Mindful U at Naropa University

110. Art Therapy: Healing the Inner Landscape

July 22nd, 2025  |  1 hr 4 mins

art, art therapy, contemplative, contemplative education, healing, naropa, transpersonal, transpersonal art therapy

In this episode, Michael Franklin, PhD—author, professor, and former chair of Naropa University's graduate Transpersonal Art Therapy program—joins us to explore art as a transformative path for healing the soul.

Franklin invites us into the contemplative language of art—through mediums like clay, paint, and film—and how these move us beyond just self-expression and into uncovering deeper layers of ourselves and our potential. Drawing from his journey into transpersonal art therapy, he explains why art may be the most precise language for emotion, and how fluency in creative practice helps us stay present with our own discomfort so we can more compassionately accompany others through theirs in the practice of Art Therapy. 

80. Anne Lamott and Neal Allen: Conversation for Shapes of Truth: Discover God Inside of You

July 29th, 2021  |  57 mins 9 secs

buddhism, buddhism lessons, contemplative, contemplative literature, divine connection, divinity, education, gender, healing journey, higher education, illusion, naropa, naropa university, patriarchy, schoalrs, self-help books, spiritual authors, spiritual literation, understanding truth

In this special evening event, hosted on June 3, 2021, by Naropa Extended Campus, spiritual coach and writer Neal Allen is joined in conversation by his wife, best-selling author Anne Lamott. Allen’s new book, Shapes of Truth: Discover God Inside You, provides a contemplative method for discovering one’s inner nature that is influenced by Eastern traditions, especially Sufism and Buddhism, as well as contemporary psychodynamics. Lamott’s best-selling spirituality books often explore a personal Christianity that is removed from the currently popular doctrinal evangelism. Together they discuss their collaborative writing life, practical approaches to spiritual practice, freedom from suffering, and much more.

79. Anthony Gallucci: Re-establishing Masculinity

February 17th, 2020  |  41 mins 25 secs

cisgender, contemplative, education, gender, higher education, masculine, masculinity, mindfulness, misogynistic, misogyny, naropa, naropa university, patriarchy, toxic masculinity, university

"There's gender identity, which isn't actually a problem. It's when it's forced into a limited paradigm or spectrum it can be an issue or when it's forced into a hierarchy. I see us eventually eliminating the hierarchy within these systems of identity and becoming more for lack of a better term, more merit based in our assessment of people's qualities. The re-establishing masculinity group believes that at Naropa to be foresighted and to support these movements we need to begin to get out of the way sort of speak and actually become allies to the anti-misogynistic movements that are occurring in our world. And to do that we ought to be -- we being people whom identify as masculine ought to be not disempowered to engage in that work. We ought to be empowered in our opinion to engage in that work. And the offering that's available of how masculinity is defined and actualized too often is non virtuous and not empowering."

77. Charlotte Rotterdam: Finding Courage in Contemplative Education

February 17th, 2020  |  47 mins 38 secs

charlotte rotterdam, college, contemplative, contemplative education, courage, david devine, education, higher education, meditation, mindful, mindfulness, naropa, naropa university, university

"Absolutely. You know we might have an idea about something, but then when you begin to express it from a creative place it's almost like you have to feel into it. If I want to write a poem about sadness it's not just about my ideas about sadness. At some point as I'm writing I need to stop and feel into what does sadness feel like? And then I might even think about a very specific situation in my life that brings up sadness. And then what arises from that place as a poem is coming from a non-conceptual place. Non-conceptual knowing and yet I've expressed something and I might even express it in words like with a poem. So, what we're trying to do in contemplative education is to bring both of those together. So, it's not in spite of conceptual knowing -- concepts are great, thinking is great -- but that there are other ways of knowing that are equally important and maybe if we bring them all together then there's a richness of knowing that begins to emerge."

76. Miki Fire: Discovering the Self Through Transpersonal Wilderness Therapy

July 1st, 2019  |  46 mins 47 secs

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"I do think here at Naropa specifically we do have a transpersonal orientation, a transpersonal lens that we then incorporate into all of our classes. So, the contemplative education piece is very much interwoven in what we do in the field. And so, we incorporate contemplative practices, we talk about how nature based experiences themselves can be forms of contemplative practice and inquiry. We also do introduce the transpersonal model. So how do we work with those kinds of experiences that the transpersonal orientation has really taken in and not pathologized. And being in the outdoors for many people, depending on the context, also can be quite evocative of experiences that do not fit cleanly into our usual psychological frameworks or when they are they're often pathologized."

75. Carl Anthony: The Urban Habitat Program

June 17th, 2019  |  35 mins 18 secs

breakthrough communities, carl anthony, city planning, communities, contemplative, education, environment, environmental justice, higher education, justice, naropa, naropa university, paloma pavel, social justice, university, urban communities, urban habitat

"We need to think about a new quality in our organization where we are not only protesting against the things that are really hurting our communities and neighborhoods, but we're also really cultivating expertise on ideas and visions that we might have for the neighborhood and community. Finding ways that rather than having these issues come forth in competition, that we can actually have a big enough solutions put forth that incorporate. And one of the areas that we have been specializing in is something called Movement for Regional Equity and what that basically means is that the decisions that are made at a regional level are taken up by the community and our metropolitan region."

74. Paloma Pavel: Reimagining Community Organizing & Environmental Literacy

June 3rd, 2019  |  45 mins 11 secs

breakthrough communities, carl anthony, city planning, communities, contemplative, education, environment, environmental justice, higher education, justice, naropa, naropa university, paloma pavel, social justice, university, urban communities, urban habitat

"It's been a great joy and privilege in my life to work with individuals, with communities, with groups—sometimes in traditional organizations and non-profits—sometimes at a community level. We're living in a time where I think we're being called to move from a politics of protest and saying no to one of saying yes, and of governance, and of really learning how to take charge of the basic infrastructure of our lives. Communities are taking back locally produced energy and energy grids. People are working on knowledge about where their water comes from and soil—and also their sense of meaning and community and creativity and art in the broadest sense of: how do we imagine a new culture that is truly inclusive of all?"

73. Paloma Pavel & Carl Anthony: Breakthrough Communities, Underserved Populations, & Community Engagement

May 20th, 2019  |  52 mins 7 secs

breakthrough communities, carl anthony, city planning, communities, contemplative, education, environment, environmental justice, higher education, justice, naropa, naropa university, paloma pavel, social justice, university, urban communities, urban habitat

"As we open and see that what we're carrying around inside ourselves, what we have created around us is kind of a fear story. When we actually step into the fierce love story that we long for, we start having a much more joyful experience and one where we're not at war with our earth community. One where we're actually welcoming growing things in our backyards and on our roofs, where we're seeing that space is imagined in a whole other way. And also, we do need to live closer together if we're going to preserve wilderness and agricultural land and green space—it's essential that we learn how to be with one another. And we're excited for this moment because we feel that it's probably one of the most energizing, innovating moments that we've ever lived through. And it's accelerating."

72. Joanna Macy: The Work That Reconnects Part 2 of 2

May 6th, 2019  |  36 mins 30 secs

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"We talked about the spiral of the work that reconnects and then you talked about how once you dare to really see and speak what you've wanted to keep at arm's length, once you refuse to turn away and really suffer with your world and then you realize that the world is flowing into you and the living planet becomes alive for you. And then it generates for you. So that's we call seeing with new eyes. Everything looks different. And we use practices that are inspired by what we call deep ecology like the council of all beings. Where we step aside from our human role, which is only the last chapter of our long planetary journey. We've, as we know from the life forms we had in the womb of our mother, you know we had a tail and gills and fins. And so that we capitulate that ontogeny."

71. Joanna Macy: The Work That Reconnects Part 1 of 2

April 29th, 2019  |  53 mins 16 secs

activism, activist, bodhisattva, buddhism, climate change, college, community, contemplative, contemplative education, crisis, david devine, deep ecology, earth, eco system, ecology, education, equality, higher education, joanna macy, mindful, mindful u, mindfulness, mother earth, naropa, naropa university, nuclear activist, nuclear guardianship, planet earth, social change, social justice, social responsibility, the great turning, the work that reconnects, university