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Lynn Serafinn's Garden of the Soul: Author and Personal Transformation Coach hosts a range of inspiring topics and special guests, exploring personal empowerment, life purpose, balance of mind, body and spirit, and how to tap into the inner hero that lies within every human being. Described as “a brilliant, creative out-of-the-box thinker” Lynn is the author of the Amazon bestseller “The Garden of the Soul: lessons from four flowers that unearth the Self" (spirituality, self-help, mind-body-spirit).
Date / Time: 6/6/2009 11:55 PM UTC
Author, Personal Transformation Coach Lynn Serafinn interviews author/spiritual coach Steve Ryals on www.blogtalkradio.com/Lynn-Serafinn
SHOW: Lynn Serafinn’s Garden of the Soul
EP20-Feeling is Healing
GUEST: Steve Ryals
DATE AIRED: Wednesday 3 June 2009
Every now and then, you meet a person whose every thought, word and way of looking at things just seems to shine back to you like a mirror. My guest on my last episode of “Lynn Serafinn’s Garden of the Soul” was one of those rare mirrors, whose clarity of heart was so evident that we were able to connect within seconds of first speaking together. That person was Mr Steve Ryals, a licensed spiritual coach and “Feelings Coach,” and author of the transformative book Drunk with Wonder.
Steve’s book kicks off with a bang. The opening words of the first sentence hurtle us directly into a graphic scene in which he describes one of his many experiences shooting speed in Haight Ashbury in the 1960s. From that scene, we travel along with Steve down the rabbit hole of bereavement, depression, alcoholism and dissociation. But Steve shows us this descent only for the sake of contrast, for his book is far from a nostalgic ode to the Summer of Love. It is, rather, a collection of spiritual dialogues between Steve and his Higher Self.
Which brings us to explore the reasons why this book is described as ’Where What the Bleep Do we Know? meets ‘Conversations with God’.
First, let’s talk about 'Conversations'. Dialogue as a literary vehicle is as old as philosophical thought itself. While so many of our modern philosophical works are presented in the form of scholarly theses, the Greeks, the ancient Indian Vedas and countless other oral traditions of the past utilised dialogues (and metaphoric stories) to present and explain complex spiritual concepts. Following in the tradition of these ancient texts, Steve Ryals, in Drunk with Wonder, allows his Higher Self to engage in an ongoing debate with his 'lower self', who asks many of the same kinds of questions we might also ask during the process of our own spiritual evolution. Such a dialogue enables Steve to speak eye-to-eye to the reader, rather than positioning himself above the reader as some kind of expert. In this way, the reader travels along with Steve as his two selves hash out finer details of the meaning of life. In travelling along with Steve on the journey, he becomes our ally in our own transformation.
If any of you have read my book, The Garden of the Soul, you will no doubt remember that I also use dialogue in my discourses with the Four Flowers, the Very Good King, and also in my escapades with Crow in the story 'Learning to Breathe.' I did this because I strongly feel that carefully constructed dialogue is possibly one of the most effective means of presenting a deep, spiritual message. Steve’s use of dialogue is slightly different, although the impact is similar. When I read Drunk with Wonder, the dialogue reminded me a bit of how Boethius wrote the classic work The Consolation of Philosophy way back in the 6th or 7th century. In that work, Boethius is visited by the personification of Philosophy, who brings him to a state of Divine Wisdom through the vehicle of dialogue. Steve does much the same in Drunk with Wonder except that his teachings come from our 21st century perspective, where quantum physics, field theory and holistic thinking have informed our way of explaining the nature of Truth.
Which brings us nicely to the whole 'What the Bleep Do We Know?' thing. Back in the days when I was studying Vedic (ancient Indian) spirituality, I used to chant a lot of Sanskrit mantras. The Sanskrit word Sat appeared in many of them. Most books translated the word Sat as 'eternity', but I always felt that this did not give the true purport of the word, so I made up the word 'is-ness' to explain what I felt the word Sat to mean. I remember my daughter, when she was little, always used to comment on how much she liked that word, because it was easy to understand the complex meaning of the wordSat by thinking of it in that way. Well, as I was reading Drunk with Wonder, to my great surprise and delight Steve also uses the word 'is-ness' to describe our intrinsic and unchanging state of being. This made-up word speaks to us at a direct and intuitive level that bypasses the intellect and eradicates the need for logic... which I sort of think is at the backbone of Steve’s Truth. When we start to trust and release the need to understand the Infinite by means of our own finite thought, we start to step into the Divine.
Ok, so I’ve tried to explain a little bit about the style in which Steve’s book in written, but in this blog post I am not going to give away what the profound, yet easy to understand, teachings of the book contain. For that, you will just have to pick up your own copy of Drunk with Wonder and travel with Steve through his journeys with his Higher Self. But first, if you want to get a feeling for how, well, feelingly Steve presents his pathway to the Truth, check out his beautiful reading of one of the poems from the book near the end of the podcast. To my delight, he said that there is indeed an audio version of the book available via iTunes (see link below).
Steve and I did quite a lot of talking both before and after the show, and I felt like we had so much more we wanted to share. He is a lovely person, with a lot of passion for his work and for people in general, so he really is (as I said at the top of this article) just so easy to talk to. We both felt there simply wasn’t enough time on the air to cover everything we wanted to discuss. The whole experience has really got me thinking to extend the show to 60 minutes in length. My guests just keep getting better and better and 30 minutes is just not long enough.
Guess I’ll just have to invite Steve back some day.
AND... watch this space, because I’d actually like to collaborate with Steve to create some sort of intercontinental spiritual awakening experience sometime in early 2010. I’ll keep you posted. J
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you want to find out more about Steve and his work, listen to the podcast below. And after you do, be sure to visit Steve’s websites, and check out his book on Amazon.
Listen to the playback or download the MP3 of this show from:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Lynn-Serafinn/2009/06/03/Ep20-Feeling-is-Healing
Steve’s Official Drunk with Wonder Website:
www.drunkwithwonder.com
Audio Book version of Drunk with Wonder on iTunes
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAudiobook?id=251938760&s=143441
Browse through other episodes at: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Lynn-Serafinn
NEXT ON Lynn Serafinn’s Garden of the Soul
Wednesday 10 June SHOW: Lynn Serafinn's Garden of the Soul Ep21-Integrating Spirit and Human 6.30 PM UK time, 1.30 PM Eastern, 10.30 AM Pacific, 7.30 PM CET Author and Personal Transformation Coach Lynn Serafinn hosts life empowerment facilitator, transformational life coach and talk radio show host, Joe Rumbolo. Joe will share his story of how he overcame the challenges of his own lack of confidence, and learned how to recognise and step into opportunities he would never have dreamed of in the past. He will tell us about his experiences with creative channelling and his thoughts on conscious evolution, and will draw upon the material from his workshops to offer us tips on how to “dump the junk” that holds us back, so we can move towards the ascension of our own higher consciousness
Listen LIVE or download the broadcast "on demand" at: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Lynn-Serafinn/2009/06/10/Ep21-Integrating-Spirit-and-Human Listener questions: call at 646-727-3449 during broadcast (US number)
About the show, “Lynn Serafinn’s Garden of the Soul”
Weekly broadcast exploring personal empowerment, life purpose, balance of mind, body and spirit, and how to tap into the inner hero that lies within every human being. Hosted by Lynn Serafinn, Personal Transformation Coach and author living in Bedford England dedicated to awakening the authentic voice in all people. She is the author of the Amazon bestselling book The Garden of the Soul: lessons from four flowers that unearth the Self, and the Founder/Leader of The Global Wellness Circle, a holistic community project that is rapidly spreading throughout the UK.
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