Wanderlust Storyteller Sessions: Chris Grosso

Here’s a fun little video I shot while presenting at Wanderlust VT’s event a little while back.

To see the entire post on Wanderlust’s website, click HERE!

RIP Lemmy!

RIP Lemmy… and thank you!

“I’ll share another example of interbeing and dependent arising based on an experience I had a few years ago while covering a Motörhead/Slayer concert for my website theindiespiritualist.com. I had a nifty photo pass that gave me access to the area directly in front of the stage (lucky me, I know). So there I was, standing up front waiting for Motörhead to come on, when all of a sudden the stage went dark, and the sound of a guitar being plugged in ripped through the PA system. The crowd began to go crazy, and chants of “MOTÖRHEAD!” roared throughout the stadium. Fifteen seconds later, the lights came back on, and there, standing roughly a foot in front of me, was greatness himself, Motörhead’s bassist/singer . . . Lemmy-fucking-Kilmister!

I’ve covered a lot of shows and interviewed a lot of bands—and actors, comedians, spiritual teachers (it’s part of my job)—and rarely do I get that caught up in the whole star-struck thing, but this was Lemmy, a metal god among gods. An interesting thing happened roughly a minute into Motörhead’s first song (after getting over my fanboy nerd-out, of course), when I noticed Lemmy’s Rickenbacker bass. It was a model I hadn’t seen him play before, and it was insanely gorgeous. It had an all-natural wood finish complemented by a beautiful, hand-carved leaf inlay that covered the entire body of the instrument.  (more…)

Everything Mind In Thrasher Magazine!

I’m incredibly grateful to ‪Thrasher  Magazine‬ for this nice little write up on Everything Mind. Thrasher has easily been my favorite mag since the 80’s, so for them to run this is beyond HUGE! And I also think this lends itself nicely to one of the main points I try to make in E.M., which is that spirituality need not be compartmentalized but instead, can be experienced at all times… even while skateboarding and listening to Minor Threat.

Everything Mind Review In Publishers Weekly

Grateful to Publishers Weekly for this nice review of #EverythingMind Personally, I wouldn’t say this book is a “guide to Buddhist theory and practice” nor specifically a Buddhist book by any means, but whatever, psyched on going 2 for 2 with positive reviews from PW!

“Recovering addict and punk rock journalist Grosso (Indie Spiritualist) wants, in his irreverent hybrid of personal memoir, inner travelogue, and profanity-filled guide to Buddhist theory and practice, to “wake your ass up” and help you to “be of service to others.” Grosso’s advice avoids the sappy, clean-living reform rhetoric of most enlightenment memoirs; instead he teaches shadow work—the practice of working through imagined conversations with others—embracing emotional darkness, and gravitating toward those with a nontraditional (or nonexistent) spirituality. Chapters explaining concepts like Witnessing Awareness and bodhichitta alternate with concise descriptions of accessible, mostly traditional practices. Although Grosso has a free-form, conversational style, his lessons are all coherent and well organized. He draws from such masters as Thich Nhat Hanh and don Miguel Ruiz, but also from less conventional sources like Charles Bukowski’s “The Last Night of the Earth Poems.” His low-key offer of tools for experiencing the oneness of life is human and humble, while secure in understanding its profound value, like a friend putting a hand on your shoulder on a rough day.” (October 1st)

Gotta Go In To Get Out Documentary

Hi friends! So today is a very big day as we’re officially starting our crowd funding campaign for the Gotta Go In To Get Out documentary (featuring Pema Chodron, Ram Dass, Ken Wilber, Krishna Das, Noah Levine, Mirabai Starr, Adam Bucko, Jessica Pimentel (Orange Is The New Black), Miguel Chen (Teenage Bottlerocket) and more!. Please, please, please, if you’re able to support this in any way, from contributing $1, $100, $1,000 (all tax deductible) or simply sharing the link with family & friends, any and everything helps greatly! Below is more information on the film and here is the link for the campaign, which features a pretty nifty trailer: www.goin2getout.org

Please join us in exploring What is Freedom?

With only 5% of the world’s population, the U.S. has 25% of the world’s prison population – making us the world’s largest jailer.

One in 99 adults are living behind bars in the U.S. This marks the highest rate of imprisonment in American history.
1 in 3 Americans have debt in collections Almost 1 in every 100 households in the United States will claim bankruptcy.

Gotta Go In To Get Out is a feature documentary exploring the journey’s of two men who found themselves in prison, one literally and the other metaphorically through drugs and alcohol, and their quest to find the freedom we all seek, not only from San Quentin’s death row, but also the prison in our minds. The film will explore the question, “What is Freedom?” We will examine societies prison for profit culture and capitalism as a means of enslavement, our relationship with money and a corrupt legal system, and a prison system designed to punish and devalue instead of rehabilitate and revive. We will also look at how spirituality has found its way into prisons and is freeing many behind bars.

Featuring such luminaries as Pema Chodron, Ken Wilber​, Ram Dass, Rebecca Walker, Krishna Das​, Mirabai Starr​, Jessica Pimentel​, Noah Levine, Adam Bucko​, Miguel Chen​ and others – our intent is to create a feature documentary that will appeal to a young generation ready to make the changes not only to our prison system, but to our culture and capitalistic structure.

Produced and Directed by Betsy Chasse, Ri Stewart, Renee Slade (Bluedot Productions) and Featuring Chris Grosso and the writing of Jay Jarvis Masters.

With your support we can free ourselves.
www.goin2getout.org