Stephen Zerfas - How to Access Deep Bliss and Wellbeing with Jhana Meditation

Sylvie Barbier & Rufus Pollock of Life Itself - Why the World Needs a Second Renaissance

Sylvie Barbier & Rufus Pollock are the co-founders of Life Itself – a collective of pragmatic utopians committed to practical action for a radically wiser, weller world. Sylvie is a French-Taiwanese ritual artist whose work synthesises Eastern and Western philosophies and aesthetics. Her performance art pieces are contemporary rituals, where the audience is invited to take an active and interactive role. Rufus is an entrepreneur, activist, author, and long-term Zen practitioner who has founded several successful for-profit and nonprofit initiatives. His 2018 book Open Revolution is about making a radically freer and fairer information age, and has been translated into multiple languages. Rufus and Sylvie's lives come together both as a couple and through the work they are doing with Life Itself, which includes creating practice hubs and developmental spaces, driving research on the meta-crisis and pathways towards a Second Renaissance, and building partnerships across disciplines by connecting thinkers, artists, communities, and organisations exploring post-conventional ways of life. In this conversation, we explore how Sylvie and Rufus's inner work paths converged and led them to co-found the Life Itself collective. We get into the real difficulty and vulnerability of walking a post-conventional path and why shadow work remains criminally underrated. We dig into Game A vs Game B, two fundamentally different ways of seeing reality (Wisdom vs Power), and how framing the meta-crisis through the lens of symptoms, diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment might be our clearest map yet for navigating it. We also explore which seeds of culture we're choosing to nourish, what actually makes people change their minds, and the surprising role art may play in collective transformation. 🔗[Links & Resources]🔗 * Life Itself collective [https://lifeitself.org/] * Life Itself YouTube channel [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmBq3VO9w_MLTKD_CHsYN-Q] * Sylvie Barbier's personal site [https://sylviebarbier.com/] * Follow Sylvie on Substack [https://substack.com/@shiweiart] * Rufus Pollock's personal site [https://rufuspollock.com/] * Follow Rufus on Substack [https://substack.com/@rufuspollock] * Second Renaissance [https://secondrenaissance.net/] 🕰️[Time Stamps]🕰️ 0:00 - Introduction  3:04 - How Sylvie and Rufus’s journeys came together 11:12 - Founding the Life Itself collective and the Second Renaissance movement  17:07 - Running transformational practice hubs  21:18 - The need for continuity and rootedness 25:18 - The difficulty and vulnerability of the post-conventional path  36:26 - Shadow work is still underrated, and a modernist in rehab  41:05 - Game A vs Game B 46:16 - What a Roman Watching Christians Die in the Colosseum can teach us 49:15 - The idea behind the Over the Mountains podcast  52:44 - Which seeds are we deciding to nourish? / Creating Pockets of Culture  57:40 - Two ways of seeing reality (Wisdom vs Power)  1:09:10 - The need for holistic development 1:17:52 - Creating more good faith dialogue and what makes people change their minds 1:24:40 - Framing Meta-crisis conversations through symptoms, diagnosis, prognosis, & treatment 1:34:16 - Art’s role in collective transformation *Subscribe to my YouTube channel to watch the video versions of the Elevating Consciousness Podcast  [https://www.youtube.com/@ArtemZen] *Subscribe to the Insighter Substack to get in-depth articles on the theory and practice of human transformation through a post-conventional [https://artemzen.substack.com/]

Stephen Zerfas - How to Access Deep Bliss and Wellbeing with Jhana Meditation

Stephen Zerfas is the CEO and Co-founder of Jhourney — a tech startup scaling transformative meditation through a data-driven lens, guiding complete beginners into deeply absorbed meditation states known as the Jhanas, in less than a week.   Stephen discovered the first three jhanas through his own practice and, upon learning of their profound history, made it his mission to bring them to as many people as possible. He has since trained with leading jhana teachers, including Leigh Brasington and Delson Armstrong. Thus far, Jhourney has served over 1,300 alumni with a 60-70% success rate in helping participants access the jhanas on weeklong retreats. Before founding Jhourney, Stephen worked as a software engineer at Lyft and a management consultant at Bridgespan, a Bain affiliate. A University of Notre Dame graduate, he lives in the Bay Area with his wife and daughter.  The following conversation was recorded live during Limicon - a digital conference for people in the liminal, game b, and metamodern adjacent spaces.  In it, we speak about what the Jhanas are, how Stephen discovered them through self-experimentation, and why he decided to found a tech-company that teaches them. Later, Stephen guides us through a towards Jhana meditation, and we close with a group discussion on whether morality is — or must be — part of such a meditation practice. 🔗[Links & Resources]🔗 * Jhourney's website [https://www.jhourney.io/] * Subscribe to Stephen on Substack [https://substack.com/@stephenzerfas] * 90 second video capturing the intensity of the jhanas from people recorded on retreat [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q56JUENh9so] * A Jhourney retreat reflection [https://maiakiyoshi.substack.com/p/my-jhourney-retreat-reflection?r=cfmpy&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true] * Meditation safety podcast [https://jhourney.transistor.fm/episodes/david-treleaven-meditation-safety-and-jhanas-for-working-with-emotional-difficulty] * How to cry on cue [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuJt81AtY08] * The Mind Illuminated by Culadasa [https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Illuminated-Meditation-Integrating-Mindfulness/dp/1501156985] 🕰️[Time Stamps]🕰️ 0:00 - Introduction  2:49 - The contemplative corner of the liminal web  6:12 - How Stephen discovered the Jhanas on his own  12:22 - The guesswork problem of meditation and starting Jhourney  17:23 - What are the Jhanas? 20:26 - Are these universally discovered states? 22:44 - What do the Jhanas feel like? 24:15 - Super well-being and taking the technology of meditation seriously  27:07 - Main barriers to accessing the Jhanas 34:50 - Orienting to the meditation: Reflect like a scientist, play like a child  38:10 - Towards Jhana guided meditation  1:18:19 - What role does morality play in meditation? 1:28:09 - The biggest concerns of Jhana meditation practice  *Subscribe to my YouTube channel to watch the video versions of the Elevating Consciousness Podcast  [https://www.youtube.com/@ArtemZen] *Subscribe to the Insighter Substack to get in-depth articles on the theory and practice of human transformation through a post-conventional [https://artemzen.substack.com/]

O.G. Rose - Belonging in an Age of Hyper-Fragmentation

Daniel Garner is a writer, philosopher, and one-half of O.G. Rose – the philosophical and literary voice he shares with his wife, Michelle Garner.  Their work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize as well as the Uno Press lab prize and has been featured in literary publications such as The Iowa Review, The William and Mary Review, and Broken Pencil.  Daniel has been involved in the writing of over a dozen books, including The Conflict of Mind, The Map is Indestructible, the Belonging Again series, and a creative fiction work, Under the Wing. When not writing or thinking on the deepest questions of our times, he manages the Mead Lake Lodge wedding venue, teaches piano using visuals from the DLG Pattern Method, and raises four children. The following conversation was recorded live during Limicon - a digital conference for people in the liminal, game b, and metamodern adjacent spaces.  In it, we explore how belonging can be created beyond conformity or isolationism in a pluralistic and hyper-fragmented world — and what it asks of us across different scales, from the local to the national to the global. We highlight the importance of lack and negativity, forces so often overlooked in spiritual spaces; examine weak versus costly perennialism and the limits of any single system, model, or medium; and sit with the difference between talking about belonging and living it. 🔗[Links & Resources]🔗 * O.G. Rose’s personal site [https://www.og-rose.com/] * Subscribe to O.G. Rose’s Substack [https://substack.com/@ogrose] * Watch O.G. Rose’s YouTube channel [https://www.youtube.com/@O.G.Rose.Michelle.and.Daniel] * Belonging Again: An Explanation by O.G. Rose [https://www.amazon.com/Belonging-Again-Explanation-Part-I/dp/1736507540] * Belonging Again: An Address by O.G. Rose [https://www.amazon.com/Belonging-Again-Address-Part-II-1/dp/1736507567/] * Triumph of the Therapeutic by Phillip Rieff [https://www.amazon.com/Triumph-Therapeutic-faith-after-Freud/dp/B0007EGPDU] 🕰️[Time Stamps]🕰️ 0:00 - Intro 2:45 - The central problem of belonging  12:27 - Regressive forms of Belonging  16:37 - How belonging differs on a local, national, and global level 21:15 - Cheap Vs Costly Perennialism and evolving structures  30:18 - Negativity, lack, and radical difference 37:29 - The limits of any one system, model, or medium 41:51 - Hegel's absolute knower, the Deleuzian individual, the Nietzschean child, and the debate between Freud and Jung  46:10 - The irony of not belonging in a conversation about belonging and the importance of intelligibility  57:24 - The social coordination mechanism  1:03:01 - Somewheres and anywheres 1:06:41 - Democratizing media   1:11:41 - Racism as the problem of givens and releases  1:20:06 - Nature as a pathway to diversity and belonging  1:25:18 - The pros and cons of digital history  1:30:11 - The difference between talking about belonging and living it  1:35:37 - Finding belonging in different mediums and structures  1:41:45 - Daniel’s insights from running Eunoia, an in-person gathering space 1:49:03 - We are all doomed without adequate social coordination  *Subscribe to my YouTube channel to watch the video versions of the Elevating Consciousness Podcast  [https://www.youtube.com/@ArtemZen] *Subscribe to the Insighter Substack to get in-depth articles on the theory and practice of human transformation through a post-conventional [https://artemzen.substack.com/]

Richard Flyer - How to Weave Networks of Wisdom, Wealth & Well-being

Richard Flyer is a community weaver and entrepreneur who has devoted his life to exploring how spirituality, local relationships, and practical action can renew communities, building eco-system networks from the ground up. Deeply influenced by Sarvodaya Shramadana’s grassroots mobilization of 15,000 Sri Lankan villages, Richard champions bottom-up regeneration rooted in local relationships, spiritual practice, and everyday service. His work spans founding Vecinos Unidos in San Diego, leading the San Diego Food Bank, supporting syntropic agroforestry in Hawaii, building symbiotic networks (Living Local Economy, Food Systems, Arts and Culture, and Neighbor Networks) in Reno and launching the Symbiotic Culture Lab to activate 50,000 micro-bioregional community networks by 2033.  From early mystical experiences of a “Luminous Web” of interconnection to research with pilot whales and years immersed in nature, Richard’s life has been a living experiment in bringing the transcendent into the immanent—“bringing Heaven to Earth”— through practical, face-to-face community building grounded in love, service, and shared responsibility. He is the Author of Birthing the Symbiotic Age: An Ancient Blueprint To Unite Humanity which draws from five decades of hands-on experiments across cultures, faith traditions, and organizational contexts to help communities move from separation toward connection. In this episode, we speak about Richard’s early spiritual experiences and how they impacted his community building efforts, we also explore how to navigate the polarities of individual and collective, healing the culture of separation, the difference between values and virtues, driving change bottom up, re-sacralizing reality and unpack what Richard calls – The ancient blueprint – the practical applications of transcendent principles needed to birth a symbiotic culture.  🔗[Links & resources] 🔗 * Richard’s site & Substack [https://www.richardflyer.com/] * Birthing a Symbiotic Age by Richard Flyer  [ https://www.amazon.com/Birthing-Symbiotic-Age-Blueprint-Humanity/dp/B0GL5211C5] * Dr. Ari [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._T._Ariyaratne] * Small Is Beautiful by E.F. Schumacher [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Is_Beautiful] * A Secular Age by Charles Taylor [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Secular_Age] 🕰️[Time stamps] 🕰️ 0:00 - Introduction  3:53 - Richard’s vision of a symbiotic culture  8:14 - Do we need spiritual experiences to expand our circle of care? 20:00 - Integrating spirituality into community building  31:16 - The influence of Dr.Ari and the Sarvodaya movement  35:39 - Becoming a Spiritual Gangster: Diffusing violence through loving awareness 46:01 - Healing the culture of separation  58:43 - The worldview that devalues value and disconnects us from the transcendent  1:05:03 - Virtues and the objective sacred  1:10:00 - Navigating inclusivity & exclusivity in community and culture building  1:16:55 - The difference between values & virtues and connecting to foundational community needs   1:24:49 - Truth and love are inseparable and beyond our political beliefs  1:32:50 - Syncretism, perennialism and what brought Richard to Christianity  1:49:04 - How do we include atheists and materialists in this conversation? 1:58:02 - Artem reflects on how Richard’s work is impacting him  *Subscribe to my YouTube channel to watch the video versions of the Elevating Consciousness Podcast  [https://www.youtube.com/@ArtemZen] *Subscribe to the Insighter Substack to get in-depth articles on the theory and practice of human transformation through a post-conventional [https://artemzen.substack.com/]

Daljeet Peterson - Demystifying the Ancient Art of Astrology for the Modern World

Daljeet Peterson is an astrologer, Human Design analyst, and author exploring how ancient and modern systems of meaning can guide us through times of transformation.  His work bridges astrology, Human Design, and the Gene Keys as complementary maps of consciousness—tools for aligning with one’s deeper purpose and participating more consciously in the collective evolution of our species. A former television editor turned cosmic cartographer, Daljeet brings a storyteller’s sensibility to the study of archetypes, weaving together myth, history, and contemporary culture.  He’s the author of Collective Souls: Generations, Astrology, and the Future of America, which explores how generational astrology reveals the hidden cycles shaping our nation’s destiny—and the emerging potentials of a new Aquarian era. You can find his writings and upcoming offerings on his Substack called Mutable Fire. In this episode, we explore how astrology was discovered, its foundational principles, common misconceptions, and how to distinguish good astrology from bad astrology. We also touch on Human Design, & the Gene Keys, and how they tie into Astrology. Finally, Daljeet shares some of the main ideas from his new Book Collective Souls, advocating for intergenerational communication and understanding of time that is chronological and astrological. 🔗[Links & resources] 🔗 * Daljeet’s site [https://astrolab21.com/] * Subscribe to Daljeet’s Substack [https://mutablefire21.substack.com/] * Collective Souls by Daljeet Peterson [https://www.amazon.com/Collective-Souls-Generations-Astrology-America/dp/B0FTT69VTB] * Daljeet’s Astrology 101: Blueprint of the Soul series [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLloxwHQw7JtCJBcZDCYHbj9LucDtaSYn9] * Cosmos & Psyche by Richard Tarnas [https://www.amazon.com/Cosmos-Psyche-Intimations-World-View/dp/0452288592] 🕰️[Time stamps] 🕰️ 0:00 - Introduction  4:38 - Daljeet’s journey into astrology 8:22 - How astrology was discovered  16:27 - Is astrology a religion? 21:55 - Common misconceptions of astrology  26:06 - How to distinguish good astrology from bad astrology  28:58 - The foundational principles of astrology 39:52 - What is the mechanism behind planetary effects? 45:00 - The limits of falsifiability, science, and left-brain ways of knowing  51:22 - Unpacking Human Design & Gene Keys  1:01:56 - Holding modalities with curiosity and humility  1:06:27 - Collective Souls: Generations, Astrology, and the Future of America 1:13:00 - The unique gifts & challenges of the four generations (Baby boomers, Gen X, Millennials & Gen Z)  1:20:51 - Calls to action for the four generations *Subscribe to my YouTube channel to watch the video versions of the Elevating Consciousness Podcast  [https://www.youtube.com/@ArtemZen] *Subscribe to the Insighter Substack to get in-depth articles on the theory and practice of human transformation through a post-conventional lens [https://artemzen.substack.com/]