Wonder & Awe

LaPorte is a best selling author who has inspired millions of people around the world, naming her as one of Oprah Winfrey's Super Soul 100 Leaders for ""uniquely connecting the world together with a spiritual energy that matters."" Her newest book, How to Be Loving, is a nuanced perspective on the life changing power of Self Compassion, shadow work, and being more receptive to Higher Guidance. This is a guide on how to use the genius of your heart to create conditions for healing.

The Desire Map: A Guide To Creating Goals With Soul has been translated into 8 languages, evolved into a yearly day planner system, a top 10 iTunes app, and an international workshop program with licensed facilitators in 15 countries.

LaPorte's website, DanielleLaPorte.com, discusses spirituality, entrepreneurship, and personal growth. Forbes named her blog one of the top 100 websites for women in 2012, calling LaPorte ""a contrarian self-help guru.""

In this episode, Louie and Danielle look at the multi-faceted layers of Love, and how it can best serve as a practice for healing and connection around the world.

Sara Luria is the founder of Beloved, a home-based experiment in Jewish life in Brooklyn. In her family's home, she hosts Shabbat meals, creative rituals based on the Jewish calendar, meditation circles, learning for families with young children, and more. Prior to Beloved, Luria's experiences as a community organizer, birth doula, and hospital chaplain inspired her to found ImmerseNYC, a pluralistic, feminist, grassroots-energized community mikveh (ritual bath) project. She has published poetry and essays on motherhood, Jewish innovation, and healing in various Jewish books and publications. Luria was ordained as a rabbi from the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York in 2013.

Lynne Twist has been a recognized global visionary committed to alleviating poverty, ending world hunger, and supporting social justice and sustainability for more than forty years. She is also the cofounder of the Pachamama Alliance and founder of the Soul of Money Institute. Twist has worked with over 100,000 people in fifty countries in workshops, keynote presentations, and one-on-one coaching sessions on how to fundraise with integrity, practice conscious philanthropy, and create a healthy relationship with money. She is the bestselling author of The Soul of Money, which has sold over 200,000 copies worldwide and has been translated into nine languages.

Rita D. Sherma is founding Director and Associate Professor at the Center for Dharma Studies; Core Doctoral Faculty; Department Chair of Theology & Ethics; and Co-Chair of Sustainability 360 Initiative at GTU, Berkeley, CA. Formerly, she was the Swami Vivekananda Visiting Professor in Hindu Studies at USC, Los Angeles. She holds an MA in Women's Studies in Religion, and a PhD in Theology & Ethics from Claremont Graduate University, CA. Sherma is co-founder of the American Academy of Religion's Hinduism Program Unit. She is the founding Vice President of DANAM (Dharma Academy of North America)—a scholarly society for research on Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain religious & interreligious studies—and serves as Vice President of the Society for Hindu-Christian Studies. Dr. Sherma has authored/edited/co-edited numerous books and is the founding Editor-in-Chief of "Journal of Dharma Studies." She serves on the Editorial Board of "Reading Religion" Journal (an AAR publication), serves as Advisor to the Parliament of the World's Religions Climate Action-sponsored Faith for the Earth online & print project, as well as on the Advisory Board of the Yale Forum for Religion and Ecology. Her pedagogical approach goes beyond encounters in the classroom to create collaborations with her students in research, writing, publications, and sponsoring students' leadership in their disciplines.

Anna Sun, an Associate Professor at Duke University, holds a Princeton PhD in Sociology and is a prominent scholar in the field of religion and culture. Her research focuses on Confucianism as a world religion, gender and Global Confucianism, comparative studies of prayer and ritual, and methodological issues in studying East Asian religions.

Throughout her career, Professor Sun has been a fellow at prestigious institutions such as the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.

She is actively involved in various academic organizations, including serving as a trustee of the Fetzer Institute and being part of the Advisory Committee for the "Women's Studies in Religion Program" at Harvard Divinity School. Additionally, she is an advisor for the Pew Research Center on surveys of religion in East Asia, Southeast Asia, and the US (Asian-Americans).

Professor Sun has held leadership positions as Chair of the Board of Directors of ASIANetwork, Vice President of the Society for the Study of Chinese Religions, and Co-Chair of the Chinese Religions Unit of the American Academy of Religion.

Among her notable publications are "Confucianism as a World Religion: Contested Histories and Contemporary Realities," which received book awards from the American Academy of Religion and the American Sociological Association. She has also co-edited "Situating Spirituality: Context, Practice, and Power" and co-authored "Against Happiness," exploring comparative notions of wellbeing.

Currently, Professor Sun is working on two monographs: one focusing on Global Confucianism and the other examining contemporary ritual life in relation to magic, rationality, gender, time, and urban space.