Check out these great organizations that support IONS through our Partnership Program.

Global Partner:

Men's Wearhouse

Silver Partners:

Nine Gates Mystery School

Prayers for a peaceful world

The Monroe Institute

Bronze Partners:

Spiritual Paths Institute

School of the New Spirituality

Institute of Transpersonal Psychology

John F. Kennedy University

CIIS
Conference Alerts
Friendly Favors
Naropa University
Omega Institute

Noteworthy Releases

The Voice - A new DVD release about consciousness, the search for enlightenment, and the meeting of spirituality and science. Produced by Intention Media, co-founded by Betsy Chasse, one of the directors of What the Bleep. Features Robert Thurman, Dr. Gary Schwarz, Dr. Stanley Krippner, and Dr. Roger Nelson, director of The Global Consciousness Project. (press release) (purchase)

The Soul Genome: Science and Reincarnation - by Paul von Ward (buy) (article by Paul Von Ward)

How It Feels to Have a Stroke - Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor had an opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: One morning, she realized she was having a massive stroke. This video offers a powerful story about how our brains define us and connect us to the world and to one another.

TakePart.net - a site by Participant Productions designed to create social action around documentaries such as An Inconvenient Truth.

Here we share the top videos submitted to our YouTube One Minute Shift video contest. For details on the next contest, with a $1000 prize, visit our new contest page.

1st prize - "METAPHORmosis" by Rowan North

2nd prize: "Experience Self/Strength~fear is the thief of dreams" by CYRES Café

3rd prize: "The Catalyst " by doctressNeu (Libby Hubbard)

Honorable mentions:

• "Miracle of the Heart" by Gingeronymous
• "Feel the Feminine Shift" by SurpriseFoundation
• "Ceremony" by freemantv

Notable videos (not eligible for technical reasons):

• "The Purpose" by artypeguy
• "sciencespirit paradigm" by alphamudpuppy
• "Are You Ready?" by BookofLight

We now feature LIVE teleseminars on both Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Tuesday's Living Deeply series features spiritual leaders and practical visionaries who share their practices for living a deeper, more fulfilling life. On Wednesday we focus on shifts in our society.

This month's schedule of live calls:

	Tuesday, April 1st at 11am Pacific - Marilyn Schlitz with Monica Sharma
	Wednesday, April 2nd at 5pm Pacific - Stephen Dinan with Brian Johnson on "Philosopher's Notes and Your Hero's Journey"
	Tuesday, April 8th at 11am Pacific - Angela Murphy with Rev. Dr. Mary Tumpkin on "Prosperity As a Birthright"
	Wednesday, April 9th at 5pm Pacific - James O'Dea with Don Beck on "Deep Shifts: Resolving major conflicts through the principles and processes of Natural Design"
	Tuesday, April 15th at 11am Pacific - Tina Amorok with Shaykh Yassir Chadly
	Wednesday, April 16th at 5pm Pacific - Marilyn Schlitz with Nina Wise
	Tuesday, April 22nd at 11am Pacific - Cassandra Vieten with William Miller
	Wednesday, April 23rd at 5pm Pacific - Belvie Rooks with Juliet Ellis on "Embodying Multi-Racial Consciousness: Movement and Community-Building in the 21st Century"
	Tuesday, April 29th at 11am Pacific - Community Q&A with IONS President James O'Dea
	Wednesday, April 30th at 5pm Pacific - Stephen Dinan with Hazel Henderson on "The Acceleration of the Shift in the Global Economy"

Join Shift in Action today to participate in these calls!

Free samples from the Shift in Action program

• Bruce Lipton and Steve Bhaerman - Details
• Audio highlights
• Great Shift audio highlights
• Transcripts

Great Shift Dialogues recently released

• Shiva Rea and Andrew Harvey
• Charlotte Shelton and Rev. James Trapp
• Many more when you join

Join Shift in Action today!

The 2008 Shift Report: Changing the Story of Our Future

If you're not a member, you can join Shift in Action for a trial month for only $1 and still receive the 2008 Shift Report.

About the Report

Over the past several decades, new scientific discoveries along with a surge in grassroots initiatives addressing social and economic injustices have begun calling into question the view of the universe-and essentially of ourselves-as ultimately cold and mechanistic. Revealing both the mysterious directionality of the evolving cosmos and the irrepressible humanity within our own natures, new evidence is emerging that we are innately capable of far more than we realize. Yes, the evidence is compelling that the arc of the human species is on a self-destructive decline, and yet once the pieces are put together, there is no denying that another reality is fighting through the cracks of the dominant narrative. We are just beginning to tap into our potential as human beings despite, or perhaps because of, the multiple crises that we are facing.

Contents

• Acknowledgments
• Letter from President
• Introduction
• Section I: Evolution & Human Nature
  • A Broadening Understanding of Evolution
  • Science Rediscovers Our Humanity
  • The Other Side of Human Nature
  • The Challenge of Our Time
• Section II: Toward a New Scientific Synthesis
  • The Science of Anomalies
  • West Meets West
  • An Age of Re-Enlightenment?
• Section III: The Rise of Global Civil Society
  • Social Change - Institutional and Grassroots Movements
  • Economics and Prosperity - Beyond GDP
  • Media and Information: Democratizing Knowledge and Catalyzing Rapid Shifts
• Section IV: Internalizing Paradigm Shift
  • The Meditative Heart of the Mind
  • The Compassionate Mind of the Heart
  • Participatory Evolution
• Conclusion
• Endnotes
• Resources
• About IONS

Note: The 2008 Shift Report serves as Shift magazine #18.

More IONS employees are doing personal carbon offsets to neutralize the carbon dioxide generated by our daily lives. IONS employee Tiffany Mitchell writes:

A carbon offset, in simple terms, is a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions elsewhere to cancel out emissions arising from a particular activity. Say you drive a car to work every day. Every day that car emits carbon dioxide, which alters the climate. If not driving the car isn’t an option, you could instead cancel out the car’s emissions by paying to cut emissions somewhere else. So long as your action results in a reduction that would not otherwise occur, the net result is the same: Lower emissions and you get to feel good about lowering your "carbon footprint."

Calculate your carbon footprint and offset your carbon here: www.carboncounter.org

Our Year of Living Deeply continues with the launch of our new Signature Education workshops:

Living Deeply: The Art and Science of Transformation in Everyday Life

• Santa Monica, CA: May 3
• Petaluma, CA: May 23-25
• Chicago, IL: June 6-8

These workshops blend the rigors of science with the deep wisdom of the world’s spiritual traditions. Join IONS research staff Marilyn Mandala Schlitz, PhD; Cassandra Vieten, PhD; and Tina Amorok, PsyD; as they offer key insights from the decade-long qualitative and quantitative research study of how people transform their lives.

Donor Spotlight: Sandra Leicester

This month we introduce Sandra Leicester in our donor spotlight. Sandra was the Communications Director at IONS for many years and most recently a Wisdom Circle member. She now lives on a Lavendar Farm in Tomales Bay California. Sandra shares her reflections and insights about a new worldview story she sees emerging as the GREAT SHIFT unfolds. We share this positive vision and invite you to consider, what you think is the new story emerging beyond the GREAT SHIFT?

"I have never been more excited, hopeful, and enthusiastic about our collective future. I have, for many, many months, been praying to see the new world in expression, to have a deeper understanding of how our wings will feel, how we will live together in harmony, what that will look like and feel like. Of late, I am seeing with greater clarity that our mandate is to live as fully as possible into our interconnectedness--for all levels of life--culturally, in community, and in commerce. Living into the interconnectedness delivers an amazing bonus: a major increase in intuitive functioning--the evolutionary spiritual 'currency' of the new world.

"This means looking into who and what you, as an individual, are connected into, and how to mutually maximize that connectivity for greatest joy, abundance, and creative expression for all. Our commerce will be more about life enhancing products and services. We will do business with one another more, and less with anonymous corporate sources; instead of full time employment, many more of us will find it possible to be self employed by having micro streams of income from the ways we have found to contribute to the betterment of those who comprise our communities, our networks, our world. Local economies will emerge; community vitality increases with prosperous local economies, and helps to banish greed. As these trends spread, we will help eliminate the wastes of mass media marketing, excessive packaging, and multiple distribution systems, and thus, the toxic environments of mass media advertising will begin to transform. These are broad strokes, but these are some of the trends I am being given to see with a clarity that moves and inspires me. The new world is truly on its way to us. Connect, and stay connected. Love Grows."

DEAR SWAMI
by Swami Beyondananda

"Where Swami Answers Your Questions - and You Will Question His Answers"
 

April Intention:
At the beginning of each month, we encourage you to take a quiet moment to link your intention with people around the world. In honor of April Fools Day, this month our intention is to make our participation in the great transformation of our day as fun and entertaining as possible.

April Action:
This month, we encourage you to take one action that expresses your sense of enjoyment and playfulness in the service of making the world a happier and healthier place.

"My intention for next month is to commit to buying my food at the local co-op and to buying only organic."

If you would like to offer an intention for next month, please send it here.