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 By Stephen Dinan, founder and CEO of The Shift Network
When you close your eyes and envision your most radiant self, what do you see… what do you feel… and what’s stopping you from becoming that new you?
Over the next 17 days, five luminous faculty will provide five different pathways to embrace, embody, and express your very best self...
 On Wednesday, August 29, beloved Shift teacher Mirabai Starr presents the opening class of Wild Goddesses & Mystics of Mercy Soul Sanctuary: A Refuge for Sacred Feminine Teachings, Community & Intimacy With the Beloved. In this 6-month immersion training via live streaming video, Mirabai will show you how to apply the radical wisdom of women mystics to break free from rules and dogma to forge your own path of transformation.
 The following Tuesday, September 4, new Shift faculty Camille Maurine kicks off her inaugural course, Liberating Practices to Enliven Your Full, Wild, Radiant Self: Expressive, Subtle & Embodied Meditations for Women. Over 7 weeks, live on video, Camille will provide you with movement meditations that can give you a creative, body-attuned way to release stuck energies, open new currents of vitality and joy, and honor your radiant female body and who you truly are.
 The very next day, Wednesday, September 5, another new Shift instructor, Mary Bove, presents her first session of Medicinal Herbs for Better Brain Health: A Straightforward Approach to Enhance Your Mood, Memory, and Reduce the Effects of Stress & Aging. In this 5-week live video training, Mary wil share detailed information about herbs and other natural remedies that can keep your brain clear, sharp, and resilient so you can minimize the effects of growing older.
 Also on September 5, longtime Shift favorite don Oscar Miro-Quesada launches his new video training, Becoming a Shining One: A Shamanic Initiation Into the Ancestral Energy Healing Practices of Peru. Over the course of 12 weeks, don Oscar will reveal ancient shamanic practices that can activate your light body for healing, vitality, and spiritual awakening.
 A week later, on Wednesday, September 12, Wendy De Rosa, who has quickly become one of our most popular faculty, begins her new 16-week live video training, Energy Training for Empaths Advanced Intensive: Deepen Into Healing Core Wounds, Clearing Blocks & Embodying Your Empathic Power. Wendy will help you to stop taking on other people’s energy, create and maintain your energetic boundaries, and reset your emotional center.
No matter which course or courses you choose, you’ll be well on your way to making 2018 a watershed year… the year you took constructive, positive action toward stepping into the shoes of the person you always dreamed — and knew deep down — you could become!
Before you dive into the insightful articles, videos, and other content below, we’d love to hear your answer to the question, What daily practice makes you feel most vibrant and radiant? To share your thoughts in our Facebook Page community, click here.
You have been called to be who you are — the whole luminous light. No one can dim your light when you are fully present to the depth and breadth of it.
— Debbie Ford
 The Summer of Peace Letter is a free weekly letter through September 20 that features inspiring leaders in the important fields of spirituality, neuroscience, peacebuilding, compassion, and peace education. The letter provides insights and skills to help you find common ground even in challenging situations — in your family, friendships, business partnerships, and polarized social issues. (In some cases, it may help you gain a better understanding of the obstacles to finding common ground). Contributing partners include, Search for Common Ground, LiveAMoment.com, US Youth Rising, Alliance for Peacebuilding, Metta Center for Nonviolence, Nonviolent Communication Academy, and many more! To find out more and register to receive these weekly peace update, click here. And you can review the first eight issues here.
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Whispers From the Heart
By Rita Marie Johnson
 Sixteen years ago, I resigned from a job with the dream of developing a teacher-training program in social-emotional learning (SEL). I’d wanted to be a peacemaker since the age of 10 and had been on a quest to find an effective method for embodying peace.
In 1997, I’d learned about heart coherence from the HeartMath Institute, which was a major turning point toward my goal. I’d recently taken Nonviolent Communication (NVC) with Marshall Rosenberg and that was an eye-opener as well. Now, urged on by a whisper in my heart that said, “Teach peace in schools,” I’d taken a big risk — there was no income in sight. Could I really depend on that whisper?
To read more, click here.
The Emerging Art and Science of Peace: How You can Awaken Your Positive Potential
By Philip M. Hellmich
 Do you ever feel like you live in an alternate reality? I sure do!
When I watch the news, I’m surprised to see so many stories filled with anger and fear, fueling polarization and fragmentation. For the past 20+ years, I’ve had a different experience of humanity, one where I know in my heart and soul that humans are capable of compassion, tolerance, and forgiveness; that there is by far more potential for peace than conflict; and, that finding common ground is possible even in difficult situations.
To read more, click here.
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“Medicinal Herbs for Better Brain Health” Facebook Live Q&A
This mini-workshop offers a wonderful opportunity to become proactive about your brain health to mitigate hormonal shifts, sleep better, improve your memory, and help lower the risk of dementia. Herbalist and naturopathic physician Mary Bove will be leading a special Facebook Live Q&A call on how to slow down the natural progression of memory decline — and help strike a nourishing balance with everyday stress — on Wednesday, August 29, at Noon Pacific. Click here to get a Facebook Messenger reminder when the event goes live.
“Liberating Practices to Enliven Your Full, Wild, Radiant Self” Facebook Live Q&A
Would you like to know how to tap into the intelligence of your body to experience the glorious movement, energy, and power you have within you? Spiritual empowerment teacher Camille Maurine will be leading a special Facebook Live Q&A call on why this is especially important for women — and why trying to suppress or control your flow of thoughts, sensations, emotions, or desires is counterproductive — on Wednesday, August 29, at 5:00pm Pacific. Click here to get a Facebook Messenger reminder when the event goes live.
“Becoming a Shining One” Facebook Live Q&A
Would you like to receive sacred medicine and life-changing skills — through ritual, magic-making and the ceremonial altar? Peruvian curandero, psychologist, and author don Oscar Miro-Quesada will be leading a special Facebook Live Q&A call on how to access sacred “medicine” to activate your inner light body and heal and transform our world — on Thursday, August 30, at Noon Pacific. Click here to get a Facebook Messenger reminder when the event goes live.
“Energy Training for Empaths Advanced Intensive” Facebook Live Q&A
Would you like to connect with your empathic power by “detoxifying” your chakras and your entire energy system? Intuitive healer and trainer Wendy De Rosa will be leading a special Facebook Live Q&A call on how to build a foundation for your intuitive healing gifts — and expand your ability to embody your divine light — on Thursday, September 6, at Noon Pacific. Click here to get a Facebook Messenger reminder when the event goes live.
 Your Voice
We want to know: What daily practice makes you feel most vibrant and radiant? To share your thoughts in our Facebook Page community, click here.
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Anxiety: Your Doorway to Spiritual Growth
By Wendy De Rosa
 Spiritual growth has numerous doorways. Surprising to most, anxiety is one such threshold. If any of the following holds true for you, it’s worth exploring how anxiety can open up opportunities for you to spiritually expand:
• You live with anxiety.
• Anxiety affects you daily, sporadically, or seems to pop up out of the blue.
• Anxiety affects the life choices you make.
To read more, click here.
Living the Luminous Life: Would It Be Okay With You If Life Got Easier?
By Maria Nemeth, PhD, MCC
 You deserve to live the life you were meant to live, and you have the energy to do so. It’s time to focus that energy instead of wasting it. And by energy, I mean your money, time, physical vitality, creativity, enjoyment, and relationships. All these are forms of energy that you and I can learn to focus toward what we truly want in life. We can master this energy or we can remain frustrated and in a perpetual bad mood.
To read more, click here.
An Appreciation — Kofi Annan: A Great Man of Peace & Multilateralism Has Left Us
By Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury
 | | Secretary-General Kofi Annan (right) welcoming in his office Ambassador Chowdhury on first day at work as Under-Secretary-General March 2002
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I woke up on Saturday morning with the heartbreaking news that our dear Kofi is no more. The peoples of the world are unequivocal in expressing their feelings of the love, respect, and recognition that they have for his qualities of head and heart.
Knowing him for more than four decades, my calling him “Saint Kofi” because of what he stood for, started at the beginning of the new millennium.
To read more, click here.
Love Language: The Interspiritual Heart of the Mystics
By Mirabai Starr
 For decades I was conditioned to believe that to engage a mature spiritual life I needed to “pick one tradition and go deep,” which implied that my attraction to the teachings and practices at the heart of all religions was superficial and indolent...
Also, that the path of non-dualism — with its affirmation of undifferentiated consciousness — was superior to my devotional disposition… Also, that my experience of longing for God was an illusion — some kind of unconscious blend of unresolved childhood abandonment and magical thinking…
To read more, click here.
Moving Through the Fear
By Melinda Maxwell-Smith, MT, RCST, SEP
 The #MeToo Movement has sparked many women to step into the light to tell their stories.
Sometimes when we allow something to surface that has been submerged in our depths for months, years, or decades, we might feel a little raw, as if part of our protective skin has been grated off. If this happened to you after confiding memories to one person or in a more public reveal, or if you know someone who may feel raw, this article may normalize for you what just happened and give you some self-help reminders of how to soothe your nervous system.
To read more, click here.
Even the Horses Are Speaking… Are you Listening?
By Sara B. Willerson, LCSW
 Horses have been part of my life since childhood, and for the last 15 years, co-facilitators in my psychotherapy practice. My equine-guided lesson in listening began when my horse Pooh came into my life at age 14. This horse and I had a deeply connected relationship for over 20 years and he completely shifted my world. Without saying a word, Pooh soothed my unspoken wounds, connected me with my courageous self, and challenged me in ways I had never been able to before on my own.
To read more, click here.
2 Herbal Brain Foods to Nourish & Refresh Your Cognitive Function
 Are you finding it hard to stay focused, or to think on your feet when you’re stressed? Have you noticed changes in your memory and recall? We all experience changes in our brain health as we age — or even as we ride the waves of stress at any time in life.
In this 4-minute video, Dr. Mary Bove, herbalist, naturopathic physician, and director of medical education at Gaia Herbs, reveals how you can nourish your brain with two powerful foods AND a variety of aromatic herbs — to feed your cells and support blood, nutrient, and oxygen circulation.
To read more and watch Mary’s video, click here.
Click here for details about Mary Bove’s new 5-week live video training, Medicinal Herbs for Better Brain Health: A Straightforward Approach to Enhance Your Mood, Memory, and Reduce the Effects of Stress & Aging, which begins September 5.
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Meditation Secrets for Women: How to Flow With All of Who You Are
 Do you ever find it hard to be still during meditation? To focus, observe, be mindful, and detach? What if there was a different way to meditate? A way that’s in deeper rhythm with your inner flow and your nature as a woman?
In this 6-minute video, women’s spiritual empowerment teacher, author, and speaker Camille Maurine reveals that as a woman, the stillness you crave flows when you embrace embodied meditation. Watch as Camille shares secrets for tapping into your own intrinsic wellspring of wisdom, creativity, and love — especially as your body evolves with time.
To read more and watch Camille’s video, click here.
Click here for details about Camille Maurine’s new 7-week live video training, Liberating Practices to Enliven Your Full, Wild, Radiant Self: Expressive, Subtle & Embodied Meditations for Women, which begins September 4.
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Prayer of the Mothers
Yael Deckelbaum
 The song "Prayer of the Mothers" was born as a result of an alliance made between singer-songwriter Yael Deckelbaum and a group of courageous women, leading the movement of “Women Wage Peace.” The movement arose in the summer of 2014 during the escalation of violence between Israel and the Palestinians. Click here to watch and listen to the music video.
Yoga Day Summit video interviews with Anand Mehrotra and Ana Forrest & Jose Calarco
We are pleased to present these two insightful video interviews from our recent Yoga Day Summit. (Register now to be notified about our next Yoga Day Summit.)
 In Dissolving Dis-ease: The Yogic Path to Healing, master teacher Anand Mehrotra discusses the power of yogic practices to dissolve and dispel stress and dis-ease in our lives. You’ll discover how yoga brings us back into right relationship with ourselves, and how it can be used to eliminate the use of pharmaceutical drugs for our mental, emotional, and physical wellbeing.
 In A Medicinal Blend: Yoga, Ceremony, and Healing, Ana Forrest, the Creatrix of Forrest Yoga, and Jose Calarco, an Indigenous Peoples Cultural Arts Ambassador, explain why their offering of yoga, ritual, and music is powerful medicine for our modern lives. You’ll discover easy-to-use tools that you can apply to your life immediately to shift gears into a higher vibration and a more grounded, vital way of being.
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United Nations High-level Forum on The Culture of Peace (September 5)
The President of the UN General Assembly will convene a one-day High-level Forum on the Culture of Peace on Wednesday, September 5, in the General Assembly Hall. The forum will highlight emerging trends that have an impact on this topic, and will allow Member States and other actors to exchange views on how to further promote a culture of peace. The keynote address will be delivered by Dr. Rigoberta Menchú Tum, the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador. For details, click here.
Original Caretakers Ceremonial Visit
 The Original Caretakers Ceremonial Visit is designed to restore and rebalance Sacred Sites in North America. Join us on a once-in-a-lifetime journey with the Kogi Mamos from Colombia and Otomi Shamans from Mexico, who are coming to the U.S. for the first time. as we travel to Virginia, Colorado, and California to deliver an urgent message to “Younger Brother” about climate change.
Please join us for a reception at the Peace Pentagon on Thursday, September 6, at the Oracle Campus in Independence, Virginia. This reception will include Chiefs from Native North American Nations and U.N. Peace Ambassadors.
This historic visit, co-sponsored by the United Nations and numerous NGOs, will culminate in San Francisco, where the Elders will lead the multi-faith Opening Ceremony at the Global Climate Action Summit and meet with leading environmentalists. For more information, click here.
The World Peace Flame
 The World Peace Flame is a symbol of peace, unity, freedom, and celebration. We believe in the essential freedom of the human spirit to create peace at any time under any circumstances — a view endorsed by the millions of people who have lit The World Peace Flame as a symbol of this dream.
The World Peace Flame is dedicated to achieving peace through a process of education and the practical support of grassroots peace initiatives. We aim to inspire people everywhere that the individual plays a crucial role in creating peace at every level. Our dream is as simple as it is ambitious: to light an eternally burning World Peace Flame in every major city or decision-making centre in the world. It is a dream we’ve cherished since 1999 when we created our first Flames of Peace on five continents around the world.
On September 21, the International Day of Peace, the World Peace Flame will be lit in the Thalden Pavilion, Sustainability Center on the Southern Oregon University (SOU) campus. A delegation from the World Peace Flame Foundation will come to Ashland for the lighting ceremony, together with our State and City dignitaries. For more information on the Ashland event, click here.
Nurturing Peacebuilders to Grow Safe and Resilient Communities
 The River Phoenix Center for Peacebuilding's “Residential Community Peacebuilder Immersion” Part I and/or Part II will be held during the week of October 20-28 in Gainesville, Florida. Our solutionary based comprehensive peacebuilding model will include Peace from the Inside Out, Peacebuilding 101, Trauma (ACEs) & Resilience Building, Social Emotional Learning, Restorative Justice Training, Police/Youth Dialogues and Conflict Resolution, and Community Dialogues. For in-depth information, click here.
If Women Rose Rooted: A Journey to Authenticity and Belonging
By Sharon Blackie
 This uniquely empowering, international word-of-mouth bestseller is about wild landscapes, female mythology, and the challenges facing modern women. It is a book for any woman who has ever lost her way and who sees a wasteland at the heart of modern existence and longs to live a more authentic, rooted life once again. To order your copy, click here.
For several years, The Shift Network has hosted Indigenous leaders from around the world and invited them to share their sacred knowledge, rituals, and practices to guide us in a way of living that is sustainable, healthy, and just. We’re thus delighted that the Global Indigenous Wisdom Library makes this “virtual council” of leaders and their wisdom available for everyone, everywhere for free. The Global Indigenous Wisdom Library is a collection of audio and video interviews featuring Indigenous leaders from around the world sharing prayers, sacred songs, prophecies, spiritual teachings, and pathways to healing, as well as concrete examples for birthing a new era — one in which all members of the human family are treated with respect, understanding, compassion, and justice. This sacred wisdom is important medicine for us all.
The production of The Global Indigenous Wisdom Library is a gift from The Shift Network, designed to inspire, inform, and involve you by highlighting the voices and important messages of Indigenous leaders from around the world. We want to give a heartfelt thanks to Hereditary Chief Phil Lane Jr. (“Brother Phil”) for his partnership in helping create this Indigenous Wisdom collection. And we thank all the speakers who have contributed to this body of knowledge. To discover more, click here.
 World Peace Library. Designed for the layperson and professional peacebuilder alike, the World Peace Library has over 425 audio and video interviews with some of the most remarkable, inspiring peacebuilders in the world available to you at NO COST. You’ll find hundreds of hours of inspirational, peacebuilding, compassion-spreading talks and trainings at your fingertips with this FREE global resource. There’s no way you can’t come away from the World Peace Library deeply inspired, transformed — and part of the solution. Click here to find out how to take peace to the next level — and help co-create a global culture of peace that leaves a legacy of good for our children, our children’s children and all of humanity and life on earth.
BOOK BY STEPHEN DINAN: Sacred America, Sacred World. Infused with visionary power, Sacred America, Sacred World is a manifesto for our country’s evolution that is both political and deeply spiritual. It offers profound hope that America can grow beyond our current challenges and manifest our noblest destiny, which the book shows is rooted in sacred principles that transcend left or right political views. To order your copy, click here.
 Through God’s Eyes: Finding Peace and Purpose in a Troubled World by Phil Bolsta of The Shift Network. Through God’s Eyes is a road map for living a more peaceful, beautiful life. It’s the only book that shows you how dozens of spiritual principles interact, how to weave them together into a cohesive worldview, and how to practically apply this spiritual wisdom to bring joy and vitality to your daily life. One reviewer called it “the owner’s manual God should give you when you’re born.” To order your copy, click here. To request a sample chapter from the author, email Phil at GodsEyes@me.com.
If you would like to submit something to The Catalyst, please see the submission guidelines: click here.
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Read one of the free eight Summer of Peace letters archived here and reflect on what action you can take today to add more peace to your own life?
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 Reclaiming Your Body’s Innate Guidance System: How to Listen to Your Bones and 5 More Wisdom Areas to Heal Trauma & Increase Intuition — A Free Video Event With Leading Conscious Awareness Instructor Suzanne Scurlock-Durana. Discover how to reconnect with the essential areas of deep wisdom in your body — to liberate more of your intuition and personal power.
Wednesday, September 5, 2018 at 5:30pm Pacific
Wild Goddesses & Mystics of Mercy Soul Sanctuary: A Refuge for Sacred Feminine Teachings, Community & Intimacy With the Beloved — A 6-month Immersion With Author, Mystic Scholar & Interspiritual Teacher Mirabai Starr. Discover the radical wisdom of women mystics — breaking free from rules and dogma to forge your own path of transformation.
New Live Video Training Starts Wednesday, August 29, 2018
Liberating Practices to Enliven Your Full, Wild, Radiant Self: Expressive, Subtle & Embodied Meditations for Women — With Women’s Spiritual Empowerment Teacher, Author, and Speaker Camille Maurine. Discover delicious meditations for a creative, body-attuned way to release stuck energies, open new currents of vitality and joy, and honor your radiant body.
New 7-week Live Video Training Starts Tuesday, September 4, 2018
Becoming a Shining One: A Shamanic Initiation Into the Ancestral Energy Healing Practices of Peru — With Peruvian Curandero, Psychologist & Author don Oscar Miro-Quesada. Discover ancient practices to activate your light body for healing, vitality, and spiritual awakening.
12-week Video Training Starts Wednesday, September 5, 2018
 Wise, Selfish & Real: A Spiritual Path for Complex & Creatively Wild Women — With Transformational Teacher, Writer & Founder of Selfistry Sarah Marshank. Break out of outdated spiritual practices and discover more nourishing feminine practices for loving (and listening to) every aspect of your being — so you can create the next phase of your life from your deepest authenticity, fullest passion, and clearest truth.
New 7-week Live Video Training Starts Wednesday, August 29, 2018
Medicinal Herbs for Better Brain Health: A Straight-forward Approach to Enhance Your Mood, Memory, and Reduce the Effects of Stress & Aging — With Herbalist, Naturopathic Physician & Director of Medical Education at Gaia Herbs Mary Bove. Be proactive about your brain health to mitigate hormonal shifts, sleep better, improve your memory, and help lower the risk of dementia.
New 5-week Live Video Training Starts Wednesday, September 5, 2018
More Upcoming Events: (all subject to change)
September
• Wendy De Rosa 4-month course
• Sera Beak 7-week course
• Qigong Global Summit
October
• Sabrina Chaw 7-week course
• Desda Zuckerman 7-week course
• Global Indigenous Wisdom Summit
• Chloe Goodchild 7-week course
• Mark Nepo 7-week course
• Daniel Foor 7-week course
• Essential Oils & Aromatherapy Summit
• Shiloh Sophia 7-week course
November
• Nicki Scully 7-week course
• Anodea Judith 7-week course
• Dreamwork Summit
• Russ Hudson 7-week course
• Roger Jahnke 7-week course
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World Pulse
We believe women hold the power to create global change. We connect them. We're an award-winning social network connecting women worldwide for change. By harnessing the power of technology, we help create a world — both virtual and physical — where women unite to share resources, launch movements, start businesses, run for office, or simply tell their story. A world where all women thrive.
Why? Because when women are heard and connected, we have the power to transform the world. We are World Pulse and this is our digital uprising. For more information, click here. To make a donation, click here.
Spiral Q
Spiral Q builds strong and equitable communities characterized by creativity, joy, can-do attitudes, and the courage to act on their convictions. Spiral Q works at the intersection of art, culture and social justice, where we galvanize a vast network of partners and collaborators. Our strategy focuses on two key roles we play at this intersection of creative community-building: PLACE and PRACTICE. These roles propel our values into action in Philadelphia and beyond.
Click here for more information. Click here to make a donation.
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weDialogue
weDialogue offers collaborative online engagement that connects people all over the world and stimulates conversation, communication, and learning. weDialogue is part of a global web of digital communications that go beyond information technology into relationship technology.
Founder Amy Lenzo’s close relationship with World Cafe and an extended community of dialogic practitioners has provided her with valuable design principles, approaches, and formats. She draws on a number of trusted colleagues with special skills and shared values when needed. Together they bring the resources and capacities to respond to client needs and create the right conditions for powerful group work online. Click here for more information.
The Prison University Project
The Prison University Project runs its courses out of San Quentin State Prison, a public prison for men in Marin County, California. It’s known as a progressive prison, particularly because of the many volunteer-based programs that run within its gates — among which, the Prison University Project is the largest. San Quentin prison offers a variety of innovate programming for inmates, including Qigong and Mindfulness. Another program is called Shakespeare in Prison, which offers programs in eight California State Prisons
Click here for more information on the Prison University Project. Click here to make a donation.
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Aea Luz
Free streaming of new album, Bija
Aea Luz, a gifted singer-songwriter in Northern California, has just birthed her new album, Bija, and it’s available to you for access or free online streaming. Just click here.
As Aea shares, "Bija is the seed, the origin of our deepest prayer for wellness, the offering place of our intent into the womb of all that is. Bija is the unborn creation of the beauty way, the divine meeting place of form and stillness, movement and emptiness, song and silence... Bija is the unstoppable awakening of love unto itself."
Aea's songs, which she calls "musical soul food for medicine folk" have touched thousands of people and you can enjoy her newest creation now.
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