I have a story for you - a very short story with a very happy ending, one that would turn the tide of our current disastrous direction. I even claim that it's true - truer than anything you'll ever hear on the news. Regardless, no one is going to believe it. And yet I'll wager that even the scientists among us would agree that what we believe possible has a significant effect on what actually ends up happening. So, with the world as we used to know it falling apart all around us, with no way to go back and no way forward - the proverbial cliff-hanger - why can't we believe in the kind of future we all want so much for our children and all the coming generations? That's what this episode is about: the great change humanity and the earth so desperately need, and how we can make way for it.

This mini-episode consists of a poem called "Unleash Peace" and a piano composition called "Heart of Hearts," both inspired by a daily meditation for peace and an end to violence everywhere, in all forms. Join the meditation on your own:  https://facebook.com/groups/7daysofasking.

This war freaks me out.  Because of the real life horror of it, but also, of course, because of what might possibly, unthinkably happen, IF… When the news first broke, all I could do, in shock, was to think obsessively about it, trying to find a way out. But instead of finding a way out, all that thinking unleashed all my worst fears, and for a while I felt myself close to slipping into a bleak darkness, and never coming out… Thankfully, I now know that can never happen, I’ll never stay in the dark forever, because I’m too scared of the dark. This last time I was so scared that all I could do was grapple frantically for a way out – which, little by little, I found. The light that helped me find that way out was simply the discovery that I was wrong, that I’m not powerless. Not at all. Of course I’m not talking here about the big, external world picture. It’s true I’m pretty helpless there – all I can do there is send money to help the victims, or whatever other real-world action I can take. And that kind of thing is important – but it isn’t enough. It won’t bring peace, not to me and not to anyone. The only place we can really make peace, plant the vital seed of peace, is inside us and among us.  There we’re far from powerless. Which is why I made this podcast – it’s part of my way of making peace, since I doubt I’m alone in being afraid of the dark… Heartfelt thanks as always, to Silo, for pointing the way to Peace in the Heart, Light in the Understanding. Thanks also to all the members of the IRC Ensemble, a virtual band born out of the pandemic. And finally, thanks to the 7 Days of Asking project, particularly the friends who meet every day on zoom and Facebook to ask for Peace in Ukraine. Following is an invitation to that daily guided meditation, for anyone who would like to join in at any time: You’re invited to join us any day in a heartfelt Asking for Peace in Ukraine. We meet for 15 minutes to concentrate all our best thoughts and wishes on the conflict in Ukraine, asking for peace and an end to the violence and the suffering. We ask for a heartfelt outcry to arise among all the people of this world, and we imagine our wishes being fulfilled. Zoom at 11AM NY time and 8AM West Coast  Live stream on Facebook. https://facebook.com/groups/7daysofasking Zoom:  https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81293615231?pwd=aWp6NndMRTVLbjl6SmJ2RElxVWc5UT09 Meeting ID: 812 9361 5231    Passcode: peace   Unleash Peace Peace lives inside of each of us sleeping in our core Find it! Find it! Go inside, slip through  that inner door and steal into your heart of hearts where all is well forevermore There in the calm and timeless joy of deep eternity whisper to your own true self, the time has come my sweet to softly unleash this inner force, this balm to end all suffering Let it flow through all the world in gentle waves of warmth and peace reconciling everyone setting all beings free Let it manifest and shine its joyous relief blooming sweet in every heart universal harmony. Please share this invitation with others.

Song written and performed by Trudi Lee Richards, with Dan Buchanan on piano - recorded at Resound Northwest, Portland, Oregon, 2021.

This relaxing poetic tale is one many "guided experiences" by Silo that have been described both as "short stories with happy endings" and as "psychological practices based on an original literary form."* All the Guided Experiences are available for download at silo.net, as well as in print at Latitude Press, where audio recordings can also be downloaded. This reading of "The Protector of Life" was recorded by Trudi Lee Richards to the music of Erik Satie, Gymnopédie no. 1 (for Harp) (available courtesy of Musopen.org). *silo.net

A reading of Chapter XIV of the book "The Inner Look," from Silo's Message - read by Trudi Lee Richards. Musical accompaniment: Adagio in G Minor by Tomaso Albinoni, arranged for guitar and performed by Noh Donghwan.

"We do not die!" This was what, in astonished recognition, I told myself one day more than twenty years ago, when I stumbled without warning into the Place Where We Do Not Die. I do not know how I got there – perhaps it had something to do with certain nerves being stimulated by the abdominal massage I was receiving for my insomnia. But the “how” doesn’t matter – I hastened to get more massages after that, and they always left me in the most ordinary of realities.  What matters is the possibility that we do not die...  (for full transcript, see Show Notes below...)

Song written and sung by Trudi Lee Richards, with piano accompaniment by Dan Buchanan - recorded at Resound NW, Portland, Oregon, in September 2021.

"Blessings" is a poem by Trudi Lee Richards, read here by the poet.

What if you’re just starting out in life and everything you’re supposed to be excited about – college, career, money and success – leaves you cold? What if even your friendships seem empty? What if nobody you ask can tell you how to find meaning in life? That was Michael’s quandary at 17. All through high school he’d been looking for answers, and now he figured he didn’t have any choice. “Either I find meaning,” he resolved, “or I end my life…” Well – he’s still here. I know – I talked to him just last week on zoom, and he smiled a lot. So I asked him what happened, and how he keeps smiling – even in the face of climate change, the pandemic, and all the other the disasters brewing all around us all the time. And he told me – and I ended up smiling too. Some of what we talk about in this episode: How to have faith in the future without being naive or fanaticalWhat's so great about cleaning up garbage with your neighborsWhy people are building meditation halls shaped like Hershey's kisses all over the worldWhy people in the part of Brazil with the highest teen suicide rate are flocking to Silo's MessageThe great gift a dying old geezer on oxygen gave MichaelWhy failure is the most important thing that can happen to youThe real question: how can we NOT keep smiling?

What happens when two quite mortal humans launch themselves out into the void to talk about Life and her Special Child, our good friend Death? To find out, tune into this bouncy conversation between myself and the beautiful and exuberant young writer, artist and youtube creator Zulema Fernandez. Also, meet Jose, author of Hacedor de sentido – Maker of Meaning* – and his growing online community, Comunidad Hacedor de Sentido, who say this about themselves: “We welcome individuals from around the world who wish to help each other become better people, free human beings working together to transform ourselves and our environment. By contacting the Force within us and deepening our experience of the Transcedent, we aspire to contribute to a qualitative leap by our species.”** It was through that online community that Jose met Zulema. She was such an enthusiastic and articulate participant that when I asked Jose if any of his community members might like to speak with me on this podcast, he immediately put me in touch with her. That was how Zulema and I ended up meeting on Zoom at the end of May for a delightful half-hour conversation in which we barely scraped the tip of death rebellion iceberg. Here are a few teasers: Why talk about death? Because it makes us more aware of life…. Maybe what dies is just our character, but not the consciousness that lives through that character… …I suddenly felt like I was one with all the people surrounding me, like it was completely impossible to cut that connection. And I felt so much love and peace, I only could cry of happiness… The strange thing is, I wasn’t looking for that experience. It just occurred, like a flower blooms! We are surrounded by this idea, that there is nothing more. That when we die, we die. But if there is nothing more, why are we constantly feeling that there is not enough, with ourselves, with our lives? Observe how you ARE the other. The other human being, the other flower, the other mountain… We ended our interchange with an eerily beautiful musical performance by Zulema, followed by some of my favorite words from “The Path” in Silo’s Message: Do not imagine that you are alone in your village, in your city, on the earth, or among the infinite worlds. Do not imagine that you are enchained to this time and this space. Do not imagine that upon your death, lonliness will become eternal. Our conversation left both of us touched and inspired, and we agreed that we would love to meet again, and invited any interested listeners to join us for an (unrecorded) zoom session. *The novel Hacedor de Sentido/Maker of Meaning is currently being translated into English – contact Trudi for more information. **Meetings of Comunidad Hacedor de Sentido are in Spanish only

http://wingedlionpress.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/DWLlogocolor-1024x1024.png Show Notes – Episode #2: On Pretending – plus a bit more on Rebelling Against Death…Pretending… any serious actor will agree that it’s a fine art. Yet hardly anyone but little children takes it seriously. For most of us, our imagination begins to atrophy from neglect after we pass the age of seven, and we never experience the power of pretending intentionally, with all our heart and soul. That’s what this episode is about. Before getting into that, however, I had to respond to a complaint from the first episode. One of our listeners reached out to explain they liked my poems and stories very much, but what exactly did I mean by “rebelling against death”? That knocked me for a loop. After all, what I meant was perfectly clear to me! But once again I had to remember what I so often forget: that not everyone is just like me, and sees things the same way I do. So in this, our second episode, I attempt to clarify what I meant. I talk about how in our culture death is taboo. But even though we don’t talk about it, and try not to think about it, the fear of it dogs our footsteps. We have a million ways to run away from it – but no matter what we do, how we distract ourselves, when we turn around, it’s still there: the mother of all fears, lurking just out of sight but never completely out of mind… So most of us just keep running, trying to ignore it, until it’s on top of us. But there’s another option, something anyone with a little gumption can do: we can rebel against death. By rebelling against death, I simply mean being fully alive, alive in every moment. This time I give a number of suggestions for how to do that, and tell the story of a good friend’s mother, my inspirational Death Rebel poster child, who lived happily to be over 100 and when asked her secret, said simply, “I always love what I do.” We switch gears with a little song about an octopus in the closet, and then move on to the piece de resistance: the fine art of pretending. Pretending is one of the most powerful tools in any death rebel’s tool chest. And like rebelling against death, it has both life-giving and life-dulling uses. We all know about the life-dulling uses – all the different forms of escape that the imagination can indulge in… The life-giving uses, though less well-known, are just as available to all of us and just as doable. I talk about a few of the legion ways we can use pretending and the imagination to enliven us, to give us the strength and courage to battle even death itself. As testimony, I tell my own story of how pretending saved me from obsessive anxiety by putting me in touch with a deep inner peace. Because it’s not true that we can only be happy in happy circumstances. With a little intentionality and heartfelt pretending, anyone can be happy even in a world like today’s, where violence erupts at the drop of a hat and fear and doubt loom everywhere… We end this episode with a reading of my mid-pandemic epic poem: The Great 21st Century Poemic, and an invitation to drop in for one of our “play dates” in the Community of Silo’s Message… The Great 21st Century PoemicIt struck one day out of the blue, cropping up all at once in random spots all across the planet The first known cases were a small boy in Lincoln, Nebraska,

http://wingedlionpress.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/DWLlogocolor-768x768.jpg with Trudi Lee Richards  Show Notes – Episode #1:A Back Door to Transcendence  How I got myself into this…I’ve always been a ham, always loved to read my poems and stories aloud to as many spellbound listeners as possible – but aside from the occasional poetry reading, it’s never been that easy to find an audience. It got worse when I started singing – by then I was already an old person in a youth culture, and who was going to listen? I had pretty much resigned myself to singing and otherwise spouting off in the shower when I discovered that my grown kids and their friends – currently my prime preaching target – all love podcasts. So it was a no-brainer…  What do I have to say that’s worth listening to?Here’s my message: We Do Not Die. And yes, I’m serious. No matter what you believe, I’ll wager you are at least secretly fascinated with death and the possibility of transcendence, especially these days… We all know we’re going to die and we have no idea what that means, so most of us are afraid of death. And that fear is not just personal – it’s social and cultural, and has been with us since long before the current health and climate crises we’re facing. At least in the west, our culture has been staunchly in denial of death for centuries, even millennia. Maybe that’s why many if not most of our institutions are designed to turn our attention anywhere but towards our unthinkable end. Look how much time we spend glued to our screens in the grip of shopping, gambling, gaming, overworking, thrill-seeking, finding our soul mate… Whatever else we are doing with those pastimes, they work like a charm to distract us from whatever we don’t want to think about – namely death and everything else that makes us think of our ultimate doom. Even so, having such an enormous elephant in the room has got to make us all uncomfortable, at least on some level. So I say let’s bring death out in the open, let’s talk about it. And if we’d really rather not die at all, let’s rebel against death!  Rebelling against death – the practical approach to livingI’m not just talking about feeling better. Rebelling against death turns out to be the best, most practical tool for living effectively. Death and everything that reminds me of death and loss (eg the pandemic, climate change, getting too fat, my children’s troubles, etc. etc.) scares me, and my fear is paralyzing. Fear saps me of energy, makes me want to do nothing but hide in a dark corner and huddle in front of the TV with a carton of chocolate ice cream. The only way I can un-paralyze myself is to say screw that, I’m going to live the way I want to live, death or no death! Then I very irrationally but very intentionally look at the future as though it were endless and full of promise – and suddenly I’m full of energy and courage to fight the good fight.  “There is no meaning in life if everything ends with death.”Those are the words of South American sage Silo, who also says “Death is the biggest illusion there is.” OK – maybe death is an illusion – but it’s one we all believe in as fervently as we used to believe in the monster under the bed. And with good reason, because it’s obvious we’re going to die. So what’s the way out? Clearly, reason isn’t going to cut it. Instead, in this podcast we’re t