Natasha is a Swiss born artist living in Miami and performing there and around the world. Her appearance at TED last year featured excerpts from her one-woman show, UP WAKE, that integrates sound, computer generated images and a live stage performance. Her performance is amazing and her empowering concluding comments on the video are powerful. I have extracted them so readers can appreciate their depth. Enjoy!

“A bitterwseet, funny, tragic world with existentialist shades of Samuel Beckett and especially Marcel Marceau.     “Octavio Roca, Miami New Times

There is a revolution
It’s a human and technological revolution
It’s motion and emotion
It’s information.

It’s visual, musical, sensorial, conceptual, it’s Universal

It’s beyond words and numbers:
It’s happening.

to create intelligent, meaningful and extra-ordinary work.

It’s now.

Natasha Tsakos
president and founder of ZERO llc
Learn more about Natasha at natashatsakos.com

Here is a sampling of comments from audience members:

“True Sonic Alchemy, soaring majesty, multidimensional musical immersion, harmonic sunshine and sensuality, celestial space symphony, music of the spheres, universal overtones, musical white magic, cellular healing, vibrational musical medicine, beyond mind.

In observing audience members, there was an overall sense of awe and surrender to the extraordinary and powerful musical journey that was like a transcendent religious/spiritual experience in which ecstatic visions move one deeply. If I were you, I would get a couple of tickets to one of Constance’s upcoming house concerts, bring your best friend or lover, and bliss out.”

I laid down on my beanbag what a treat to be so close and so right next  to you and the SPACE BASS.  Then it all happened as you started to play the SPACE BASS right in front of me.  WOW what vibrations. WOW what diversities of tones and frequencies.

What a release of emotions — from the left came out tears and the release of tensions and then the vibrations shifted to the left side of my brain and the same thing happened to the right side of my body.  My chest opened up and my breath was flowing easily with every note you played.  The cells in my lungs and wherever there were irritations and blockage – were opened up as the flood of the rivers of health stated to flow and heal my drowning body from the pain and ailments of the SEPARATION BLUES.

The healing continued in the car all the way home as I played one of your CD’s with the Space Bass music.”

“Thanks to my universal connection to the switchboard of Dr. God that sent me to the Healing Music of the Master Creator of  Healing Sounds Constance Demby. Thank You”

“Your music takes me home and re-unites me with my galactic heritage.  It is so pure, and so full of loving light, I can’t even describe in human words what it means to me to hear your music.

I’m very interested in having a private session for some health issues that need completion”

“Your music takes me deeper and higher than anything else I have ever heard.”

“From everything I am, I deeply thank you for the wonder, the magic, the love, the radiance. You are a divine gift to this world and all of Creation!  Thank you for being here and sharing your beauty, your love, your vastness.“

“An uplifting Holy Temple transforming experience”

“The beauty of the intimate space and the slow drifting in of the Outer Space music slowly engulfing my willing body until I fell safely into a trance-like state. The freedom of her transmissions from a distant past and forward tones of the planet… The many twists and turns musically so that my Chakras had a complete melt down.

As the Space Bass was played I was forced onto the floor and had to submit to it’s embrace. It made me walk into another room and lie down alone in front of Constance’s photos of saints on the wall. The walls began to move as did
the pictures and I found myself looking out the window up at the millions of stars above dark blue ocean of Malibu connecting to all the universe…Everyone was in their own sacred space…

I drove home completely changed and in a place of great peace. The healing of her music explodes inner journey’s never experienced in any guided meditation.”

“The evening was truly transcendent, hearkening back to a higher age of human consciousness. Constance is bringing what has been forgotten back into the Light once again; a preserver of what was and a catalyst for what will be…. healing sounds; attuning us with our souls, aligning us with cosmic harmony.”

“Constance, the parlor concert Saturday night was an absolute RUSH. What an extraordinary pleasure and privilege it was to meet, chat and get to know you and to experience your music in such a warm, spiritually rejuvenating and intimate setting.  It was an honor to be in the presence of a woman who has given our world some of the most beautiful music
imaginable.  You are quite the Earth Mother…”

For more information on upcoming home concerts and/or CD’s by Constance, visit her site,

by Adyashanti

[Listen to Audio! ]

Many spiritual seekers have had glimpses of the absolute unity of all existence, but few are capable of or willing to live up to the many challenging implications inherent in that revelation. The revelation of perfect unity, that there is no other, is a realization of the ultimate impersonality of all that seems to be so very personal.

“Fish smells from the head” – Vietnamese proverb.

Therefore, if our society stinks, chances are today’s leaders have gaps in integrity and honesty.

Most people cannot imagine Spirituality and Leadership mentioned in the same breath. To many this is combining two entirely unrelated concepts. Yet, the level of our intelligence and our ability to think and analyze and the fact that the human mind’s base is compassion and goodness, this combination of unlikely bedfellows may create the new story we need for the future.

Father Thomas Berry, the late eminent ecologist said in his book Evening Thoughts; “The old story has ended and we are not quite sure what this new story is all about”.

Indeed the old story has ended. Who would have imagined General Motors, a pillar of the United States of America – ‘what was good for GM was good for the US’ – would go down without much of a whimper. The economic and environmental devastation we have seen in the last eighteen months alone is sufficient for us to realize that we certainly need a new story.

The old story is over five hundred years of male dominated leadership based on left brained, linear thinking. This has certainly given a certain part of the world material prosperity, but at what cost ?

The others live in poverty, without access to justice in a world teetering on a climate catastrophe which is a sad reflection on the way the world has been led over that period.

In the old story only a few dominate like the oil, arms and pharmaceutical industries. Domination requires subjugation and these industries thrive on it. All these three have been useful in the old story, but in the new story they will have to transform.

The new story is described as High Touch and High Concept.

High Touch is about finding purpose and meaning to life, eliciting joy in others and being content.

High Concept is about detecting new patterns and opportunities and creating artistic and emotional beauty. Unrelated ideas are brought together to form something new.

This is spirituality. In the new story spirituality is the foundation for Authentic Leadership.

So, how can we marry spirituality with leadership ?. The only way is to focus on self through a life of inquiry and mindfulness.

What is Spirituality?

Let us explore this further. What does spirituality mean ?. To me, spirituality is about integrity. It helps us to find meaning in life, provides a foundation of our values to guide us in the way we behave with self, others and the world around us.

Spirituality is a way of facilitating a dialogue between reason and emotion, between mind and body. This provides a base for growth and transformation from our ego centered material self to an active, unifying, meaning-giving centre.

Spirituality is about a transpersonal vision of goodness, beauty, perfection, generosity, graciousness, and sacrifice. It hinges on dignity for self and others and the foundation is true integrity. Love and compassion is its cornerstone.

In contrast, our education system has shaped us to be more left brained, analytical, rational and target oriented. Religion which is supposed to teach us about spirituality has externalized it and handed over responsibility to an outside entity. We could do anything and ask for forgiveness, but the damage has been done to humanity. There is no focus on the individual responsibility and based on moral values. Religion focuses more on ritual and not personal inquiry and meaning to life. So we misconstrue it to worshiping external deities and statues rather than focusing on self, where our spirituality resides.

If we are to make a lasting transformation in individual behavior, we have to begin with education.

To redesign our education system we have to get away from the traditional Cartesian mind – matter divide which has been the focus of our global education system for the last 500 years. This system promotes IQ based rational, target based learning. It has done well to develop science and technologies to make some of our lives comfortable. Yet, this is the system that has the entire planet on the edge now, with the social challenges of a divided world of ‘haves and have nots’, steeped in insecurity, fear and violence for the ‘have nots’ and the environmental challenges we all face – both the rich and poor. Only a few fortunate of the 6 billion people on this earth live life of dignity for now. The disparity is outrageous, when one thinks that 80% of the world’s wealth is held by a mere 5%. Something has to give and we may lose it all.

Spirituality and education

It is now universally accepted that the focus on the breath and meditation is a way to rid of the ego. Ego clouds our perceptions as it gives us deceptive messages about our sensory encounters. It inflates our self worth and is driven by fear. Meditation focuses our mind to see things clearer as they are and not clouded by the ego centered self importance.

Now there is scientific research done at the W.M. Keck Laboratory for Functional Brain Imaging and Behavior, University of Wisconsin, USA using electroencephalogram (EEG) technology proving that meditators have an higher gamma activity (25 – 40Hz frequency in neural oscillations) and increased synchronization across the entire brain (all the neurons in the body).

Our entire body makes up the mind, but there are neuron concentrations in the brain, heart and stomach areas. When these neurons are not synchronized our thinking (brain), emotions (heart) and intuition (stomach) are not aligned and in balance. This creates stress as we are not able to see and comprehend the world and people around clearly. This skillful center will only come to us with neural synchronicity. When there is alignment integrating the mind there is confidence from clearer perception of the realities.

Neural synchronicity leads to better understanding of self and the surrounding world which takes away fear. When fear is taken away, we become more skillful and centered to deal with the suffering that life is. We do not need the ego to protect us. This will help us to become inquiring and mindful and to follow a path of moderation.

Teach them young

As such, meditation, yoga and martial arts as a practice should be introduced to children from a young age in schools. It will center them and provide balance that will empower them, see other beings and nature around as collaborators rather than adversaries. Unconditional loving-kindness and compassion, the natural way of our being will be highlighted and they will become fearless about suffering and change. They will be more creative to complement the logical left brain and emotionally better balanced through a foundation of spirituality.

There will be a less need for specialization. Inquiry and learning will be more holistic and broad based. High Touch and High Concept will become a way of life. Art, poetry, free flow writing and music along with the sciences can become mainstream in education. Educators will also find a way to simplify and teach quantum physics to show the uncertainties of the world and the results of any experiment is shaped by the experimenter’s own experiences, energy and perception.

Seeing the world clearly will enable the realization of the folly of a world dominated by the oil industry, protected by a weapons industry making puppets out of politicians and controlled by a handful of people. Emotional and spiritual intelligence will enable them to see that and IQ based world founded on reductionist science is not sustainable. Fearlessness coupled with benevolence will give them the courage to get together to act against these corrupt, power hungry, ego centered forces not with violence but with skillful compassion. Together it will be easier to convince those few Narcissists to see the folly of their ways through skillful dialogue and crucial conversations. It will set them free from fear, the high walls and the guards that are needed to protect them and their wealth.

We have failed our children

All I know is our generation and the many previous ones have failed our children. The least we could do is to equip them to clean up this mess, to help them see clearly who the real adversaries are and that they are not out there but within us first, our selfish ego centered natures have to be tamed first. This focus on self will help us to live and love in this world differently.

I have faith and confidence in humanity as benevolence and compassion pervades the mind as a way of our being. So, the onus is on us now to put a mirror on ourselves to change our own thinking and behavior from the IQ base to integrate emotional intelligence and to acknowledge our spirituality so we really find some meaning to our life. This meaning just may give the leadership capability to our children for a better chance at survival.

Fish does smell from the head, so let us illuminate this head to emanate a scent of loving kindness and compassion to all beings and nature around us.

One of my readers, Mo Charbonneau,  just send me a link to Cool Mind, Warm Heart, written by Steve Roberts who describes himself as “a servant to those who consider their work in the world a spiritual adventure.” Mo says his essays “His essays sometimes make me cry, almost always make me laugh, and usually cause my heart to be a little more open. He lives in the Green Mountains of Vermont on his Sun Bear Farm where, among other things,  he builds communities of stone people and photographs them.   His essays, whimsical drawings, and photographs can be viewed at his website, which is also the name of his book of essays:  www.coolmindwarmheart.com.” You can subscribe to “My Two Cents” (essays) and “Inner Ink” (drawings) there as well.

Losing a child at 3 to cancer is a devastating experience and most women are deeply wounded and many have trouble living as before. In Maria Housden’s case, she shared her emotional experience with the world in her remarkable book, Hanna’s Gift. I can’t recommend this extraordinary  story too highly. It offers deep insight into the joy of a very wise and loving child and her effect on a mother who is able to put into words emotions that are often suppressed or remain in a valley of grief and can do great harm to the mother. Clearly Maria’s transparent and authentic heart and soul and come through this book as does Hanna’s and both their gifts make this a book a treasure. Fortunately, for Hannah, maria and the world, their wonderful book will soon be a feature film that can reach the much larger audience it deserves. I will look forward to reviewing the film as soon as I see it.

Below is a recent interview with Maria and if you happen to be by a tv tomorrow, you can see Maria on Dr. Phil discussing her difficult but right decision for her to give her husband custody of their children after Hannah’s passing and their subsequent divorce..

Live streaming video by Ustream

Kirtan Rabbi: Live! was recorded after sundown on June 14, 2008 at Congregation Bnai Jeshurun in New York City. Unless otherwise noted, all melodies are by Rabbi Andrew Hahn. The words are drawn from the Hebrew Bible and the siddur (the traditional Jewish prayerbook), as well as from the language of kabbalah (Jewish mysticism).

Merging Hebrew Chanting with Indian Music really works. See what you think…