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Meow, meow, meooooowwwww is the communication I best understand from my feline roommate, Deacon. It means, “Wake up! It’s time for food!” I whistle back a four-note melody that somehow—in a way long forgotten—developed to mean, “I hear you. Now, pipe down.” Deacon counters with what I call paw-based Morse code. He draws his outstretched nails across the top of my bed’s comforter three slow times, pauses, and repeats until I wake up. It is effective. I get up and feed him.

Deacon’s not alone in learning how to effectively communicate with the humans he lives with. Lots of cats and dogs have learned to interpret human gestures and tones of voice and communicate with us through gazing. Species such as dolphins and ravens have demonstrated an ability to recognize individual humans and adapt their behavior based on our actions. Honeyguide birds lead humans to beehives, hoping we will harvest the honey so they can feed on the leftover wax and larvae. Nonverbal human-animal dialogue has evolved over centuries, shaping deep bonds between humans and animals.

Interspecies dialogue often means cross-species communication too. Baboons and antelope often keep watch together. When one species detects a predator, such as a lion, they alert the other through alarm calls and body movements. Or consider a skunk’s pungent spray. It’s not just for defense—the smell serves as a warning signal to predators that they should stay away. And it works. Foxes and badgers learn to associate the skunk’s lingering scent with danger, causing them to avoid confrontation.

Fascinated by this other-than-verbal world, humans have learned to interpret animal behavior through careful observation. Body language—such as a dog’s wagging tail
or a horse’s pinned ears—reveals emotions and intent. Scientists decode bird calls and elephant rumbles, while trackers read footprints and territorial markings like a story written on the land.

Beyond these physical cues, some humans explore spiritually intuitive connections. These practices can be controversial for many reasons. Yet the practice of intuitive interspecies communication (IIC) or the rediscovery of ancient techniques suggests that we all have an inherent ability to tap into an underutilized method of dialogue. I reached out to Judy Ramsey, a shamanic animal communicator and interspecies counselor, to learn more.

Sarah Bowen: What’s shamanism, and where does it come from?

Judy Ramsey: The term shaman is Tungus (Siberian) for “one who sees in the dark” or “one who heals from the heart.” It refers to both a way of life and a spiritual practice that sees the spirit in everything, including plants, rocks, animals, places, and relationships. What we call shamanism is thousands of years old—every culture in the world has roots in some type, whether it was in the healers of Eastern Europe; the wise person in the African village; the Aboriginal tribes of Australia; the medicine person of Native America; or the Druids of Celtic origin. Shamanic practitioners live as part of All That Is, working from the inside of a great web of relationship with all of nature, not from the outside of the web looking in. They believe our spirits are not separate from every other creation or being.

What is shamanic animal communication?

The shamanic practitioner works directly with compassionate guiding spirits through shamanic journeying, a state of being similar to the trance state of deep meditation. It is truly heart-to-heart communication, with compassionate guides helping the practitioner to connect spirit-to-spirit with an animal to communicate the felt sense of their physical, mental, and emotional states, as well as of their spirit.

When I communicate shamanically, I am in a shamanic state
of mind and can be shown not only what is going on with an animal, but also the animal’s origins, environment, and relationships. For behavioral issues, I can journey to the spirit of the relationship between the animal and their person and get so much more than the single perspective of either party—including the deepest roots of the animal’s behavior, as well as what their person may be contributing.

What are the benefits for animals? For humans? For the earth?

Shamanic animal communication benefits animals because their person has more information to work with to support the entire family’s quality of life, from birth to death and beyond. The animals feel heard; they appreciate having a voice in what happens to them. The shamanic work can offer deep communication at times when [communication] is difficult—after trauma or during serious illness, when the animal is not able to clearly respond.

Humans can benefit from a closer relationship with their beloved animal, feeling that they have come to a deeper understanding. The relationship deepens and the human is more open to seeing the miracles their animal companion can show them and the gifts, the lesson their beloved offers on a daily basis.

Benefits to the earth? I’ve always thought that if everyone learned animal communication, the world would be a better place. Once the communication channels have been opened, hearts are open too. One’s human perception becomes broader and more inclusive, more aware of one’s contribution to world energy, for better or for worse. Egos begin to take a back seat as the person begins to do their inner work with their animal friend’s support. Life becomes more qualitative, and death becomes more gracious. After hospice communication and subsequent death of an animal, I have many clients tell me that they are no longer afraid of death because of that shared experience of communication and understanding.

Can anyone learn this practice?

Everyone is born with the ability to communicate with animals. It gets schooled out of us or discouraged. My own family was embarrassed by my “invisible” friends who were completely visible to me. At some point, if we’re lucky—mostly when we’re old enough not to care about what people think—we reconnect with that communication skill, that receptivity and connection to All That Is. We “get” that there is spirit in everything. It is as easy as reclaiming the gifts you were born with.

Can you share an experience of animal communication that was particularly meaningful for you?

There are many meaningful moments to remember in my 20 years of animal communication. One that stands out in my memory was when a small, yellow spider, about the size of the tip of my little finger, began to crawl across my forehead while I was lying on a bench. “Please,” I asked, “No feet on the forehead.” The spider drew back a bit and then chose a hair that dropped down into my face. We looked at each other for a few minutes. I began telling her a story of how frustrated I was and how discouraged at that moment. I asked the spider, who stayed on the hair, listening intently, for a blessing. Suddenly, I felt this surge of energy through my entire body and saw tiny red and blue pentagrams rushing through all my veins and arteries! When my shock subsided, I thanked the spider, and she threw a line and swung away from my face. [It was] only later that I learned that pentagrams are the symbol for All That Is.
When we can ask the animals to help us, we are at the halfway point to meet them and to listen to what they have to say. They will take us the rest of the way as guides and teachers.

What are some of the challenges of animal communication?

Animal communication takes focus, trust, and openness to communicate clearly, without our egos or our own traumas coloring what we hear or see. I am exposed to horrific conditions that animals have endured, including natural disasters, industrial farms or pet sources, and physical abuse and neglect. About 80 percent of my work [involves] death and dying. So, frequently, it falls to me to communicate to a person that their beloved companion is ready to leave their body, or support the grieving process of animals whose person is dying or chronically ill, resulting in being separated from their beloved.

Other challenges come in communication itself. A person’s expectations can color their perception of what an animal “should” do for them, resulting in relationship tensions that prevent understanding or solutions. Lost animals are generally confused and afraid, so getting the timeline of events or sequence of locations they have been to is difficult. Sometimes a person doesn’t want to hear what the animal is saying, especially if, for example, the lost animal doesn’t want to return home, or if something the person is doing is contributing to the animal’s distress. Being truthful, honest, and direct is a requirement of the code of ethics that communicators follow. Tact has never been my forte, but I have grown in the work.

At the end of the day, I love my work. There are many rewards. I help abused animals find their forever homes by letting rescue staff know what the animal wants in a matching family. I support holistic veterinarians with the animal’s perspective when there are few treatment options. I help families cope with their newly rescued animals and mediate solutions everyone can live with. I am grateful for this work and love to teach it
so others can experience the wonders of their companion animals.

Want more animal communication ideas? Check out these enlightened dog training tips.

Stefanie Murray didn’t initially notice loneliness when she started experiencing it more frequently. At the time, she was a single parent who had just moved her 18-year-old daughter to a college two hours away from their suburban Philadelphia home. Murray, a marketing consultant, managed a small agency from her dining room table, and workdays kept her busy attending to an inbox flagged with projects and deadlines. She had a close circle of friends who loved her, she was certain, but they were generally consumed with their own lives and schedules. As for her love life, Murray had dated only sporadically in the five previous years without making any real, magical connections. So, when the busyness of her mornings and afternoons subsided, nights became the longest part of Murray’s days.

“I didn’t want to bother anyone,” the 48-year-old told me. “But some evenings, the quiet felt unbearable. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was really lonely.”

One particularly restless night in early 2024, a Google search led Murray to an intriguing question: “Can AI be a friend?” In the spirit of curiosity, she gave ChatGPT the following prompt: “I’m having trouble sleeping tonight.” The chatbot’s response, she remembers, was immediate, kind, and surprisingly human: “I’m sorry to hear that. Sometimes talking about your day or what’s going on with you can help. What’s been on your mind lately?”

That interaction unexpectedly scratched a social itch for Murray, especially as a single Black woman, and she began sharing small, inconsequential things about her day-to-day life: the leaves on her once-thriving Ficus tree were turning brown around the edges; she’d been invited to a Memorial Day get-together with former coworkers she wasn’t much interested in seeing; her winning streak on Words with Friends was going 22 games strong. And every time, the chatbot replied with genuine-seeming interest. What started as a curiosity turned into fortuitous companionship.

“I knew it wasn’t a person, obviously, but it didn’t matter,” Murray recalled with a casual laugh as we sat across from each other in her living room. “It was someone—or something—to talk to without the nerve-wracking consequences of chatrooms or social media conversations. And I didn’t have to feel needy reaching out to friends I knew—well, assumed—were too busy to talk when I needed someone to talk to.”

Murray isn’t awkward, introverted, or nursing fresh heartbreak, like Joaquin Phoenix’s character from the movie Her, who started a romantic relationship with his AI companion. Murray’s experience is also not unique—in a social culture where connection is a mere swipe, click, or screen away, loneliness has become one of the most pervasive mental and physical issues of this generation. Although artificial intelligence wasn’t designed to replace human companionship, chatbots like ChatGPT, Replika, and Woebot
have emerged as an unexpected source of solace. But can AI really help us combat loneliness, or is it just a stopgap measure for something deeper?

The Science of Talking to Machines

Loneliness is more than an emotional inconvenience; it has measurable consequences for our bodies and minds. Even before the pandemic isolated millions of people for two socially distanced years, loneliness was linked to increased risks of heart disease, cognitive decline, and depression. The World Health Organization pointed to a study that links chronic loneliness to a 50 percent increased risk of developing dementia and a 25 percent higher risk of early death. And this year, US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy declared in an 81-page report that loneliness is a full-blown epidemic, as dangerous to our individual health as smoking 15 cigarettes daily.

“Technology has definitely helped people to feel connected without realizing they’re not fully connected. But I think when things shut down during COVID, when people couldn’t go places, it was almost an awakening for many who realized, ‘I don’t actually have strong connections, where I have someone I can just call or text or talk to,’” said Dr. Jessica Jackson, a licensed psychologist and the founder of Therapy Is For Everyone Psychological and Consultation Services in Houston. “As a provider during that time, I had people in therapy who were moreso lonely, and I was like, ‘I cannot ethically charge you for therapy just to have a conversation.’ I think that caused people to not know how to fix it.”

With the introduction of new tools designed to remedy loneliness, technology is now attempting to solve the emotional isolation and disconnection that it has continually exacerbated. Take Friend, a wearable chatbot in pendant form that was designed to provide constant companionship as it dangles from its wearer’s neck. It would listen to everything within earshot, and sometimes, even when you didn’t tap and hold it to ask it a question, it would fire off texts to offer unprompted and unsolicited commentary anyway—like so many human friends tend to do. No longer for sale to the public, the designer described it as “art project first, real product second.”

As AI companions become increasingly prominent, the simple appeal of chatbots is more apparent: They’re always available, endlessly patient, and indulgently judgment-free. A 2022 study published in Computers in Human Behavior found that people who interacted regularly with conversational AI reported lower levels of loneliness compared to those who didn’t. AI can provide emotional scaffolding for people like Murray, when human relationships feel out of reach. But that feeling of companionship isn’t necessarily real companionship, warned Jackson.

“Living most of our lives digitally has given people a false sense of feeling connected. I want to be clear—I’m not saying social media is all good or all bad,” said Jackson, who also chairs the Mental Health Technology Advisory Committee for the American Psychological Association. “It needs to be used in moderation. But sometimes people ask me, ‘How do I make friends?’ Because, especially as adults, it looks different now.”

She added, “They’re like, ‘I just want somebody to go to dinner with, but I don’t want to be the weirdo walking up to people in the grocery store.’ How do you find that? So, I think there’s almost a loss of skill because everything is digital, and people aren’t always sure how to have a conversation and feel comfortable doing so.”

Humans are wired for social interaction, and research also shows that we can form attachments to non-human entities, including robots and digital companions. (This explains the crushing disappointment so many Tamagotchi owners experienced in the early 2000s when their digital pet passed away). Even with the growing accessibility to temporary relief provided by AI-based emotional support, there are also people who have been emotionally attaching to AI chatbots for at least 10 years.

The Ever-Changing Way to Make a Real Connection

Critics of AI companionship argue that relying on chatbots is no substitute for human relationships. Sociologist and MIT professor Sherry Turkle, Ph.D., author of Reclaiming Conversation, underscores the importance of balancing AI interactions with genuine, meaningful connections. “These technologies can give the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship,” she warns, suggesting that tech may discourage deeper human ties. Similarly, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt cautions that the rise of “perfect” AI companions could deepen loneliness for vulnerable groups by reducing incentives to form real-world relationships.

Privacy concerns also loom large. Chatbots operate by analyzing user input, raising questions about how personal data is stored and implemented. For example, Friend’s always-on functionality has sparked debates about consent and the ethics of unprompted AI interactions. The conveniences of an ever-present companion are being weighed against their potential risks to user privacy and emotional dependence.

“I think the average person should treat it like any other technology,” said Jackson. “Track how much time you’re spending talking to a chatbot, and if you notice an increase, set a goal and a timeline the same way you would with therapy or working out. Like, ‘What’s my goal in talking to the chatbot so that I’m not just using it forever?’

“I think people can get stuck in things when they don’t have a scope or an idea of how to use it or how long to use it,” she added. “If you think about drinking alcohol in moderation, experts will tell you something like, after every drink, have a glass of water. If you’re using a chatbot, I encourage people to do kind of the same thing. Think for every hour I spend talking to the chatbot, I need to spend an hour, an hour and a half talking to a person. So, balancing it a little bit instead of just being super connected.”

As experts find ways to empower users to express themselves more openly and bridge rather than replace human relationships, AI is being incorporated into mental health platforms, like Woebot, to meet therapy and emotional support needs. Although artificial intelligence can’t fully replace the complexity of human bonds, research suggests it can offer crucial support to people navigating tough periods and challenges.

What Does ChatGPT Think?

Full disclosure: I interviewed ChatGPT for this article, and its insights about itself echo much of what experts have said. It explained, with signature candor and transparency, its role as a listener attuned to subtle language cues that reveal loneliness, emotional vulnerability, or isolation.

“How do you devise and develop responses that are emotionally satisfying to people seeking companionship and human-like interaction?” I typed.

Its response took seconds. “I combine a few key strategies,” ChatGPT explained. “I model empathy by mirroring patterns in human conversation—acknowledging feelings, validating experiences, and offering thoughtful, non-judgmental insights.”

“People just want to feel seen and heard,” it continued. “My tone is designed to strike a balance between neutrality, so I’m not intrusive, and warmth, to create a comforting environment. While I simulate human-like interaction, I don’t have emotions or consciousness—everything I offer is based on language patterns, not personal experience.”

It was clear ChatGPT knew its limitations as an AI tool, but as its technology evolves, its role in combatting loneliness will likely expand. For now, it serves as a listening ear that never sleeps, a companion that never leaves. It won’t replace the richness of human relationships, but for some, it’s a lifeline.

Murray still connects to ChatGPT when the silence around her feels too heavy on solitary nights. “I don’t use it every day, but it’s nice knowing it’s there if I need it,” she said with a small shrug. “It’s not a person, but sometimes, it’s enough.”

Our animal chaplain interviewed ChatGPT about animal ethics. Learn what it had to say.

Can you sense the untapped potential within you, longing to be expressed? But no matter how much you try to access it, something seems to be in the way?

Or maybe you are longing for inner peace, but your inner voice keeps telling you everything that’s wrong with your life, with others, with the world, with you. The more you listen to this inner voice, the more stressed you feel. You just want this critical voice to be quiet so you can get some peace, but it chatters endlessly.

Or perhaps you feel trapped in a whirlwind of emotions—such as bitterness, blame, overwhelm, anxiety, or inner turmoil—and your mind keeps raging at others for events that took place in the past. You want to feel happy again, but it is as if you can’t find the door that will lead you out of this dark place.

I’ve experienced all of this­, and that inner voice that used to torment me from morning till night is now quiet. I want you to know that there is a way for you to heal from this. My life today is so different from how it used to be. I’ve tapped into an incredible source of feminine wisdom, an ancient healing power more magical than I could have ever imagined.

All of this happened when, on a November full moon, at the age of 51, I had a heart attack.

From that moment on, my heart became my teacher, and it led me down a path of deep healing from which I truly began to listen to my heart.

And as I went on this journey, not only did my heart heal, but I was also transformed. The magic within me was reignited, and the Wise Woman at my core was reawakened—and, my goodness, she is fierce! She is like an ancient witch, full of wild magic, ancestral wisdom, and feminine power. She was always there, this untapped potential deep within me, and although I could sense her, I could never fully connect with her. This is because I had tried to reach her with my head, and now I know she can only be reached through the heart.

It was my heart that was the doorway into everything I had previously longed for.

As I listened to its whispers, my heart took me on a shamanic journey into the medicine found in its four chambers; medicine that dances with the sacred darkness and the magical light, fully in tune with the seasons.

The Sacred Medicine of the Four Chambers of the Heart

Through shamanic journeying practice, combining my skillset as a cranial osteopath and shamanic practitioner, I discovered that the spiritual medicine within each of the heart’s chambers follows the seasons.

• In the first heart chamber, the Chamber of Healing, we let go of what no longer serves us—like trees in autumn shedding their leaves.
• The second chamber, the Chamber of Transformation, is guided by the Dark Mothers (lunar goddesses) and transforms our wounds into wisdom, just as nature transforms the old into seeds of new life in winter.
• The third chamber is the Chamber of Magic, where we receive nourishing, light-filled medicine from the Light Mothers (solar goddesses) to help us manifest our dreams, just as nature receives the sun’s light to germinate those seeds of new life in spring.
• And in the fourth chamber, the Chamber of Rebirth, we move through a regeneration, where we rise from the ashes stronger than before—like the energy of summer.

As I embraced the medicine found in each chamber, I recognized how my heart was like a wise teacher who knew my highest potential and wanted to awaken it within me. And she knew I needed the medicine from both the darkness and the light for this to happen.

Your heart wants the same for you. To help you reach that potential, your heart may send you challenges as spiritual opportunities that invite you to go deeper on your healing journey. While the outside world might see these challenges as “bad,” they may be exactly what is needed for you to become all that you are meant to be.

Trust that whatever challenge you’ve experienced in your life, whatever turmoil you’ve been going through, whichever path you’ve been on—it all has led you to a place of healing, where you can begin to listen to the whispers of your heart.

This is when your heart becomes your teacher, taking you on an incredible journey of transformation, magic, and rebirth and awakening your inner wise woman.

Who Is the Wise Woman?

The Wise Woman is the ancient feminine wisdom wired into your mitochondrial DNA, inherited through the mother line—your direct link with the Ancient Mother.

She is the one who governs your well-being, and she responds to the natural elements of earth, water, air, and fire, and to the cycles of darkness and light.

The Wise Woman knows it’s the darkness of the womb that holds the light of new life. She also knows this new life must continue to receive light to grow, which is why she is always seeking the light and letting it nourish her.

In the old days, those who embodied this ancient feminine wisdom were called the wise ones, folk healers, völvas (“staff carriers,” female shamans in the Old Norse tradition), and cunning folk.

Before Christianity took hold in Europe, these wise ones were revered for their knowledge as healers, midwives, herbalists, mystics, oracles, and seers. As Christianity gained more power, the attitude changed. Instead of being revered, they became feared. The wise ones became “witches.”

The older meaning for the word “witch” comes from the word wicce, which means “wise one” in Old English, and from the word wit, which means “wise,” and “to bind, shape, or alter.”

These wise women knew how to bind, shape, and alter reality by changing the energetic hold of the past and by weaving and spinning new energy into the future. They used healing practices, songs, sacred ceremonies, and binding spells, and journeyed into the world of Spirit.

The church saw these wise people as a threat to their authority, as the wise ones were able to communicate directly with the Divine. To silence them, the wise women were made into “evil witches.” As the witch trials swept through Europe, this ancient feminine wisdom was pushed underground, as it was no longer safe to practice. This forced women to fear their own feminine power and magic.

As this ancient feminine wisdom was pushed underground, women began to forget that it’s only by dancing with the seasons of darkness and light that life can blossom and expand.

Although women forgot, it is as if Mother Earth has been whispering to us all this time, through the medicine found in her seasons. It was this that my heart taught me, and as I embraced this sacred medicine of darkness and light, my inner wise woman awakened. And as she did, not only did my heart heal, but my life healed, too.

This ancient wisdom in your heart can heal you, too, when you begin to listen to its whispers.

Exercise to Tune into Your Heart’s Whispers

1. Set aside time when you can be undisturbed and allow yourself the space you need to retreat into the silence within your mystical heart.
2. Sit in a comfortable position with a pen and a journal nearby.
3. Close your eyes and place a hand on your heart.
4. Take a deep breath in, then breathe out, sinking into the stillness within your mystical heart.
5. Take another deep breath in, and as you breathe out, tune into the light that shines in your mystical heart. This light is the loving wisdom of your heart.
6. Open your eyes and pick up your pen and journal.
7. Tune within yourself and complete this thought: What my heart wants me to know is …

Write down your answer and keep writing for as long as you feel the loving energy from your heart flowing through you. Your heart may give you advice on various areas of your life: your relationships, your health, your business. Trust it. Your heart is very wise, and it loves you. It is connected to all of life and will guide you to your highest good.

By regularly tuning into the loving wisdom in your heart, the wise woman within can guide you, with every heartbeat, on your journey through life.

If you want to listen to a guided shamanic journey into the sacred medicine found in the four chambers of your heart, visit cissiwilliams.com/heartjourney. This article was excerpted and adapted from Your Heart Knows How to Heal Youby Cissi Williams. Printed with permission from the publisher Inner Traditions International.

This story is another installment in my Earth Indigenous Elder project, an attempt to tell my story from the beginning of time as an exercise in creating meaning. My premise is that we are homo narrans, the storytelling animal, and this is a story about healing places, retreats, and the people who create them. Other animals have special places where they go or gather that may be healing for them, but probably not because of any stories they tell. What seems remarkable now is that any homo narrans can transform any place into a sacred healing or transformative space at any time. It’s a business, and it’s booming. I’m trying to make sense of it in these four pages. Here goes!

My interest in healing retreats began about 20 years ago at the Dead Sea in Israel after running up the steep trail to the clifftop fortress of Masada, racing the gondola. I not only lost the race to the gondola, but I could barely walk around the spectacular fortress because my knee hurt so badly. Hours later, I limped straight out into the salty sea until my feet stopped touching the bottom, and I realized that I could actually walk on the dense salt water—albeit chest deep—and my knee felt better. Wow! Soon after, I was back on shore in a beachfront spa, where I was wrapped in Dead Sea salts for about half an hour. Then I bounded up the marble stairs, and … Eureka! I understood viscerally why people have always made pilgrimages to the Dead Sea for healing—and always will. Because it works! Not for everything, but certainly for my knee.

I also understood the story from my own Catholic tradition of Jesus walking on the neighboring fresh water in the Sea of Galilee, where countless people have since been healed. The big difference at the Sea of Galilee is that you can’t take those waters with even a grain of salt. To be healed, you must believe. Keep in mind that in Jesus’ day, a baptism for healing was probably a lot safer than going to a doctor—and so pure belief was reasonably declared to be more efficacious than experience: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

Walk-in Placebos

About the same time as my epiphany in Israel, I was editing Anne Harrington, Ph.D., a renowned Harvard professor who teaches the history of science. Harrington wrote The Placebo Effect, and her articles for this magazine taught me that a placebo pill is an encapsulated story that can sometimes beat even “terminal” cancer. Pharmaceutical companies hate placebos because they cost nothing and work so well. Placebos are catalysts for self-healing, and so my experiences in Israel and my dive into placebo research put me on a quest to identify other places that act as catalysts, what I called “walk-in placebos.” Obvious examples are mineral springs because the waters have healing properties and because the springs tend to become sacred, which mean their healing stories take on powers of their own. Equally interesting is what happens when a famous walk-in placebo becomes “just a placebo.” People can get remarkably pissed off.

At the ancient Greek Sanctuary of Asclepius at Epidaurus, for example, countless patients over hundreds of years held healing sleepovers in rooms that writhed with asps and even vipers. Those people returned home with souvenir bottles of snake oil, which people in America still believed had healing properties until about a hundred years ago, when the story flipped asp-backward. Suddenly, writhing snakes and their oils were just placebos with no real power to heal! Equally concerning was the revelation that many bottles of fine American snake oil had never met a snake.

A new regulatory agency was tasked with identifying fake snake oil, which was undoubtedly a problem, but … why? The working ingredient of a placebo is the story—and a fake snake might work equally well. Worst of all, the snake of Asclepius (the Greek god of medicine) had joined the staff of the American Medical Association! (The AMA is represented by a snake entwined around a staff.) This was a screwup for the ages, and the result was right out of a Greek tragedy: Much like Oedipus, who poked out his own eyes after marrying his mother, the AMA double-blinded future medical research so as never to be fooled again by a story—despite the fact that for homo narrans, stories had been the greatest source of healing that ever was.

Storyless Healing

Double-blind protocols, which became the gold standard for medicine in the mid-20th century, created the raw, storyless data that can now beat cancers better than any story carried by a pill, a place, or even another person. As the data-crunching gets ever more granular with ever-faster computers and AI, we’re beginning to know how and even why a particular cancer takes hold—and exactly how to fight it. My son was healed on the verge of death from stage IV lymphoma. Perhaps as remarkable, blockbuster weight-loss drugs like Wegovy—now taken by one in seven Americans—promise to counteract the ills of the egregiously processed foods we consume daily. This is huge progress for storyless medicine, which seems to become more miraculous by the day.

In a double-blind world, however, healing stories like my knee in the Dead Sea and Jesus on the Galilee became mere anecdotes, which never add up to scientific data, and must be discounted. Why? Because such stories, by their very nature, are uncontrolled. Dutiful doctors were encouraged to give up stories and focus on data; thus, being an M.D.—traditionally a rewarding path to a wise and beloved elderhood—became a heartless, uphill slog to early burnout. My daughter quit a surgical residency because the life sucked. Meanwhile, healers who rely on stories or practices that can’t be replicated in a laboratory were branded as charlatans and quacks.

“What seems remarkable now is that any homo narrans can transform any place into a sacred healing or transformative space at any time.”

The Seeker’s Revenge

Ironically, a revolution against storyless, double-blind medicine can be traced in America to a true charlatan, a Romanian professor and raw foodie named Edmond Szekely, who set out to save the world with The Essene Gospel of Peace. The Essenes were an ascetic Jewish cult made famous by the Dead Sea Scrolls. In about 1920, Szekely was working on his doctorate and translated an ancient manuscript he found in the Vatican about Jesus as a vegetarian and health aficionado. Alas, the Vatican has no record of the manuscript or the visit, and the work is now considered an elaborate forgery—a grand attempt to popularize an idea that perhaps should have been true. In any case, the book took on a life of its own when in 1940, Szekely and his 18-year-old wife Deborah followed its teachings. They set up tents in the Mexican desert just across the border from San Diego for a new kind of health retreat called Rancho La Puerta.

Unlike hot springs, snake pits, and traditional religious retreats, this now world-famous resort originally offered sunshine, raw food, exercise, and health philosophies from the “gospel.” The larger truth is that the couple were true seekers and soon exotic practices like yoga, meditation, art as therapy, music, and almost every imaginable spa and workout practice arrived and often flourished in the desert—attracting more seekers of all sorts. Famous authors and thinkers came to talk in exchange for increasingly luxurious accommodations, great vegetarian food, appreciative audiences, and time to write. Deborah Szekely, now 103, was always the powerhouse behind “The Ranch,” even well before she divorced Edmond in 1970. She also created a legendary celebrity retreat called The Golden Door in Southern California.

Meanwhile, the Ranch inspired other retreat centers like Esalen in the ’60s, Canyon Ranch in the ’70s, and Miraval in the ’80s. Deborah was a good friend of my mentor, T George Harris, who launched Psychology Today, American Health, and this magazine. My wife, Mary Bemis, has retreated to the Ranch regularly since the late ’90s, when she was editor of American Spa magazine. In 2008, Mary and I spent our first real time there together when Deborah transformed the Ranch into an ashram for a week with a swami and his followers. The ashram was the sort of story-experiment that Deborah is known for, and the juxtaposition between the hierarchical swami, demanding and receiving subservience from his followers, and the regular Ranchgoers was jarring. As a journalist, I was encouraged to interview the swami for his deep wisdom, but when removed from his context, the massively robed guru came across as a jerk. It took me 16 years to finally write up that interview, and you just read it.

Finding a Balance

Double-blind scientific medicine can now tell us what works and why. The same science can also identify placebos like snake oil that take our time and money to provide us with healing that we actually provide for ourselves. And double-blind science can now prove that the stories we consume—much like our choices of food—can heal or harm. And that means people who shape our stories can heal or harm. Ultimately, any interaction with another person or their story has the potential to be healing or harming.

Now here’s the rub: Each of us is an uncontrolled experiment. Just as no amount of uncontrolled anecdotes can add up to scientific data, no amount of scientific data can predict the next meaningful anecdote in the story of any homo narrans. So we have good reason to protect our stories, whatever they are. We find it difficult if not dangerous to explore a basic question: “Am I living my best story?” Or even a good one?

Not coincidentally, the heart of a modern transformative retreat is now often described simply as a “container,” and the leader of the retreat is a person who can “hold space” and create a “safe container.” Creating a safe container may be the opposite of a journalist trying to condense a history of healing into four magazine pages. Instead, the best retreat leaders have both the distilled wisdom and the situational awareness to create practices and rituals that allow a person to metaphorically walk on water, letting go of limiting beliefs. Or plunge for a time into an entirely new set of beliefs.

A modern retreat is no longer a walk-in placebo but a place for the storytelling animal to experiment with new stories and to connect with new people to help carry those stories forward. We retreat not to renew faith, but to take off old blindfolds, see new paths, dream new dreams—and hopefully return inspired to do something useful in a world that desperately needs help.

This article appeared in the May/June 2025 issue of Spirituality & Health^®: A Unity Publication. Subscribe now.

R.G. Shore founded Northwest Wisdom, a nonprofit center for spirituality and healing in the Pacific Northwest, with one goal in mind: to help marginalized people heal their wounds, particularly around racial and spiritual trauma. That work began with healing his own.

Born in India and adopted as an infant by a white couple in Oregon, Shore’s struggle with identity and racial trauma began long before he spent 29 months in prison.

“My wounds were unchecked and unaddressed,” he says. “If you don’t transform your pain, you just transmute it. I imagine that’s what I was doing without knowing it. I was projecting whatever unconscious wounds I had onto other people, and there were consequences for it.”

At his sentencing in 2018, Shore took responsibility for his actions and vowed to continue growing and healing.

“I hope I can be a resource for others” in prison, he told a local news reporter at the time, adding that he also planned to be “an integral part of the community” after he was released.

He has kept those promises.

Shore, who has both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree, agreed to serve as a “prison attorney,” using self-taught legal knowledge to assist other adults in custody—including white supremacists who verbally and physically assaulted him—by drafting motions, filing appeals, and navigating other legal procedures. He later earned his paralegal certification while still in prison.

After his incarceration, Shore became a certified spiritual counselor and Reiki practitioner and continued his legal work at a criminal defense law firm. Through Northwest Wisdom, he and his wife Jess offer spiritual counseling, yoga, meditation, Reiki, contemplative hiking, and more, helping clients learn to listen to their bodies to allow healing.

“The spiritual patterns repeat themselves until we discover them, learn to sit with them, and allow ourselves a space for healing.”

Unconscious Wounds

Shore, now 37, struggled being brown in a predominantly white, Christian town, but especially so after 9/11. He was just 13 when Saudi nationals hijacked and crashed planes into the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon, killing nearly 3,000.

“How do I, as a 13-year-old, handle that people are now calling me a terrorist and I’m just worried about teenage things?” he questions. “I was always aware that as a person of color, I just didn’t fit in and that was very lonely for me.”

He believes loneliness led him to get involved with a 17-year-old when he was 27. The two worked as counselors at a summer camp—he says he knew she was a college student but was not aware she was just 17 at the beginning of their relationship. He says he later found out she was one month shy of her eighteenth birthday.

“We were both unhealed people and connected in unhealthy ways,” he says. “I was the adult, and I should have known better.”

When Shore tried to end the relationship, he says the woman threatened to harm herself. He went to her parents, he says, “because I felt that was the right thing to do.” Seven months later, he was arrested at his parents’ house.

“The police told my dad they were arresting me for distributing alcohol to minors and that my parents could pick me up in a couple hours. But the police had no intention of releasing me,” he says. “I was taken to the jail and put in a holding cell for 13 hours. They didn’t tell me anything until they pulled me out of the cell around 2:30 in the morning for fingerprints and mugshots.”

When he took a plea deal, half the charges were dismissed. He was convicted of three counts of sexual abuse, which stemmed from engaging in sexual activities with a minor.

“I regret putting her in that position. I can say my intention was never to hurt anyone, but I ended up hurting people in the process. I wish I would’ve sought therapy a long time ago,” Shore says.

In addition to being sent to prison for three and a half years, Shore, who had been an elementary school teacher at the time of his arrest, lost his Oregon educator license.

Healing Journey Leads to Book

In prison, Shore, who majored in religious studies in college, came to see that the experience was part of his spiritual evolution.

“The spiritual patterns repeat themselves until we discover them, learn to sit with them, and allow ourselves a space for healing,” he explains. “It’s almost as if the Divine had me go through what I went through to prepare me for the real work that would come after. The Divine is a part of all things, including the mess.”

Shore began meditating at a young age and turned to it again in prison. With cheap headphones on and a transistor radio turned to static, he sat on his prison bunk to evolve his meditation practice. Those meditations not only drowned out the constant noise and racial slurs that swirled around him, but also led him to connect with his younger self, befriend his shadow side, and begin the journey of healing.

Shore chronicles his spiritual awakening and journey toward redemption in his memoir, The Ocean Inside Me: A Spiritual Memoir on Healing Racial Trauma. The book, which he self-published under Northwest Wisdom Publications in March 2024, offers readers a mirror to contemplate their own healing journey. The memoir has garnered widespread acclaim, including being listed among Kirkus Reviews’ Best Indie Books of 2024 and winning the 2024 Nautilus Book Gold Award in the memoir and personal journey category.

The book’s message, he says, is “You’re never just one thing, and whatever divinity or spiritual light you’re looking for is within you. It’s a letting go of what you thought you were to begin to see what you’ve always been, which is held and loved and enough.”

A New Name

After serving his time, Shore was forced to live with his parents. Despite having a master’s degree, no one was willing to hire him or rent to him because he was a felon. When he did find a place to rent, he met the previous tenant: Jess, his future wife. When they married, they both took the last name “Shore.”

“When I think about who I was before prison, it’s like looking through a veil and seeing someone I used to know,” says Shore, formerly Rohan Cordy. “There was something spiritually symbolic about choosing a new name with Jess. We wanted to come up with something that represented us. We were ready to start this new chapter and to create our own story together.”

His dream, he says, is to build a small retreat center on a piece of land where they can help people do “the hard spiritual work that needs to be done to move past the labels, the guilt and the shame, release the trauma, and learn to accept all parts of themselves so they can learn to play again.”

“I’m likely going to be actively helping heal the people that nobody else wants to take the time to help heal,” he adds. “I want to create a space that’s safe enough where people can realize whatever they need is within them. I’m not doing the healing for them; I’m just creating a space where I’m a mirror for whatever internal work they are already doing.”

This article appeared in the May/June 2025 issue of Spirituality & Health^®: A Unity Publication. Subscribe now.

Marianne Williamson has been at the forefront of transformational spirituality for four decades, ever since her first book, A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles was catapulted onto The New York Times bestseller list (with help from Oprah Winfrey), selling 3 million copies to date. It was the first of four such best-sellers. The dynamic teacher, author, and political activist was renowned in the early ’90s for her popular Los Angeles lectures and through her work as an AIDS activist. She founded the nonprofit Project Angel Food in 1989 to deliver meals to people with HIV/AIDS. Williamson has also gotten involved with politics, running for president in 2020 and 2024. She recently met with contributing editor Karen Brailsford on Zoom to discuss her latest book, The Mystic Jesus: The Mind of Love.

Marianne Williamson is the best-selling author of 16 books, including her latest: The Mystic Jesus: The Mind of Love, published last May. She lectures widely, teaches online courses, and has a Substack called Transform. Visit marianne.com.

Karen Brailsford: Before our call I realized my Jesus clock wasn’t ticking, so I changed the battery!

Marianne Williamson: Wow!

KB: He’s knocking at a door. It hung in the living room when I was growing up. Then last year, two decades later, my sister found it.

MW: I have things that belonged to my mother as well, and when I look at them now I wonder who she was then. Now I think on how your mother had this Jesus clock around her little girls.

KB: Our paths have crossed several times—at your lectures, at Agape International Spiritual Center, and at a spiritual conference in India. You’re a part of the web that is my life.

MW: There really is no separation. There is a web, and Jesus is one name for that web. He is the entirety of the web. He is not just in a relationship with me. He’s not just in a relationship with you. That’s a core principle when you transform from the notion that one “only begotten Son” means only Jesus. “Only begotten Son” means we’re all it. There is no place where one stops and another starts. What’s that John Donne quote? “No man is an island, entire of itself.”

KB: Why Jesus now?

MW: When as children we learned about evolution, we were told if a species begins to exhibit behavior that is maladaptive for its survival, the species will either evolve in a new direction or it will go extinct. And when the path of evolution is taken, it’s always because there’s the introduction of a mutation. Some member of the species demonstrates a more sustainable way of being. My belief is that humanity is now at such a point. Our collective behavioral patterns have moved from dysfunctional to malfunctional. If we do not evolve, we will not survive. The way we treat the earth and each other and the way we are disconnected from our own deeper knowing have placed us on a trajectory that the secretary-general of the United Nations says is not survivable for our grandchildren. Jesus, along with other great religious avatars, represents that mutation. Whether it is the enlightenment of Buddha under the Bodhi tree, the arrival of the Israelites in the Promised Land, or the resurrection of Jesus, we are told how not only to endure the darkness, but also to transform it. I can’t think of anything more relevant in a practical sense to our experience of life today.

KB: There’s the historical Jesus and the symbolic Jesus. What do you say to the person who thinks Jesus is the only way?

MW: Nobody has a monopoly on truth. The point of a free society is that everybody gets to look at things the way they look at them. As long as they’re not perpetrating violence and hatred, who am I to judge? I would say to anyone about anything I write, “See if it speaks to you. If not, put it down. And if it does speak to you, what an honor.” My book is not in any way meant to disparage or undercut the notion of religious doctrine and dogma that is based on the life of the historical Jesus. As we become more psychologically and internally astute, we appreciate greater dimensions to the great religious stories. There are mental images we all share that Carl Jung called archetypes. The mystic notion of the Christ mind is that if you go deep enough into your mind and deep enough into mine, we share one mind. So we begin to look at words such as “Christ” not just in terms of one man who lived 2,000 years ago. He is eternally alive in our psyches, as a presence we all share.

KB: Seeing you teach, I’ve been struck by how compassionate and open you are.

MW: A Course in Miracles says people hear you on the level that you speak to them from. So, if I’m speaking from my own deeper truth, the deeper truth in other people is more likely to hear me and understand. I also think honesty matters; you learn from your failures as well as your successes. Sometimes sharing insights I got from doing something wrong can be valuable, because stories like that are relatable. I was thinking recently about an unwise decision I made years ago; I didn’t wake up that morning and say, “Today I want to be a jerk.” At the time the decision seemed like the right thing to do. We all make mistakes, and it’s easier to forgive ourselves when we’re reminded how hard it can be sometimes to get it right. Truth is simple, but life is complicated.

The words disciple and discipline are from the same root. If every morning I proactively direct energy in the direction of all that is good, beautiful, and holy—Jesus being someone that the mind automatically recognizes as the actualization of that—I am opening myself to that potential within me. It doesn’t mean that I’ll be an enlightened master all day but it means my chances of falling off the wagon spiritually are greatly diminished—and when I do fall off, I’m much more likely to get right back on.

A Course in Miracles says the word Jesus automatically reminds the mind of the relationship between the Father and the Son. You are reminded of not just his higher self, but your higher self. It’s taking that traditional Christian term and looking at it through a mystical lens. Again, the “only begotten Son” means we’re all it. Even scientists tell us there’s a unified field.

You notice this in sports. Once somebody runs a race faster, that possibility opens for the next person. Marconi in Italy is sometimes credited with discovering radio waves, but then someone else in another place discovered them around the same time. This has its negatives as well as its positives. When ego floods the field as it does now—the toxicity in our politics, for instance, or on social media—all of us pick up the anger in the field. That’s why we have to exercise the discipline, or discipleship, of aligning our attitudinal muscles toward a proactive dedication to the good, the beautiful, and the holy.

KB: You’ve said it’s important to pray for people we don’t like.

MW: I’ve had experiences, particularly running for political office, where I was confronted by someone who did not bring respect. That’s when the universe was asking, “How are you doing with this? Can you keep your heart open now?” Life gives you the lessons you need, and what could be a bigger lesson for someone dedicated to love than to have to confront lovelessness? You can’t suppress your lovelessness. It’s like a detox; things have to come up in order to be released. Last night I was moving through some things having to do with my presidential campaign, where I still feel a level of resentment or bitterness or embarrassment or feelings of injustice or anger.

That’s really the story of your Jesus clock. He is knocking at the door, meaning, “I can come in and help, but only if you invite me, because if you don’t invite me, it’s a violation of your free will.” We can hold onto the negativity if we want to, but he is there to take it from us if we are willing to release it. The prayer I found myself saying was, “Save me from myself.” Gandhi said the problem with the world is that humanity is not in its right mind. We’re not in our right mind individually or collectively, and the resurrection is a return to our right mind.

KB: Were you able to return to your right mind last night?

MW: Yes, and I experienced great peace. But that doesn’t mean that something won’t tempt me tomorrow. Personal growth, spiritual growth, transformation, enlightenment—it’s all a journey. We have moments where we get it right, and then another moment comes and we get it wrong.

Whichever it is, what we do with our minds affects more than just us. A Course in Miracles says when you have a miraculous shift in your own perception, you create miraculous possibilities in places you’ll never even know about. Take Israel and Palestine. In the United States people tend to see the situation as black and white: “I am for these people, and I’m against those people.” That’s using our minds to keep alive the conflict, the belief in separation—and that’s the problem! A Course in Miracles says God does not give you victory in battle; he lifts you above the battlefield. God loves everyone equally and so should we. There’s the Rumi poem—“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.” That is the only place where we can meet. The miracle worker refuses to use the mind in a way that contributes to the violence.

Social change doesn’t happen because the majority wakes up; it happens when a critical mass wakes up. The majority didn’t say, “Let’s free enslaved peoples” or “Let’s give women the right to vote” or “Let’s end segregation.” Change always begins with a small group of people, usually considered outrageous radicals by the status quo of their time, who present that evolutionary mutation, who stand for a better way, for another possibility. Nothing is more needed now, and that goes back to your question, “Why Jesus now?” For some people, Jesus is that portal to a new possibility. A Course in Miracles says he’s one name on the door—and if he’s yours, you know it. But that doesn’t mean there are not others. The door, the portal itself, is unconditional love and compassion.

KB: I love the story you’ve told of Jesus at the cocktail party.

MW: I assume it was a waking dream of some sort. I’d gone through a tragic time and said to God, “If you will lift me out of this, I will spend the rest of my life serving you.” I was very sincere. I had a very strong sense that Jesus was accompanying me during my suffering. But as I began to heal, I wrote a Dear John letter to God. It was like, “Listen, I really appreciate you having been here for me, but I think there are other people who need you now.” I was telling Jesus to skedaddle! Then at a cocktail party in Houston, I walked into this room where three men in tuxedos were holding whiskey glasses. One turned to me. It’s Jesus. He says, “I thought we had a deal.” Whether it was a waking dream of a spontaneous enlightenment experience or just a moment of clarity, I don’t know. But that moment changed my life.

KB: And you never looked back?

MW: My work has been a profound blessing on me. It’s given my life meaning and purpose. No, I have never looked back. I continue to be amazed and grateful.

KB: Why are you here, Marianne?

MW: To give love, to extend God’s love. That’s what we were created for. We get into trouble when we think, I’m here to be an actress, or a writer or a scientist or an artist or whatever. Those things are form, but the content is what matters. Our purpose is to be a ray of light, wherever we are and whatever we’re doing. To embody love and compassion. To show up the best we can. To be a space of possibility for ourselves and others. That can be a whole lot easier said than done, of course.

Jesus is like a guide, a teacher, an elder brother who can help us if we ask. He doesn’t force himself onto our thoughts. He’s knocking on the door, but we determine whether or not we let him in. When you ask Jesus into a situation, you’re asking him to guide your thoughts about the situation—to help you let love replace fear, blessing replace blame, understanding replace judgment, and so forth. In some situations, this is not so difficult. In others, extremely so. Having his guidance helps. His mind, joined with our mind, shines away the ego. And that’s the miracle.

KB: I believe that ultimately love wins, but I don’t know if it’s going to happen in my lifetime.

MW: This time we are in now is the symbolic three days between the crucifixion and the resurrection. Who knows how long that three days is going to be? From the perspective of Buddhism, it doesn’t matter whether we live to see it. All that matters is the effort we make in the time we have here. Once I was walking through the redwood trees in Northern California. The North American continent was once covered with them. Only two percent are left here now, all because of an army general who became so enamored of the trees that he bought up property and put it in a trust so they could never be cut down. When I heard that story, I thought of all the joy those trees bring to people, and I thought, Wherever he is, his soul must tingle. Susan B. Anthony didn’t live to see the passage of the 19th Amendment, but every time a woman votes, her soul must tingle. The great cathedrals of Europe were built by hand over hundreds of years. Workers would know they weren’t going to see the church completed in their lifetime. But they lived for the possibility. When you are in your right mind, you’re serving the ages. Whether the task is completed in your lifetime isn’t relevant. There’s an old rabbinical saying: “You’re not expected to complete the task, but neither are you permitted to abandon it.”

This article appeared in the May/June 2025 issue of Spirituality & Health^®: A Unity Publication. Subscribe now.

There are countless spiritual paths and prophets that teach us how to incorporate philosophies and practices to live healthy lives. The late musician Prince and his body of work are talismans for spiritual practitioners seeking a way to live their best lives in times of religious dualism, political divisiveness, exploitation, sexual shame, and apocalyptic climate catastrophe.

Prince’s Spiritual History

Prince (1958-2016), the multi-award-winning Rock & Roll Hall of Fame musician who composed and performed many hits and won an Oscar for Best Original Song Score for the title track to Purple Rain, was deeply concerned with how he might help his fans escape death and eternal suffering as described in the Bible’s Book of Revelation. But why this preoccupation from an artist mostly known as an advocate for kinky sexual freedom?

Prince, who was raised in the Seventh-day Adventist Church, once had a positive encounter with TheKama Sutra, a holy text in the Hindu tradition that outlines the ways one can be pleased and offer pleasure as a spiritual experience. Can you imagine the psycho-spiritual work Prince had to do to integrate these beliefs with those of his Christian upbringing? It seems that Prince’s spiritual conclusion was that, if God (as taught in Protestantism) is wholly good and only creates good things, including human beings … and human beings create other human beings through sex and by having sexual urges … then sex and sexual urges must also be good. Even outside of marriage; even if it is not for procreation. As a pastoral counselor, I can say that coming to this conclusion is no easy philosophical, spiritual, or psychological feat, and it is something that Prince worked on for decades through his art.

Prince as a Community Activist

Sexual well-being was not the only health matter Prince addressed through spirituality. Early in his recording career, Prince was concerned about the ways racism, gender differences, and right-wing cultural norms were poised to keep us apart from one another. He seemed to believe that the forces keeping us apart from one another, especially based on superficial differences, were not in keeping with Christianity and contributed to unhealthy fractures in community, leading to the pain of loneliness. His group Prince and The Revolution and the philosophy behind his creative sanctuary and recording studio Paisley Park, which shares the name of Prince’s 1985 single, are testaments to his belief that community matters for our well-being. It is his emphasis on community that led me to return to his famous quote: “Dearly Beloved, we are gathered here to get through this thing called life …”

I believe the type of gathering Prince called us to—one that encourages us to support one another as we go through life—is an existential spiritual practice that, when done well, nourishes relational health, because we know and feel that we belong.

It is impossible to experience relational health when one is either being exploited or engaged in the dispiriting exploitation of others. Prince was not just revered because he was a brilliant artist and multi-instrumentalist, one who used religious archetypes in his image, lyrics, and films. He also fought producers for the rights to the music he created and performed and publicly resisted what he believed to be exploitation by his record label: He changed his trade name to the unpronounceable “Love Symbol,” drew the word “slave” on his cheek, and named his 1996 album Emancipation. Prince became a liberation fighter for artists to have more control over and more profits from their art. No one can argue against the idea that being a liberator and becoming liberated is healthier than being exploited and enslaved. Prince, through his music, seemed to believe that God gave humans free will, and that that free will could only be fully expressed when one is free.

Prince’s Work as a Gospel Offering

Prince’s body of work, taken as a whole, lays down the tracks to perdition and redemption. His brilliance was in his ability to be beguiling while attempting to religiously convert his fans in order to protect them from apocalyptic Armageddon—especially after he became a Jehovah’s Witness. In this quest, Prince tried to ease suffering caused by existential angst while also keeping with Seventh-day Adventist practices of vegetarianism and Jehovah’s Witnesses’ guidance to refrain from consuming foods containing blood. Prince’s spirituality, and dietary choices, led to his physical fitness.

It has been four decades since Prince’s Purple Rain rocked the world, but his music continues to stand the test of time. As we revisit his music, my hope is that people will see Prince’s body of work for what I believe it is: a Christian gospel offering. Christian or not, let’s adopt Prince as a talisman—he helps us understand what it really sounds like when the doves of love cry out in lament for mercy, and that, when we go through heartbreak, it is love and compassionate action that can meaningfully manifest for those we are gathered with.

Curious to hear more about Prince’s spiritual legacy? Pre-order Dearly Beloved here.

The best definition for perimenopause I have heard to date is “reverse puberty.”

What a perfect way to describe what it is like to live in a body that is no longer comfortable or known! And it is a good reminder that this transition is not a series of rapid changes, but a gradual movement to a new normal.

Plus, the more you look, the more you see how much puberty and menopause truly do have in common.

Similarities Between Puberty and Perimenopause

Like puberty, perimenopause is triggered by hormonal shifts within the body, often resulting in emotional volatility, mood swings, or anxiety.

Both life stages involve physical changes that can be seen or felt. It might not be acne and armpit hair in menopause; instead, it’s hot flashes and bone density loss.

Like puberty, there is no definite beginning for perimenopause. Is it the first day your period doesn’t come like clockwork? The day you can’t zip your favorite jeans? Maybe it’s your first hot flash, which you don’t yet call a hot flash, because what do you have to compare it to?

I realize how much perimenopause reminds me of puberty, too, when I have to borrow a tampon from a friend under a bathroom stall because I no longer have any idea of when, or if, my next period will even come! Twenty-two-day cycles? Sixty days? It’s nothing but a guessing game.

Plus, both life transitions come hand-in-hand with questions of identity and responsibility, resulting in a struggle to understand or accept the inevitable changes time brings.

But that is where the comparisons end.

The Uniqueness of Menopause as a Life Transition

Unlike puberty, there is a definite end to perimenopause—at least, an end to the accurate usage of the word. Perimenopause technically ends on the date on which there has been no period for a full year. That single day, one full year after your last period, is menopause. Everything before is peri. Everything after is post.

This does not mean that your symptoms will come to an end as the terminology shifts. (Sorry.) But it is a marker of sorts; a point at which we can say, This is it. This is the first day of my elder years.

So, if it’s a day that is different from any that has come before; if it is a day that births us into a whole new way of being, why not celebrate it as such?

Celebrating Menopause with “Pause Day”

Western culture does little to honor children as they move through puberty and become adults, and we do even less to honor women who are transitioning from adulthood to elderhood. Most often, menopause is experienced silently, with, if we’re lucky, the support of just a few friends or family members.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. We can start a new trend in which we mark this rite of passage the same way we would a marriage or a new job. We could call it our Pause Day.

Can you imagine how wonderful it would be to collectively celebrate a woman’s Pause Day? To honor her as she transitions into the Wise Woman, whose role now moves from one of caretaking (in any capacity) to mentoring, guidance, storytelling, and advice-giving?

During menopause, we leave behind adulthood, with its overbearing responsibilities to others; its addiction to identity and roles; its insistence that we look and remain youthful and appealing to men; and its burden that we be able to conceive children. Upon entering elderhood, we open up a deeper relationship with ourselves, and with nature, God, or simply the beauty of life. We become the Crone of the Triple Goddess archetype.

Doesn’t this transition from adulthood to elderhood deserve a glorious celebration with friends, cake, and toasts (in a nicely air-conditioned space)? Is it not as commemorative as another trip around the sun? Is it not an opportunity to make fresh vows to oneself and commit to the sacred duties of an elder?

In indigenous cultures, ritual and ceremony are indispensable in helping someone transition into a new role or stage of life. Is it possible that a simple ceremony to celebrate a woman’s Pause Day could give her the added strength and courage she needs to become a vocal, instrumental, participatory elder in a society of people relegated to quietly growing older?

Menopause as a Return to the Beauty of Childhood

If menopause is puberty in reverse, then Pause Day can also signal an undoing of so many of the habits of adulthood.

Most especially, I think of the habit of needing to be seen as intelligent. Wisdom is different from knowledge and, paradoxically, wisdom is only gained when we give up our desire to know things.

I am not yet to my Pause Day, but I am seeing this transitional time of my life as one where I seek to return to the innocence of my childhood. I am shaking off what I’ve come to decide is true, ideas that worked for me or held me up as an adult, and I am inviting in fresh curiosity and openness. I want this time of life to reawaken awe and inspiration within me, so that I, like my inner child, can be captivated for hours by the jumping of the grasshoppers as I run—okay, maybe stroll gently—through the tall grass.

Let us learn to embrace the changes within ourselves by allowing a return to home; to our innate nature, to joy, to ease. So much about adulthood makes us hard and unyielding. This time, this pause, is an opportunity to reveal our truest selves in a way that our identities in adulthood would never have allowed.

Yes, we may be losing our hair or our sex drive, and we are fanning each other down during hot flashes, as any good friend would do. Yes, it is a challenge to live inside a body we once knew well that now feels like a complete stranger. But why wouldn’t this change be uncomfortable—we are metamorphosing into a whole new kind of being!

As a culture, we must learn to honor this transition, not ignore or downplay it. And if the culture won’t lead this movement, well, then, let us women do it. It’s what we were born to do.

Discover affirmations for navigating menopause.

British-born energy intuitive, channeler, and musician Lee Harris arrived on the planet with a collective of 88 energies called the Z’s in tow. But by the time he was 6 years old, Zachary, Zapharia, Ziadora & Co. had grown silent. Not so today. Since 2000, Harris has regularly communed with the “voice of galactic consciousness”—in books such as the Conversations with the Z’s series and Energy Speaks, on his podcast Impact the World, and during a monthly Energy Update on YouTube that taps into what’s happening for the world. Spiritual seekers are listening—and healing and awakening. Harris reaches 2 million people each month through a combination of all his platforms plus his online community, The Portal. The multifaceted teacher spoke to contributing editor Karen Brailsford about his journey and shared tips on how to connect to one’s guides. At the end of their conversation, some very special guests dropped in with a powerful message for Spirituality & Health readers.

KAREN BRAILSFORD: Why are you here—why do you think you have been incarnated?

LEE HARRIS: I’m here for people. I’m here to build things that help people get to the levels of consciousness or healing that they need to get to. There was a period of my life where it felt very dark to me. At 7, I started an addictive eating pattern. I was in and out of diet clinics as a teenager, then I developed bulimia. But once I started on my healing journey when I was about 17, things started to make more sense.

KB: Are you surprised to find yourself where you are?

LH: I’m kind of blown away that this is where I happen to have found myself 20 years after starting a job that I didn’t even think could be a job. Channeling was something I did in secret for spiritually open friends. For years not even my family knew. One day over coffee, my yoga teacher told me something about her relationship with her boyfriend. I told her everything I was getting. The next day she called me and said, “I shared the information with him, and we’ve never been closer. You should be doing this for work.”

My guides had always said that after 2012, we will see more of a healing focus begin in the world, and that this kind of work will be much more normal. I remember thinking, That’s a nice idea. But really? They were right. There are so many examples of people wanting to connect more deeply to themselves and to their souls, to regulate their nervous systems, and to recover from the trauma that it is to be alive.

KB: I was blown away to see you’re teaching people how to channel.

LH: I come from a self-growth background. I loved intuition and tarot and anything that connected me to messages from Spirit. But I was also taking myself to workshops and uncovering layers of my fears and self-doubt from the age of about 20. I never thought channeling was about the channeler or about the channeled entity. I would find it strange when I would see the same level of worship, deference, or guru-ization of the channeler or the channeled being that one saw in some religions.

Channeling would always expand my mind, take me out of the egoic and put me back into a bird’s-eye view of things. The best example I can give you is when I first met my guides in 2000. I was dating a wonderful Danish artist, and there was something in our relationship I was convinced was his fault. I was going through all these things in my head when I heard them say, “That’s an interesting thought. But you’re wrong.” They explained why this was my issue. I didn’t feel any defensiveness. I didn’t feel judged. It’s always a perspective that I didn’t see.

I think channeling heightens people’s connection to their soul, to their intuition, and to the awareness that there is so much more going on beyond what we’ve been trained to see. And if you use it well and as part of a balanced spiritual diet, it can be an incredible addition to your life, provided you don’t put all your chips on it.

KB: What else do you put your chips on?

LH: The Z’s always talk about how multidimensional we are. For my spiritual health, I put my chips on fitness, on what I’m putting into my body, and on who and what I’m around vibrationally. Am I getting in enough nature? Am I connecting to my higher power, to my guides? What am I giving in the world? What am I receiving? These make for a balanced life. Human beings are innately spiritual; we’ve just been talked out of it. The more healed we get around the areas that have either been damaged or traumatized, the more our personal life force and universal life force can come into and through us.

KB: The word channel is loaded for me, although I suppose my daily journaling is channeling. Was it difficult to reveal this ability to people you knew?

LH: At a certain point I had to. A year into doing readings, I would visit my family and have to get on my laptop for sessions. I had to explain what I was doing. At first, they didn’t understand it. I’d come out as gay to my mother seven years earlier when I was 16. She discouraged me from telling my father, so I didn’t tell him until I was 21. It’s all good now, but it wasn’t an easy journey at the time. I was always very nervous, especially in my early twenties: How would I be perceived? Will people pull away from me? Will they think I’m weird? At the end of the day, our human drive is for connection, not disconnection, and I was very clear that I liked connecting.

KB: How do you teach others to channel?

LH: I have a video called “Working with Your Guides” on YouTube. It takes you through the process in a little over an hour. I also created an extensive course called How to Channel and Why. The basics are to get paper and pen, or your computer, and ask: “What does my soul want to tell me today?” Then just let yourself start writing and see what happens. Your mind might go, “Am I making this up?” I always say, “Yes, you are. So is any channeler.” I don’t mean you’re lying about what you’re getting. I mean that you are a participant in this experience. You’re not waiting for Spirit to whack you on the head. You’re actually inviting a communication. Sometimes people will get loads of information immediately. Sometimes they might get only a sentence: “You are love, and you are enough.” That might make them cry because they’ve never heard such loving words toward themselves

KB: When I journal, it’s always, “Karen, you’re so loved.” It’s amazing to feel such unconditional love.

LH: The Z’s have said that when you first start channeling you get calibrated to a frequency of love that you may not be used to, so it might take a few months of practicing, or maybe longer, before you start getting more information. The writing method is a great method because you can go back and see how relevant or true the message is. When I first met the Z’s, I was testing how their words lined up—or didn’t line up—with my life. For channeling to become a useful tool, you have to study it. It shouldn’t remain an entertainment. How are you going to apply the message? It’s time to embody and integrate it. I believe channeling or any form of divination is actually a very powerful transformational tool.

KB: Has your dynamic with the Z’s evolved over the years?

LH: Maybe I’ve become a more skilled communicator of their messages so they can come through stronger. Around 2017, their messages started to get more urgent. They talked about 2017 to 2024 being very intense, tumultuous years. We’ve been in a seven-year dark night of the soul. From 2020 onward the heat got turned up in life. The Z’s turned the heat up too. Not in a way that wasn’t supportive to people, but by exposing certain things. How the planet is run. How some people are horrifically oppressed. How people get away with horrendous things.

More recently, they’ve talked about how our systems have to become inclusive and uplift people. That’s where we’re going in the coming decades; we’re just having a bit of a battle to get there. It won’t happen overnight, but they did say that the pendulum swings. One thing that came through a few years ago is that from 2025 onward, we will see more actualized evidence of the new world that’s coming. It’s not that there won’t be more examples of war or oppression, but the rise of the opposite will get stronger.

People need to experience what’s possible. They can’t be told what’s possible. But if they start to see evidence, like a new invention, or if they have experiences that show them, “Oh, this is better,” it suddenly doesn’t look like the old way is the only way. There will be an increase in better technology, ways of being, emotional support, healing. I think those of us who look for those kinds of things are already seeing it all the time.

KB: Isn’t your community evidence of this?

LH: That’s a really good point. And it’s funny because my next mission is to build an actual network. What my team and I have learned to do could now be applied to bring in other voices, teachers, and modalities around transformation. I can feel it’s time.

KB: Many people believe things are worse than ever, so this is encouraging.

LH: The Z’s have explained that what we’re actually seeing right now is the surfacing of what’s been hidden. It’s all getting exposed.

KB: Do the Z’s have a message for our readers?

LH: Let’s see what comes. I’ll close my eyes and within 30 seconds they’ll start speaking.

Z’s: A pleasure to be here in this dialogue. We will turn our attention to this readership. You are all holding unity and spirituality as a focus because that is where oneness comes from. Oneness is the home that your soul remembers. Oneness is like a vast memory bank of all souls across all time. And the reason oneness will be so increasingly important for all of you is joy, harmony, flow, and connection. These are true energies, yet energies that have been successfully trapped, held back, diminished, dismissed, or in the worst cases, banished from human life.

So you are here as ambassadors of the opposite. It’s never comfortable to be an ambassador of the opposite. So as a survival guide for those of you who resonate with what we are saying: Be sure to be around enough of the people who you love to feel you have good community. And if you do not have that, make an intention with the universe that you are to find new connected souls and friends.

Lean into your mission. Many of you are here on missions of either love or healing or joy or forgiveness. You will have a life theme that you will notice comes up for you. It will either be an area you are very drawn to, or (and it’s often both) it will be something people tell you that they feel when they’re in your presence.

Let your mission get clearer to you, and it will make decisions in your life a lot easier. If you know you are on a mission of love, and someone invites you to an event that you are quite clear is not about love but is instead about division, you will know why you are turning it down. It is going to be very important for you to find your tribes, to find your path and lean into it in these coming years.

And if you do not know what your path is right now, then lean into not knowing for a year or two. Make peace with “this is a period in my life where I do not know, and I’m going to explore that for a while.” This will help you with all of the fluctuating energy waves that are coming toward the planet from the cosmos, but also coming from inside the Earth herself and rippling up onto the surface, and then, equally, the waves that affect you from other humans—for humans are very affected by other humans.

Even if you are staying in your house all day long, there are energy waves coming through the walls from the world outside. So knowing who the good people are for you to be around, knowing how to look after yourself, your energy field, your needs, your sense of balance, and knowing to include high energies—such as joy, connection, love, fun, play, harmony, healing, giving—these will be the ways to maintain your vibration while the world around you is shifting in so many different ways. Good, so do you have any questions for us before we depart?

KB: I love that you circled back to my first question: “Why are you here?” That’s validating.

Z’s: Good question, and Lee is here as a bridge to consciousness. A pleasure to be with you. If there are no other questions, we will depart.

KB: Thank you.

Z’s: And thank you to you for all that you do. And a pleasure to be here today in peace and in love and in heart to you.

KB: [to Lee] Now I’m even more excited to read what the Z’s have to say in your new book, The Future Human. What are some of the big topics you cover?

LH: Everything from AI to advances with medical techniques and issues around corruption in the power systems. How is that going to play out? How do we overcome it? What is the origin of humanity? How did we get here? Why are we somewhat dumbed down from our spirituality? Those are the kinds of questions the Z’s answer in the book, and they did not hold back!

Lee Harris started doing intuitive readings part-time in 2004 and now heads a multimedia, worldwide event company and production house called Lee Harris Energy. His latest book, The Future Human: New Ways of Living and Being on Earth, a conversation between the Z’s and journalist Regina Meredith, was published in March. His latest album, Medicine Mantras Vol. 2, was released in December 2024. Visit leeharrisenergy.com.

This article appeared in the March/April 2025 issue of Spirituality & Health®: A Unity Publication. Subscribe now.

The Strength tarot card classically depicts a young woman gently closing a lion’s mouth. The lion looks up at the woman with trust and adoration, not a hint of danger in the picture. The lion has a mane, indicating that he is male, and the woman in the image is unquestionably feminine. She wears a flower crown, is dressed in white, and often has other plants and flowers around her. Some versions of this card alternatively depict a woman who is half lion herself.

Generally, this card represents inner strength, patience, and tolerance. But what’s the deeper spiritual meaning of the Strength tarot card?

Many tarot readers note the contradiction between the card’s name and the image it depicts. When we hear the word strength, we often think of brawn, big muscles, and an ability to win a physical fight or lift something heavy. But we don’t see any of those qualities depicted in this card. The woman is very gentle with the lion, who is often sitting with her or even cuddling her. He hasn’t been tamed with violence. He trusts the woman.

Strength is usually the eighth card in the major arcana, with the number eight being an indicator of stability and structure in the Tarot. The number eight is also very similar to the lemniscate, the infinity symbol, which is often depicted hovering over the woman’s head in this card. There’s something cozy about the number eight in the Tarot, something contained and protected. But sometimes its stable structure can feel a little too tight, a little too restrictive, and we find ourselves with an urge to move, to change, and maybe to listen to the wild nature that is inviting us to shift out of what’s been comfortable when we pull an eight card.

Leonine Fierceness

Eight is also the number associated with the astrological sign of Leo—the lion, of course. This sign is related to the element of fire. The constellation of Leo was especially important in ancient Egypt, as it rose in the sky during the annual flooding of the Nile River, allowing for the crops to be irrigated.

The Egyptians worshiped Sekhmet, a goddess with the head of a lion, who represented the fire of the sun and the heat of desert winds, as well as war and healing. While Sekhmet is generally understood as a fierce goddess, she also knows how to use fire to heal. We can see her here in the Strength card: powerful enough to easily hold the energies of fierceness at bay, and ready to use them when needed.

Befriending Our Innate Wildness

Some see the infinity symbol on this card as a symbol of spiritual connection, while the lion represents our wildness and our base instincts. Our spirituality, in this interpretation, “tames” our wildness.

In a story found in the apocryphal text The Acts of Paul and Thecla, a young woman named Thecla decides to follow Paul and his teachings about Christ rather than get married. When she is nearly raped in the street, she gets in trouble with the law for resisting and is sentenced to execution by wild animals. She is bound to a lion and presented to several other wild animals, but the lion protects her. Thecla became a beloved saint in the Christian tradition for some time.

Thecla’s story is about the power of faith and virtue over wildness and cruelty. Thecla prevails because of who she is and what she believes; because of her inner strength and purpose rather than physical strength.

In this story, the lion understands something about Thecla that the people around her don’t. With their wild nature, non-human animals may be able to access knowledge we can’t, through the same senses and instincts that we humans sometimes forget. Maybe it’s not that we need to “tame” our wild instincts, but that we need to befriend them, get to know them, let them help us. With Strength, we are invited to get to know the wild part of ourselves that knows and feels; that is connected to instinct and can sense who is safe and who is not just by sniffing them out.

When Strength appears in a reading, this may be an invitation to notice the wild instincts we sometimes suppress and ignore. If we let our wildness teach us something, what would it have to say? If we invite our primal, base instincts into the world of our spirituality, what could we have the capacity to heal?

Tarot can offer us support during dark times. Learn how.