While on retreat, communing with spirit just before the New Year, I received a message from a producer named Mary Bissell. She wanted to interview me about the Ecstatic Body Postures for a new daytime CBC-TV show called 'Living Vancouver'. It would play in Vancouver and across Canada. She was looking for activities in Vancouver that would enrich people's lives and help manage stress.

I said 'of course!' without any hesitation and was filled with gratitude that spirit had opened a window to connect this work to the wider world.

Later I questioned,' Oh my, this is a three-minute spot on popular television. Will the content be so diluted it will be diminished and de-sacralized?' But these questioning knots quickly dissipated when I opened again to gratitude, which grew into a flood of hope.

Mary was curious about every detail of the work and asked many questions. She thought we would have time for both of us to do postures and to introduce several more. Of course I prepared completely, ready to provide a thorough dissertation. Indeed they took three and a half hours to shoot. I taught Mary the Bear Posture and I did the Feathered Serpent.

The interview was edited to the requisite three minutes and Mary was able to hold the tension between respect for the material and the need to engage an audience unfamiliar with such an esoteric topic. Her humor brought in the necessary touch of humanity, enhanced by her wishing me happy birthday as it was, auspiciously, my 60th birthday on that day.

Though several people said they saw the interview, I will never know how much it affected or intrigued the wider TV audience. The media chews up and spits the world out at a furious pace. But I am still brimming with my flood of hope.

In spite, or perhaps, because of the myriad ways we are surrounded by pain and suffering worldwide, hearts and minds are opening to the call of spirit. We feel a longing for teaching and wisdom that goes beyond what has been familiar. Somehow I trust that through this tiny exposure to the postures, people will be inspired to look at new and ancient ways to be with divine presence, to realize that they are not alone, but always held lovingly by those in other dimensions of reality. What better way to manage stress than to have the felt sense of our connection to all being brought so powerfully to our bodies by the wonder of this work.

View the segment online

View more from the June 2007 Newsletter