Spiritual Media Reviews
Spiritual media (books, films, podcasts, DVD’s, music, etc.) has the potential to illuminate the landscape of our evolution and stir us to remember who we can be when we reach beyond the seen into a realm where we engage the magical aspects of our human-spiritual potential.
Spiritual media is the 21st century version of storytelling around the proverbial campfire with authors, filmmakers and musicians as the modern day shamans passing down the myths and hopes of a culture from one generation to another.
Within the market of spiritual media there are some wonderfully motivational and inspiring products available that remind us of the eternal nature of the soul's journey. Regardless of what most mainstream media outlets suggest, humanity is not a debased species and these products punctuate that distinction. They encourage us to manifest the magic of our potential as the dreamers, lovers, and architects of a new rconsciousness where we truly can find peace within our hearts and minds.
Below appears our reviews and recommendation for some outstanding spiritual media. Your experiences, personal suggestions and feedback on this subject is welcome here as well.
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Harold and Maude
What is the message of Harold and Maude? Rid yourself of all authorities, give up the ideas of power and status and private ownership, get in touch with your body: create, rejoice in the moment, forget your obsession with death.
Throughout the film, Maude replaces respect for laws with allegiance to her desires and her conscience. She dismisses conventional behavior and "aims above morality" toward a personal, independent ethic of openness, spontaneity, and generosity.
The entire movie is about rebirth.
Maude philosophizes continuously about living life to the fullest, about rebellion and noncomformity, about individualism and spontaneity. Her speeches are in fact a remarkable compendium of libertarian attitudes, ranging from antistatism down to the most personal and immediate independence.
What is the message of Harold and Maude? Rid yourself of all authorities, give up the ideas of power and status and private ownership, get in touch with your body: create, rejoice in the moment, forget your obsession with death. These points in Harold and Maude are explicitly stated and explicitly visualized. Maude actually says that we should liberate ourselves from private property and she "borrows" vehicles from various authorities to remind them that ownership is transient. She says, "What's the use of nations and borders and patriotism?" She tells a policeman that she doesn't believe in licenses--and promptly steals his motorcycle. When Harold says he's going to be drafted, her immediate reaction is "Well, don't go." Throughout the film, Maude replaces respect for laws with allegiance to her desires and her conscience. She dismisses conventional behavior and "aims above morality" toward a personal, independent ethic of openness, spontaneity, and generosity. Ultimately, Maude is even able to aim above fate, and manipulate the grim ferryman to suit her own wishes.
Colin Higgins's intention was "a pictorialization of existential philosophy; like Camus' Sisyphus . . . a prevelant twentieth-century style -- an individual doing one thing endlessly and without hope," to be contrasted with Maude, who is full of variety and innovation.
Harold and Maude = 5 Five Stars; my highest recommendation
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Avatar: I See You
The immersive experience of Avatar would be enough on its own. That you are taken into a world where you essentially take part in the journey and evolution of a hero that deals with a supreme conflict just makes this film even more worth experiencing in a digital 3D theatre.
Avatar is very much a film that relies on the universal motif of adventure and transformation known as the Hero's Journey.
As Joseph Campbell might describe it, Jake Sully's destiny summons him and transfers "his spiritual center of gravity from within the pale of society to a zone unknown." Destiny leads him to reconcile his role as an enabler of the exploitative colonialist corporate army whose supreme goal is to claim a natural resource beneath the Hometree that the Omaticayan people inhabit with the Na'vi people's culture, spirituality, and their connection with the land and animals of Pandora.
And, quite literally, Sully becomes a master of two worlds. He resists the colonialist forces of corporate domination that he has been serving and empowers all life on Pandora at a critical moment when all must act to stave off the "sky people's" attempt at total domination through a massive shock and awe campaign.
As detailed in Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces:
"The individual, through prolonged psychological disciplines, gives up completely all attachment to his personal limitations, idiosyncrasies, hopes and fears, no longer resists the self-annihilation that is prerequisite to rebirth in the realization of truth, and so becomes ripe, at last, for the great at-one-ment (atonement). His personal ambitions being totally dissolved, he no longer tries to live but willingly relaxes to whatever may come to pass in him; he becomes, that is to say, anonymity. The Law lives in him with his unreserved consent."
This is truer with the film Avatar than many of the films that seem to be modeled off the universal motif that is the Hero's Journey. For at the end of the film, there's a certain spiritual triumph to be felt.
Perhaps, here is where the immersive experience of 3D makes the film so grand.
The story of a culture of indigenous people that seem to have a "seven generations ahead" approach to living life, that have a deep understand and a spiritual connection to nature and the world that they live on and within.
The story of this culture triumphing over the exploitative mercenary forces of planet Earth is inspirational and exhilarating.
A supreme mythological narrative about the people's right to self-determination versus the corporatist domination and suffocation of a people, their cultures, and the very planet they live on is a narrative that all people in our world should take in, enjoy, and reflect upon.
Director James Cameron may not intend for this film to be anything more than entertainment, but certainly, the people of Planet Earth can interpret it as much more than entertainment if they so choose and I hope many who see it will
While initially those who see this will ask the pop culture driven questions, "Is it better than Star Wars? Is it as good as Lord of the Rings?", spiritually conscious members of the viewing audience who wish to explore more elements of the culture of the Na'vi and ask deeper philosophical questions about the film will eventually draw comparisons between the world of today and the world of Pandora in 2154.
James Cameron's Avatar = 5 Five Stars; my highest recommendation
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There’s a little film that briefly visited theaters, now on DVD: “Idiocracy” starring Luke Wilson and Saturday Night Live alum Maya Rudolph, directed by Mike Judge. You may love it; you may not. It's a mixed bag, for sure — and certainly not your classic "spiritual cinema."
The movie is R-rated, and may be inappropriate or offensive to some. But I tend to like off-the-traveled path, quirky films.
The film tells the story of two ordinary people who are taken into a top-secret military hibernation experiment that goes awry, and awaken 500 years in the future. They discover that the world has degenerated into a dystopia where advertising, commercialism, and cultural anti-intellectualism run rampant and dysgenic pressure has resulted in a uniformly stupid human society devoid of individual responsibility or consequences.
I don't know if “Idiocracy” stands up to favorites like "Harold and Maude" or "Groundhog Day" — and wouldn't exactly call it a gem — but it made an impression on me. A clever satire and almost prophetically scary comedy about one possible dystopian future toward which we may be trending.
Idiocracy= 4 Stars – Definitely worth your time
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Celebrate What's Right with the World
As travelers on a metaphysical journey we attract issues in need of healing, not repelling them. Many resources do an excellent job of helping maximizing these issues in their complexity. Many resources provide us with in depth research on what’s wrong with lives and our world. But there is a time to struggle, and a time to feel the strength; there is a time to wrestle, and a time to dance. I use these terms in a context where people seem to be tired of trying, cynical and used to almost constant of suffering. That state of being can be depleting and depressing.
Try to imagine a resource that tells us what’s right with our world when day after day what’s wrong is so overwhelmingly clear. “Celebrate What’s Right with the World” goes beyond telling to showing. I have seen this presentation on everything from computer screen to wide screen and no matter what format is used I am always left in awe. It is a twenty-five minute immersion into the art of seeing. The video is produced and narrated by National Geographic photographer Dewitt Jones. His words and his photography come together to create for the viewer an experience of transforming inspiration. Jones invites us to adjust our vision. At one point in the video he states, “We’ve heard the saying, ‘seeing is believing’ but what I’ve learned is that believing is seeing.” Over and over again Jones invites the viewer to look again. Don’t wait for the perfect picture; know that every instant offers the opportunity for that perspective of perfection and beauty. Again in his words, “When we walk into a forest full of trees, does the forest ever say, there is one perfect picture here and only one of you will capture it?”
Essentially the video is a common sense invitation to inspiration as a way of being. Jones calls us to risk seeing, to risk the image before our eyes. He uses his photography as a metaphor for life. We live in a competitive world which proclaims that “second place is the first loser” and when we give in to that kind of fear we miss the opportunity to celebrate the wonder that is in this world, and instead choose to see only what’s wrong, what we missed, and what might have been.
This wonderful production is built on a theme of imagination and inspiration; an amazing offering that may well re-energize, renew and restore your to move into that place of knowing that celebration of what is right with this world can indeed enable the hope that does not get over-whelmed by what’s wrong. This DVD is not an avoidance of pain or suffering, rather it is an affirmation of meaning in all that life offers. It is realistic in its content, and at the same time it reveals an inner and outer world that we all too often simply don’t see in all its glory. If nothing else view it for yourself. You deserve the restoration and revelation that they offer. You can view Celebrate What’s Right with the World on my recommended links page or by clicking here.
Celebrate What's Right with the World = 5 Five Stars; my highest recommendation
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Living Luminaries: The Serious Business of Happiness
Happiness: that state we all want but many of us have such a tough time defining.
Or, more challenging yet, that state of being some of us actually do attain yet fail to recognize as we’re experiencing it so we keep searching for it when it has already found us.
Gotham Metro Studios has produced an engaging and illuminating documentary, “Living Luminaries” (On The Serious Pursuit of Happiness), which details a young, upwardly mobile man’s journey as he seeks to discover true happiness from extraordinary spiritual luminaries. Viewers are treated to Marianne Williamson’s brilliant and compassionate insights, Don Miguel Ruiz’s mystical vision, Rev. Dr. Michael Beckwith’s unique blend of insights, humanity, humor, and vision as well as Eckhart Tolle’s wisdom of the power of now. Others in the film may be less known to us but leave an indelible impression on our psyche and in our hearts.
According to the film, the common denominator of the serious pursuit of happiness is the need for all of us to look deep within ourselves for what truly makes us happy. All spirituality is as individual as is all happiness and therein lies its true power. Liberated from the need or desire to conform to any particular rules or edicts, we are then free to explore and consciously address the relationships and activities that truly bring happiness to our unique selves.
One of the greatest gifts of Living Luminaries is that we feel so empowered at the end of the film that each one of us can truly find, embrace, and retain whatever definition we have for happiness. The film actually illuminates a pathway down which we can travel to discover the essence of our own personal joy. When a film accomplishes that, it transcends the art form itself.
If you enjoyed “The Secret”, I think that you will find that Living Luminaries is the next step in the discovery of who we can be when we open to the magic of the beauty of our own humanity.
Living Luminaries = 4 Stars – Definitely worth your time.
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Spiritual Liberation: Fulfilling Your Soul's Potential
What is it like to spend a day in the life of one of America’s most well-known spiritual leaders? That is the subject of the documentary, Spiritual Liberation: Fulfilling Your Soul's Potential, which provides an up close and personal look into the life of Rev. Dr. Michael Bernard Beckwith and his wife Ricki Byars-Beckwith. If you enjoyed Michael Beckwith's spiritual wisdom in The Secret, you're in for a treat.
Fast moving, tightly edited and beautifully crafted by director Mickey Willis, Spiritual Liberation gives viewers an opportunity to take an intimate walk with Dr. Beckwith and witness how in his daily life he applies his own evolutionary teachings. The movie expertly flashes between “the Rev’s” energy-packed services at the Agape Church and conversations with friends around the dinner table.
The action flows back and forth from sanctuary to dining room table talk. It was a very sweet and very powerful thing for me to see and hear how the dinner party guests integrate the Agape teachings into their daily life, at the kitchen sink level, because that’s what matters, that there’s a practical practice that can affect their lives.
As the founder and spiritual director of the Agape International Spiritual Center in Los Angeles, Dr. Beckwith is an international speaker and teacher of meditation/affirmative prayer, and is the originator of the Life Vision process. His book, Spiritual Liberation: Fulfilling Your Soul’s Potential, was recently awarded a Gold Nautilus book award.
One of many memorable quotes from Michael in this movie include, "You are here as a bearer of the gift that is lodged within you that you are setting free...you are in the field of birthing the gift economy, the spiritual gift domain where individuals are living on this planet to share, to shine, to glow, to give, to radiate the gift that is within you"
This film captures the essence of Reverend Dr. Michael Bernard Beckwith and the clear love and joy that moves through him in all that he does. The film, using his life as an example, shows how each of us can tap into the unlimited potential of our own lives. While watching I could feel the shift within me. Beautifully produced, the film opens the door for new choices and new and more expansive ways of living in the world.
Spiritual Liberation = 5 Five Stars; my highest recommendation
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Playing for Change: Songs Around the World
“The act of playing music with people of different cultures, religions, economics and politics is a powerful statement. It shows that we as a people can find ways of working together and sharing our experiences with one another in a positive way. Music has the power to break down the walls between cultures, to raise the level of human understanding.”
- Producer Mark Johnson
To be moved by music is a wondrous feeling. Whether you are moved to feel, dance, sing, or play, there is something about music that reverberates through each of us. And even in a world feeling lost and afraid in the face of global changes, music is one thing that can bring us together.
Add to that the need to keep music alive and you find a group of people doing some remarkable things around the world. Even in the midst of poverty, war, or famine, the Playing for Change Foundation aims to share more than the music of the many musicians they have met during the course of their travels. They are building music schools so that these gifted artists can pass along their skills and passion to the next generation so this precious resource is not lost.
The Playing for Change: Songs Around the World album is part of a multimedia effort to inspire, connect, and bring peace to the world through music. Using a mobile recording studio, a group of people traveled wherever the music took them. This is not a political or spiritual mission, but an artistic one with the goal of helping people see that music can unite us as a people regardless of ideology, location, or religion.
Playing for Change began a decade ago, the brainchild of Grammy-winning music producer and engineer Mark Johnson. "I was in a subway in New York on my way to work, and I heard these two monks playing music," he recalls. "They were painted head to toe, all white, wearing robes. One was playing a nylon guitar, and the other was singing in a language I didn't understand. There were about 200 people who stopped to watch, didn't even get on the train. Some had tears in their eyes. And it occurred to me that here is a group of people that would normally run by each other, but instead they're coming together. And it's the music that brought them together."
For 4 years Johnson and his PFC team traveled the globe, with a single-minded passion to record little-known musicians for what would become Playing for Change - its name evoking the coins thrown to street musicians as well as the transformation their music inspires. They went to New Orleans shortly after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. "The city felt sad and desolate, yet the music never stopped," says Johnson. "The street musicians and music in the clubs kept the city alive and gave it a sense of hope." When they visited South Africa and witnessed its growing pains in the aftermath of apartheid, "we saw that people marching down streets singing in groups of thousands did more to effect positive change than any weapons ever could."
Their ambitious journey took them from post-apartheid South Africa, through the ancient sites of the Middle East, to the remote beauty of the Himalayas and beyond. Using innovative mobile technology, the PFC crew filmed and recorded more than 100 musicians, largely outdoors, in parks, plazas and promenades, in doorways, on cobblestone streets and amid hilly pueblos. Each captured performance created a new mix in which essentially the artists are all performing together, albeit hundreds or thousands of miles apart. In a recent interview with Johnson, PBS’ Bill Moyers called Playing for Change a remarkable example of “the simple yet transformative power of music...to touch something in each of us.”
Some of the magical moments include Ireland’s Omagh Community Youth Choir singing a powerful version of “Love Rescue Me,” written by U2 and Bob Dylan, and American street musicians Roger Ridley and Grandpa Elliott harmonizing with Clarence Bekker from the Netherlands amid an assembly of artists from Russia, Spain, Venezuela, France and Brazil on the Ben E. King/Leiber and Stoller classic “Stand By Me,” the video of which has already become a YouTube sensation with over seven million views.
For me, the absolute highlight of the album is an exhilarating version of the Bob Marley classic “War/No More Trouble”. The track (and video) includes musicians from The Congo, Israel, India, Ireland, South Africa, the U.S., Zimbabwe and Ghana, along with U2’s Bono and Bob Marley. Marley’s “One Love” proved to be an irresistible choice for the producers as well, enlisting American Keb’ Mo’ to sing with performers from India, Israel, Nepal, South Africa and Zimbabwe. Halfway through listening to the track I was in tears. As Bob Marley said, “When the music hits, you feel no pain.” This was the case with my experience of Playing for Change.
The producers of Playing for Change have created a movement that transcends language, border and culture, one that brings people together to a common purpose: peace through music.
Through music, perhaps our world will one day find peace. Please keep that hope alive. Buy a copy of the Playing for Change: Songs Around the World CD/DVD or better yet, donate to the cause at the Playing for Change website. Join a movement and help this music touch more peoples' hearts around the world.
Playing for Change = 5 Five Stars; my highest recommendation