Ep. 187 (Part 1 of 2) | Dr. Sally Adnams Jones has pioneered the field of art therapy as an agent of transformation and healing, choosing to work particularly with people living with no economic infrastructure: refugees, and victims of natural disasters, genocide, war, pandemics, and more. What Sally has found is that creating art within a community works miracles for the dispossessed and traumatized, in that it provides an embodied, practical method of engendering feelings of pride, a sense of belonging, finding one’s voice, and perceiving the future as something one can affect and shape. In fact, this work is applicable to everyone everywhere—it is in accessing our creativity that we come to ask, “How do we start to build the world we need?” An Integral Taoist, Sally shares her perspective on the yin and yang of creativity, explaining that ultimately, creativity is emergence working through the human body.

At the heart of Integral Taoism is an understanding that the nature of emergence itself is to become aware of your polarity and integrate it. The more you do that, the more creative you become. The discussion transitions from the dance of polarity in creativity to how the polarities of yin and yang are playing out in politics today. Sally is a Canadian therapist and exceptionally well informed about politics—here we gain a perspective on current U.S. – Canadian relations and world politics that is revelatory. Recorded May 29, 2025.

“The basis of self-esteem is agency—and how you find agency is finding your hands, your heart, and your voice.”

• Introducing Dr. Sally Adnams Jones, pioneer of transformation through creativity, psycho-spiritual educator, artist, author (00:56)
• How did Sally come to this work? Every kind of trauma exists in South Africa (01:58)
• Sally’s book, Art-Making with Refugees and Survivors, is about how to access our creativity when we’ve been dispossessed and dislocated, with no agency left (05:11)
• Using your hands to access pre-verbal trauma: it starts with the thumb/hand/brain connection (07:07)
• Building self-esteem, pride, community, and hope through creating art (09:02)
• How does Sally build trust going into indigenous communities? (12:20)
• What happened to our creativity? In the modern era, we started discounting the right hemisphere (18:05)
• De-gendering creativity (20:43)
• Integral Taoism: understanding that the nature of emergence is to become aware of your polarity and integrate it (22:44)
• At the lower chakras, masculine and feminine come together as procreative; at the higher levels as creative (25:58)
• The ultimate understanding is about the mystery, an embodied channel to the divine (28:53)
• Creativity: emergence working through the human body (29:55)
• How do we potentiate through our body? Through understanding polarity principles (32:08)
• Sally’s initiation to Integral Taoism in a park in Beijing, China (36:49)
• As an integrally informed Canadian therapist, what does Sally think about current U.S./Canada politics? (41:51)
• Polarization, and how polarities and yin/yang play out in politics (44:16)

• Sally Adnams Jones, Art-Making with Refugees and Survivors: Creative and Transformative Responses to Trauma After...

Ep. 186 (Part 2 of 2) | In this lively, mind and heart-opening conversation, Miranda Macpherson, contemporary spiritual teacher and author, shares the extraordinary wisdom she has gained from experience—both from the initial life-changing transmission of boundless love she received in Ramana Maharshi’s cave, and from the subsequent need for integration of the deeper truths that were revealed upon being called back “down the mountain,” back to the West to teach and serve. For her, the trick of navigating ordinary life without reconstructing an ego boiled down to three words: What’s needed now?

Miranda discusses how to show up in the world of today and not let resistance to right action win. “Wake up and love,” she offers. “Take inventory, ask, is there anything in the way of me being openhearted and awake in this moment?” She explains a practice she developed called ego relaxation, emphasizes the power of devotion—the source of strength, love, courage, and motivation—and shares several of the key questions she asks herself in her own practice to keep her receptive to existential grace. Miranda’s inspiring teachings are infused with her foundational sense of divine benevolence; “Grace is alive!” she tells us. And being human, we can embody grace; we can become “grace delivery devices.” Recorded November 1, 2024.

“Being human is a grace delivery device.”

• After the ascent the descent; "coming down the mountain" (01:28)
• The power of devotion (04:12)
• A mantra carries with it the love, spiritual energy, and devotion of countless beings before us (06:28)
• The power of pilgrimages (08:58)
• Miranda’s practice now: Can I open my heart to all the suffering, let it be understood more completely, and be transformed? (12:22)
• Wake up and love: ask "Is there anything in the way of me being openhearted and awake in the now?" (15:44)
• Practicing with our blind spots (18:46)
• Multitasking is a disaster for spiritual practice (20:22)
• Ramana Maharshi’s transmission in the cave: Be nothing, do nothing, get nothing… be as you are. Rest in God. (22:24)
• Ego relaxation as a practice (23:40)
• Showing up and resting in God at the same time (26:50)
• The divine dance—here we are, learning how to be the best human beings we can be (30:41)
• The divine force always brings forth what is needed, but the gate is humility and surrender (34:24)
• What helps us into a posture of humility? (35:39)
• Appreciating Roger Walsh: do-er and be-er, curious and humble (38:15)
• Being human is a “grace delivery device;” embodying grace—grace is alive! (40:35)
• The importance of yes, of thank you (43:38)

• Miranda’s website: MirandaMacpherson.com, The Living Grace Global Sangha
• Miranda Macpherson, The Way of Grace: The Transforming Power of Ego Relaxation
• A. H....

Ep. 185 (Part 1 of 2) | In this lively, mind and heart-opening conversation, Miranda Macpherson, contemporary spiritual teacher and author, shares the extraordinary wisdom she has gained from experience—both from the initial life-changing transmission of boundless love she received in Ramana Maharshi’s cave, and from the subsequent need for integration of the deeper truths that were revealed upon being called back “down the mountain,” back to the West to teach and serve. For her, the trick of navigating ordinary life without reconstructing an ego boiled down to three words: What’s needed now?

Miranda discusses how to show up in the world of today and not let resistance to right action win. “Wake up and love,” she offers. “Take inventory, ask, is there anything in the way of me being openhearted and awake in this moment?” She explains a practice she developed called ego relaxation, emphasizes the power of devotion—the source of strength, love, courage, and motivation—and shares several of the key questions she asks herself in her own practice to keep her receptive to existential grace. Miranda’s inspiring teachings are infused with her foundational sense of divine benevolence; “Grace is alive!” she tells us. And being human, we can embody grace; we can become “grace delivery devices.” Recorded November 1, 2024.

“There’s always more evolution, openness, clarification, expansion, and possibility—because God is exponential.”

• A prayer for all of us—for the human family and the highest possibilities (01:03)
• Introducing interfaith minister, spiritual teacher, author, and leader of the Living Grace Global Sangha, Miranda Macpherson (02:53)
• What brought Miranda to the spiritual path? (03:56)
• Miranda’s early prayer of resistance (I’m done here!) and the subsequent explosion of boundless love (08:37)
• Miranda’s opportunity at a young age to learn what a soul grapples with, hanging out with adults in a psych ward (12:14)
• Were there mentors to help Miranda after her opening? (17:01)
• How much harder it must be for teenagers to copy with existential crisis today (21:59)
• The G word: what is the authentic language of our own soul? (24:17)
• The fear we all have of remembering the ancient, forgotten song (25:14)
• Ultimately it asks for full surrender; then there is only God (27:18)
• It’s in the edgiest places that the biggest openings often happen (28:38)
• For every realization you have to ask, what is its wisdom? How can it be expressed & embodied so its only impact is a blessing? (30:20)
• Are there more people waking up now? (33:39)
• Not knowing what anything is for: being receptive to existential grace (38:17)
• Being absorbed into the depth of the nonconceptual: pure being in its thunderous, unshakable, silent depth (39:48)
• The experience in the cave obliterated everything—all spiritual concepts were erased (42:46)
• How to navigate ordinary life without reconstructing an ego (43:46)

• Miranda’s website: MirandaMacpherson.com
• The Living Grace Global Sangha
• Miranda Macpherson,