4 venues!  It's very exciting.  I make 4 customized episodes each week. Three get call letters; WBKM, KPOV, and now KWRK-LP, and there's the Podcast. Soon there will be more radio stations broadcasting Paradigms to more people; more inspired inspiring stuff on the airwaves!

Next week's episode will feature guest Sha'an Mouliert who is  long time friend and someone I have done co-work with.  Sha'an will be telling some of her personal story about how she came to live and work in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont.  Sha'an is African American and the Northeast Kingdom is 99% Euro-American.  Sha'an has been doing racism awareness and healing from racism work for many years and was recently awarded The Presidential Medal of Freedom from Lyndon State College in Lyndonville, Vermont.

If you know people who you think would enjoy Paradigms, please share the link http://Paradigms.Life with them, or this blog post.  The mission is to reach as many people as possible with inspiration!

North America, North Africa, How do you do?

I've been thinking about how people from North Africa, the area many call "The Middle East" were not in my awareness much when I was growing up.  I knew that Israel existed and that there were other countries that didn't like Israel, I didn't understand why.  I was brought up with virtually no religion, so understanding that other people had religious beliefs that led them to go to war was completely bizarre to me.  It still is. I had no idea that gasoline was made from oil that came from that part of the world.

Now in 2016 people from North Africa are much in my awareness, and many more are here in the US than were in the 1960's when I was a child.  There are people from that part of the world who have moved here to this land, who identify as Muslims, Christians, Jews, and other religions too.

Certainly the advent of air travel has contributed to people moving around the world, but I've been thinking about this in the context of balance.

The various oil and drug cartels based in "The United States" (I put that in quotes because I just can't take it very seriously anymore, nations, when we know that corporations are calling the shots) have invaded, killed, pillaged, and exploited the people and the lands in that part of the world relentlessly for over 100 years now.  It seems fair and just that we should thus experience an influx of people and culture from the area "we" have exploited.  It's karmic justice.

The western propaganda machine has so vilified our brothers and sisters in North Africa, the way this universe seems to work, it makes sense we would now be living the scenario of being with those same people so we can learn who they really are, and they can learn who we really are ("they" and "we" being huge generalizations).  It will take time but, as has happened countless times in human his/herstory, eventually the perceived differences will become less important, and will dissipate, people will intermarry and have children, and the differences that people feel so strongly about now will become memories.  This is generally how humans do it, unless one group rises up and kills the other group, that happens too, but hopefully less and less.

So the upshot of this is...my message to people who talk about "Islamification"... this our western culture has created this situation by warring and oppressing.  Just something to think about, especially when vilifying "the other."