As prevention and wellness rise in American healthcare, we still have a long way to go. Matthew Heineman and Susan Froemke direct Escape Fire, which is now streaming.

Americans spent $2.7 trillion on healthcare in 2011. Each year, we spend about $300 billion on pharmaceuticals. Yet 65% of Americans are overweight. Preventable, chronic disease persists. U.S. life expectancy ranks 50^th among developed nations. Why?

“We have a very profitable disease care system,” says Shannon Brownlee, medical journalist. “It doesn’t want you to die and it doesn’t want you to get well. It just wants you to keep coming back for your care of your chronic disease.”

Healing the system

“Healthcare reform was a good place to start,” says Dr. Andrew Weil, director of the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine. “But it will do little to address the root problems. We don’t have a healthcare system in this country. We have a disease management system.”

Doctors focus on “getting rid of the bad,” Weil explains. “We do nothing about supporting the good, that the body can and wants to be healthy. Both of these approaches are necessary. But, it would be great if we had a better balance in Western medicine.”

Nutrition “is almost omitted from medical education,” Weil notes. He created a fellowship program to train doctors in prevention, nutrition and healthy lifestyles.

Medicine revisited

“When medicine became a business, we lost our moral compass,” says Dr. Steven Nissen, Chairman of Cardiovascular Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic. “We don’t have to spend ourselves into poverty on healthcare. We just have to do it differently.”

“We need to change the nature of medicine,” says Weil. “A great deal of what’s done in conventional medicine is to put band aids on things,” he explains. “It’s much better to try to work at a deeper level.”

Costly, high-tech medical interventions, including pharmaceuticals, increase the cost of care. Weil wants doctors to transform the mindset that “drugs are the only legitimate way to treat disease.”

Only New Zealand and the U.S. allow pharmaceutical advertising. “It drives demand,” says Nissen.

Healthy lifestyles empower patients

“Our bodies have a remarkable capacity to begin healing themselves, and these chronic diseases can not only be prevented but even be reversed, and much more quickly than we once realized,” says Dr. Dean Ornish, founder and president of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute and creator of  The Ornish Spectrum.

“Lifestyle changes can not only work as well as drugs and surgery, but often even better at a fraction of the costs and the only side effects are good ones,” Ornish continues. He found that heart disease is reversible. In other research, men with early-stage prostate cancer experienced lower PSA levels and were less likely to require treatment.

When patients adopt healthy habits, “over 500 genes were changed and in fact, turning on the genes that prevent disease and turning off the genes that promote breast cancer, prostate cancer and colon cancer,” Ornish says.

Change what makes sense

“If we can change reimbursement, it’s a game changer,” Ornish says. “We change medical practice and we change medical education.” In 2010, Medicare announced it will reimburse Ornish’s heart disease lifestyle program. Insurance companies will follow Medicare’s lead, he believes. “If everyone covers it, it becomes the standard of care.”

“Fee-for-service rewards physicians for doing more. It doesn’t reward them for keeping their patients healthy,” Brownlee observes. Other developed nations spend $3,000 per person on healthcare. America spends $8,000.

If doctors were reimbursed for health outcomes, we’d be healthier as individuals and as a nation, says Dr. Don Berwick, head of Medicare and Medicaid from 2010 to 2011. “I don’t blame anybody. They’re just doing what makes sense. We need to change what makes sense.”

Finding success stories

Cleveland Clinic physicians pay themselves a salary, says Dr. Toby Cosgrove, CEO. Remaining profits are invested into growing the organization. “The decision on what we do for a patient is dependent upon what the patient needs, not on our financial incentives.”

The result? “The actual cost for care here is among the lowest in the country and yet the outcomes, the survival rates are at the highest levels,” says Nissen.

All about the Benjamins

The insurance industry won when Healthcare Reform passed in 2010, says Wendell Potter, former director of communications for CIGNA. First, there is a mandate that we buy their coverage. Second, there is no public option because “they didn’t want to have a new competitor.”

Several consumer protections passed. “The insurance industry’s objective is to try to weaken those consumer protections over time and to try to influence how the law is being implemented,” Potter notes.

Reclaiming nutrition

“We have to make it easier and more affordable for people to make better lifestyle choices,” Weil notes. “We have made all of this unhealthy food the cheapest and most available food.”

“The Department of Agriculture subsidizes all the wrong foods,” Brownlee explains. “We subsidize corn, sugar, wheat. We don’t subsidize carrots, celery, apples.” Food lobbyists prevail in Washington. “The money is funneled towards Congress and Congress doesn’t want to fix it,” she asserts.

Educating patients

Ornish’s next goal? Conquer diabetes. “Half of all Americans will be diabetic or pre-diabetic in the next 10 years,” he says. “If we can prevent that and even reverse it, that’s how we’re going to make true health care, not just sick care.”

Dr. Erin Martin, a Fellow in Dr. Weil’s program, wants to “act more as a guide for patients, taking the time to educate them and having them understand that there are choices that they have the power to make for themselves. Patients really respond to that.”

Seeking “escape fires”

Berwick tells the story of Wag Dodge, a smoke jumper who fought a 1949 forest fire in Mann Gulch, Montana. Flames began to overtake his team.

With a lit match, Dodge started a fire around his feet. It spread to create a safety zone where he could take shelter. He urged the others to join him. Instead they tried to outrun the fire. Thirteen men died that day as 3,200 acres burned. Wag Dodge escaped virtually unharmed.

“That’s how embedded people get in the status quo,” notes Berwick. “They can’t recognize an invention when it’s among them, and they can’t give up their old habits.”

Grassroots drives healthy change

Escape Fire looks at institutional change (in the military and corporations) but misses the grassroots. Millions are eating vegetable-based diets, exercising, practicing meditation and yoga, and receiving mind-body therapies. Outside a broken system, health and wellness are on the rise. That too drives demand.

To promote wellness and improve your own health, visit the Escape Fire First Aid Kit.

You might also enjoy: Hungry for Change; To Your Health; Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead; Food Matters.

Women lead environmental justice around the world in Arise. Exquisite cinematography and music are enhanced by Daryl Hannah’s evocative narration. These voices for change may be new to you.

Arise emphasizes women’s wisdom and spiritual connection with the Earth as they live sustainably. Mother and daughter Lori Joyce and Candice Orlando direct.

The film will be offered on DVD and streaming in the future. Contact them to host a screening.

Shared stories inspire

In this era of ecological peril, women across cultures are stepping forward. Arise finds beauty and hope even in extreme poverty. Reverent vignettes of art, scenery, music and poetry read by Hannah shine in this well edited production.

The filmmakers told The Huffington Post that they persevered for seven years to bring these important stories to the screen. Each leader displays compassion, intelligence, conviction and active commitment. Among those featured are:

Judy Nyguthi Kimamo, Project Officer, Women for Change – The Greenbelt Movement, Kenya

“Once you’ve empowered a woman, you’ve empowered a nation,” notes Judy Nyguthi Kimamo. “We all need each other.” Kimamo follows in the footsteps of Wangari Maathai, the founder of Kenya’s Greenbelt Movement. Participants draw well water, tend crops and animals, sing and dance together. Through Greenbelt’s civic and environmental education programs, they’re building food security.

Many no longer sleep hungry since they have learned to cultivate arrowroot, cassava and yams. Planting trees is a cornerstone of their work. It’s the easiest way to safeguard groundwater, prevent flooding, and grow crops.

Vandana Shiva, Founder, Navdanya, India

One of the most eloquent voices for food democracy, physicist, activist and author Vandana Shiva founded Navdanya, a biodiversity-based organic farm, to challenge Big Agribusiness and its genetically modified seeds. She was inspired in the 1970s by the Chipko women, who hugged trees to save their forest from development and feed their families.

Women are the backbone of farming in India, says co-director Dr. Vinod Kumar Bhatt. He takes us behind the scenes at the farm’s community seed banks. Local farmers become self-sufficient by conserving and multiplying seed. “Biodiversity-based organic farming can do miracles,” says Bhatt. “It can not only increase the production but also help increase the income of small and marginal farmers.”

“Recognizing the Earth as sacred, as divine, means you first and foremost are grateful,” says Shiva. “Each time we sow a crop we know we need the cooperation of the soil as an active, intelligent, creative, sacred being to even give us the next harvest.”

Winona LaDuke, Executive Director, Honor the Earth and White Earth Land Recovery Project, White Earth Reservation, Minnesota

Winona LaDuke, Native American environmentalist, economist and writer, leads her community in becoming healthy and self-sufficient. By preserving indigenous seed and bringing solar and wind power to White Earth, she’s fulfilling that vision. “I want to restore our food, because these foods are our medicine,” she notes. “I’m trying to relocalize and capture that local food economy.”

The Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) people have lived in the region for 9,000 years. “It’s a privilege” to save wild rice from genetic modification, and to stop the damming of a local river. “I don’t consider myself an activist,” LaDuke explains, “just a responsible person.” “You need a green economy.”

Candice Orlando, Executive Director, Urbiculture Community Farms, Denver, CO

Urbiculture Community Farms is transforming empty lots, front and back yards, and school and church grounds into “food wonderlands,” says Candice Orlando. She seeks to ensure food security and to educate as community land is transformed. The food is sold through CSA (community-supported agriculture), with 30% of shares going to low income residents. Denver non-profits are also supplied with fresh food.

Majora Carter, President, Majora Carter Group, LLC, Bronx, NY

A native of the South Bronx, Majora Carter has led revitalization projects to alleviate poverty and remediate the environment. “Communities don’t just happen. They’re made,” she says. Carter worked to establish Hunts Point Riverside Park, the borough’s first waterfront park in 60 years. Green-collar jobs have been created. A place for community celebration was born.

We can become “real heroes and players in our own lives” by remembering that the environment is ours, and we are a part of it, Carter believes.

Diverse voices presented

Also appearing in Arise are: Dana Miller, founder, Grow Local Colorado; Beverly Grant, director, Mo’Betta Greens Farmers Market, Denver; Monica Chuji, Amazonian Quechua human rights activist, Ecuador; Starhawk, author, activist and organizer for global justice; Dr. Theo Colborn, zoologist and president, Endocrine Disruption Exchange; Maggie Fox, CEO, The Climate Reality Project; Aida Shibli, Palestinian Bedouin peace activist; Jessica Posner, CEO, Shining Hope for Communities, Kenya; Bata Bhurji, administrator, Barefoot College, India.

To learn more and to get involved in environmental justice, visit Arise.

You might also enjoy: Dirt! The Movie; Women in the Dirt.

At a young age, Amardeep Kaleka fled from India to America with his family because of religious persecution. His films revolve around international humanism. While directing Sirius, he learned that his father had been killed in a mass shooting at the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin on August 5, 2012. Since then Amardeep has taken an active role in peace advocacy. His short documentary Jacob’s Turn, the story of a unique child with Down’s Syndrome, won an Emmy for Best Human Interest Story.

What’s the significance of the title Sirius? How has your life changed since you made this film?

Sirius is the brightest star in the sky and our goal was to make the best film in this genre of theory. Most often UFO and New Age films are thrown together by people who are not filmmakers or storytellers – but rather passionate researchers. The weakness here is that they usually only can make films for the choir – or those people who already agree with them. Our goal was to make a film that was for more mainstream audiences. We wanted to make a film that extends past the people who know every little thing about this idea.

My life has changed tremendously, not only because of the film, but because of the personal tragedy that I had to endure while making the film. My father Satwant Singh Kaleka, was shot and murdered on August 5th, 2012 alongside six other beautiful people at a temple on Sunday morning right after prayer. This very real and palpable event – though there is no connection to the film or to any known conspiracy, except for ignorance – will far outweigh the shaping of my reality for the rest of my life.

I’m very sorry for your loss. It was brave of you to go on and complete the film afterwards.

 In one scene you participate in a CE-5 group to communicate telepathically with ET visitors. What was the experience like for you? Did you receive any inner visions or messages?

During my first meditation – I did receive an amazing message. We went out into the field in Crestone, Colorado. My first-time CSETI event or CE-5 type situation. 14 to 15 of us gather round in a circle in the middle of the night and we start meditating. The first night we go out there, we’re in meditation and all of a sudden, I start seeing faces in front of me. All of a sudden these faces start coming out of the blackness. Black and white, morphing faces. But they were all different. They weren’t human. They were completely different types of faces. And I kept being asked the same question: ‘Are you scared? Are you scared?’

As soon as I said ‘yes,’ I heard, ‘Look up.’ [The voice] was right behind my right ear. ‘Look up.’ I looked up. There was this little light just traveling through the sky. It wasn’t like a shooting star. It wasn’t like a satellite, traveling super-fast. It wasn’t like an airplane that had these blinking lights. It literally was floating at a distance that did not seem like it was in the stars.

I said, ‘Does anyone else see something in the south sky 25 degrees up?’ And everybody looks up, and you just hear the “Ahhhh!”

As this thing is floating through the sky, we’re intensively getting warmer on the ground. And it feels like this thing is just showering warm rain on us. And so we watched it for a good five minutes. That’s how slowly it was traveling across the sky.

I think that it did give me a humbling understanding. It gave me a humbling experience like, ‘I don’t know everything. I want to know more.’  (Amardeep answers this question in detail at OpenMinds.tv beginning at 15:42.)

Thousands of inventors worldwide are working to perfect new energy technology. How would new energy promote peace on Earth? Do you think we will see this implemented in our lifetimes?

The uses of new energy technology and propulsion technology will not only change the face of the planet for the better, but I have a feeling that it will take humanity to the next level of spiritual advancement. If poverty was eliminated, then we are moving up Abraham Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs.” Take away the battling over food, water, and land, and then humans end up realizing some amazing philosophical truth.

Sirius is the “largest crowd-funded film in history.” What are your thoughts on getting truthful, thoughtful news and issues out to the grassroots?

Sirius is the highest crowd-funded documentary ever on the planet. In addition, we made the film in record time – 11 months through my own personal tragedy. Not only that, but in the 11th month, we opened up distribution that was for the people by the people, paying affiliates money for each viewing that they refer. Thus, truly, Sirius is a groundbreaking film on all levels of documentary film production.

What can you share with us about your next films and/or projects?

As a company, our goal is to make responsible media that seeks to create balance on a planet that is lacking it. Our next project is called Nursery Crimes (www.NurseryCrimes.org). This film searches for the roots of violent behavior in our society. It’s not so simple as guns and mental illness. The problem goes far deeper into the psyche and cultural values we espouse onto our children.

Occupy Love watches Occupy movements unfold around the world, inviting everyone to join. You won’t need to protest in the streets to take part. You only need to be mindful and to act with compassion. The film is now streaming.

How could the crisis we are facing become a love story? Director Velcrow Ripper (Scared Sacred; Fierce Light) asks this question throughout the film. Rich visuals and interviews with leading visionaries reveal love as interconnection and interdependence.

The dominant system of power does not serve people, the film says. Neoliberalism fails to promote health, happiness, and true prosperity for most. “We’re trying to create a world that works for everyone and for all life,” Ripper explains.

The beginning is here

The director confronts both darkness and light. Visiting activist hot spots around the world, he returns often to Occupy Wall Street in New York City. There he speaks with occupiers, watching democracy flourish in new ways. Police actions ensue. “Something’s different. We’re not just protesting. We’re discussing. There are no leaders offering ready-made solutions,” he observes.

Ripper rides the wave, visiting Tahrir Square, Egypt; the Indignado movement in Spain; an indigenous healing walk at the Alberta Tar Sands in Canada; and climate justice uprisings in the U.S. and beyond.

Occupy Love reveals the filmmaker’s own personal growth and practice of engaged Buddhism. It captures the feeling of real connection as people gather and talk about things that matter.

A feast for your mind

Neoliberalism “calls for the rule of the market above all and seeks to eliminate social services, privatize everything possible, and maximize profit,” Ripper notes. Yet division is no longer an option. “The system isn’t working for the one percent either,” says Charles Eisenstein (Sacred Economics).

“Everybody wants to live a life of meaning,” he observes. Many suffer from “the loss of community, the loss of connection, the loss of intimacy, the loss of meaning.” Eisenstein notes that “Joint consumption doesn’t create intimacy. Only joint creativity and gifts create intimacy and connection.”

“An economist says that essentially more for you is less for me,” he explains. “But the lover knows that more for you is more for me too.” Ultimately “love is the expansion of the self to include the other. And that’s a different kind of revolution. There’s no one to fight. There’s no evil to fight. There’s no ‘other’ in this revolution.”

Crises signal evolution

“Having people disconnect, see one another as enemies is so crucial to the maintenance of that dominator system,” says bell hooks (All About Love).

“This shift from hierarchical to lateral power is going to change the way we live, the way we educate our children, and the way we govern the world,” notes economist Jeremy Rifkin (The Foundation of Economic Trends). “We have to create the basis for an empathic civilization.”

“Crises are always the starting points for evolution,” says Elisabet Sahtouris, evolutionary biologist.

Earth calls out for healing

Climate change is happening now, says Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org. “So far since Kyoto we’ve done essentially nothing as a planet to deal with climate change. In the end it’s not a technical issue, it’s a power issue.”

The destruction of the boreal forest at the Alberta Tar Sands “is a final colonial pillage that’s going on right now,” says Naomi Klein (The Shock Doctrine). “This is the vision, to save the economy by clawing away at the Earth in the most violent way, pretending that climate change isn’t happening.” “I cried when I saw the devastation that’s happened,” says Tom Goldtooth of the Indigenous Environmental Network.

“The same mentality that trashes people trashes the planet,” Klein asserts.

A feast for your soul

“What is justice?” asks hooks. “The heart of it is really longing for people to be able to grow and develop freely in a positive and constructive way.”

“Being awake is love,” says Roshi Joan Halifax. “Being not separate from all the suffering, all of the emptiness, all of the compassion, all of the wisdom.” “There’s so much profound uncertainty that is in the weave of the world today,” she adds. Some become resigned, while others are “walking the knife’s edge.”

“There’s a love emerging now that’s coming from our creativity, that’s yearning for joining because it can’t fulfill itself alone,” says Barbara Marx Hubbard (The Foundation for Conscious Evolution). “Love can be the liberating force for humanity,” says James O’Dea (Cultivating Peace). “It’s so primal and so simple like light, that if it’s allowed to move through us, its movement is endless, its creativity is endless.”

Creating “a beloved community”

Feminist activist Judy Rebick sees OWS as “a loving atmosphere with a lot of excitement about discussing ideas and proposals. It is becoming a love story. And out of that love and that connection of people to each other, you’re going to create.” It looks like what Martin Luther King, Jr. called “a beloved community.”

“The love story is people getting to know each other for a change based on their human experience,” says Malik Rhassan of Occupy the Hood. Rhassan says he spent every day at OWS. “I’ve never felt so human in my life . . . watching the homeless get fed every day. Watching people who would not normally have dialogue with each other talk every day.”

How to change the world

Finally, Ripper sees “a messy, imperfect, human love.” He told Reality Sandwich that “Occupy is still alive in different forms, whether Occupy Sandy or the Strike Debt movement, or Idle No More, or Transition Towns, or the emerging gift economy.”

“Find out what your gift is,” Ripper told We Are Change Connecticut. “Unwrap it. Bring it out into the world and figure out how that can align with being of service to your community and the planet.”

To learn more and to get involved, visit Occupy Sandy; StrikeDebt; Idle No More; Transition US; and 350.org.

You might also like: Do the Math; Money and Life.

Bill McKibben (Eaarth)  and 350.org star in Do the Math, an inspiring, fast-paced look at the race to solve global warming. Kelly Nyks and Jared P. Scott direct.

The Middlebury College professor founded 350.org with students to spark worldwide awareness and action. Annual campaigns and projects draw international participation. Do the Math is now streaming widely:

Warming crisis: It’s here

The threat from “climate change, water shortages, food shortages and rising energy prices is enormously troubling,” says Gus Speth, co-founder of NRDC (National Resources Defense Council). Human and economic costs are rising.

“We’re no longer at the point of trying to stop global warming. We’re too late for that,” McKibben tells one audience on the Do the Math Tour. “We’re at the point of trying to keep it from becoming a complete and utter calamity.”

The warmest year on record also saw the world’s most extreme weather, says McKibben. That year was 2012.

The number “350″ refers to the maximum ppm (parts per million) of atmospheric carbon that is safe for life as we know it. Atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide reached 395 ppm in 2013, McKibben notes. Unless we make drastic changes in how we produce energy, it will keep rising.

Fossil fuel industry cheats

Big Oil and Big Coal have paid zero for their carbon emissions for 150 years. “Nobody should be able to pollute for free,” says Van Jones (The Green Collar Economy), CEO and founder of Rebuild the Dream. “You can’t. I can’t.”

“We are paying them to continue to keep polluting,” says Naomi Klein (The Shock Doctrine).  ”It’s tax breaks, it’s loans, it’s the fact that armies protect their pipelines and protect their trade routes.”

The top five oil companies (Exxon, Shell, BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips) made $137 billion in profits in 2012, McKibben notes. That equals $375 million every day. They receive $6.6 million a day in Federal tax breaks. They spend $440,000 per day lobbying Congress.

“These companies are a rogue force. They’re outlaws,” McKibben asserts. “If they carry out their business plan the planet tanks.”

They pollute, we subsidize

“We subsidize the fossil fuel industries,” says Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA). “You’re helping them stay on top and preventing their competitors like renewable fuels from competing. What we need is a level playing field.”

“What the fossil fuel industry is doing is locking us into a future that we can’t survive,” says Klein. Three conservative groups – The World Bank, the International Energy Agency and Price Waterhouse Cooper – all warned in 2012 that “if we do nothing more but the same, if we dig up those reserves, we are headed towards 4 to 6 degrees warming Celsius.”

“As long as fossil fuels are the cheapest energy they will continue to be used. The solution is to begin to put a price on carbon emissions,” says Dr. James Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute.

“Game over” for climate and communities

Dirtier and more dangerous methods are being used to deplete limited resources. Tar sands. Shale oil. Fracking. Mountaintop removal. Deep sea drilling. These options are so bad that they make the choice for clean energy that much easier, says Michael Bruce, executive director of the Sierra Club.

“Why would we build a 1,000 mile pipeline, taking almost a million barrels of oil from the most carbon-intensive fuel source on the planet, when wind energy is a whole lot cheaper, and a whole lot cleaner?” asks Bruce. “Why would we drill in the Arctic when we know that solar power can meet our energy needs across the country? Why would we frack our countrysides and our watersheds when we know that energy efficiency would save more energy than natural gas can provide?”

“The planet’s going to be around for some time to come,” notes Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute. “What’s at stake now is civilization.”

Divestment movements multiply

Hundreds of colleges, universities and municipalities are divesting completely from fossil fuel investments. Divestment brought down apartheid in South Africa, the film notes.

Industries which once worked to benefit the world are now destroying it, McKibben declares. “They should lose their social license, their veneer of respectability.”

“The long-term solution to climate change is very clear. We need to make the leap to renewable energy and we need to do it quickly.” An immediate freeze on fossil fuel investments is called for. “We could be using that public money, taxpayer money, to make the shift to green energy,” says Klein.

All our big problems have “very local solutions,” says Majora Carter, founder of Sustainable South Bronx. Local solutions lead to all kinds of environmental, economic and social benefits, she finds.

Can we solve the climate crisis?

Action is the best antidote to despair, McKibben believes. “It’s only when we’re working with other people, as many other people as possible, that we have any hope.” Anyone can get involved. Recent 350.org campaigns have included “A Million Comments Against Keystone XL” and “Local 350: Activist Groups Around the World.”

The film opens in front of the White House during a Keystone XL pipeline demonstration. Arrested that day were McKibben, Jones, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., business leaders, farmers, ranchers, grandparents, moms and dads.

A solution is “by no means impossible,” says Brown. Prior to World War II, the U.S. industrial economy was restructured in a matter of months. “We can restructure the world energy economy over the next decade,” he observes.

To get involved and participate, visit 350.org. To register or find local screenings of Do the Math, visit their website.

If you like Do the Math, you might enjoy: Bidder 70; The Last Mountain.

UFOs exist, says Dr. Steven Greer in Sirius. Abundant evidence supports this. The crucial question is, how are they traveling here?

New energy technologies – apparently used by cosmic visitors and long available on Earth – will replace oil, gas, coal, nuclear and public utilities, Greer asserts.

The implications for humanity are profound. Amardeep Kaleka directs this riveting documentary. Sirius is now streaming and on DVD.

Examining truth and theory

Based on Greer’s book  Hidden Truth, Forbidden Knowledge, Sirius clearly explores truths and theories about UFOs and new energy. The film is thrilling, inspiring and beautifully edited.

Sirius melds science, art, politics and mystery. It captures the imagination. Greer’s pioneering efforts are juxtaposed with dozens of interviews; physicists demonstrating new energy technology; historic warnings about the military-industrial complex; group encounters with ET craft; and images of a tiny humanoid.

Hidden truths revealed

A former emergency room doctor, Greer founded CSETI (Center for the Study of Extraterrestrial Intelligence) and The Disclosure Project. For over a decade, CSETI has filmed hundreds of unidentified objects in our skies. UFO sightings have occurred over Mt. Shasta; Stuttgart; Washington, DC; Crestone, CO; Jerusalem’s Dome of the Rock, and Mt. Popocatepetl, Mexico. Some 10,000 witnessed “The Phoenix Lights” on March 13, 1997 as they gathered to watch Comet Hale-Bopp.

CSETI has collected tens of thousands of pages of declassified U.S. military materials, and reports from 24 countries that have publicly shared UFO reports. The U.S. has not released its UFO intelligence to date.

A dangerous mission

Our reliance on oil, gas, coal and nuclear enslaves us economically, Greer observes. Philanthropist Laurance Rockefeller asked him to lead efforts to develop new energy technologies in 1993.

It’s a dangeorus job. Greer has been threatened so often that he has a personal bodyguard. He also created a “dead man’s trigger.” Should he die under suspicious circumstances, a torrent of information and revelations will be released.

What is new energy?

Advanced technologies for sustainable, non-polluting energy generation systems have existed for over 60 years, Greer says. They can produce significant amounts of power from energy all around us. Self-starting and self-charging, they do not run on fossil fuels or conventional power grids.

Nikola Tesla, T. Townsend Brown, Stan Meyer and others invented clean energy devices. Yet we continue to pollute and pay public utility corporations for energy which belongs to everyone.

Advanced sciences to benefit humanity

For example, Zero Point Electromagnetic Generators “tap into the so-called Quantum Vacuum electromagnetic potential of the space around us. It is estimated that every cubic centimeter of space has enough potential energy to run the world’s energy needs for one day, if it could be properly tapped.”

These generators stimulate environmental electromagnetic energy to run a generator and supply power to homes, businesses and cars.

Inventors worldwide are developing and sharing new energy advances. “Information has been controlled in a top-down way,” says researcher Adam Curry of PEAR (Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research). “What we’re seeing now is the dissemination of discoveries coming up from the grassroots.”

Greer and his team are building a secure energy development facility in Virginia. All proceeds from Sirius support new energy development.

Atacama humanoid puzzles scientists

The image of a six-inch long humanoid found in Chile’s Atacama Desert a decade ago is featured. Garry P. Nolan, Ph.D., director of Stem Cell Biology at Stanford University’s School of Medicine, agrees to test the creature’s DNA.

Tests determine that his mother was human. Yet two million base pairs of DNA appear to hold nothing. This raises questions about the tiny being. “The answer’s not finished,” Nolan says. He plans to consider epigenetics, non-coding RNA and other areas as he continues this research.

The Atacama humanoid evokes questions about our own origins. Where do humans come from? How connected are we to ET civilizations?

Oneness goes universal

CSETI members gather at UFO “hot spots” to communicate with galactic visitors in several scenes. Sitting in a circle under the night sky, they meditate. When glowing orbs or saucers appear, they shout with joy.

According to Sirius Disclosure, these “CE-5″ encounters are “a fifth category of close encounters with Extraterrestrial Intelligence (ETI), characterized by mutual, bilateral communication.”

“It’s just been this series of unbelievable events that are amplified by our meditation,” says senior CSETI member Linda Willitts. “If you’re really out there just to learn and really want to communicate with these extraterrestrials, well it’s going to happen,” says CSETI executive Emery Smith.

Paola Harris, a journalist and Disclosure Project researcher, says that Greer’s CE-5 protocols “are based on a spiritual kind of positive contact and I think that is an excellent model for any kind of communication.”

Secret agendas pondered

Sirius discusses secret groups who wield power over world affairs with no public oversight. Clear, informative graphics are used. Anonymous whistleblowers appear.

Did you know that the Federal Reserve is a privately owned corporation that controls the U.S. money supply without public or government oversight? The four banks who own the Federal Reserve also run the world’s largest oil companies. These include Bank of America (Exxon); Wells Fargo (Chevron); J.P. Morgan (Shell), and Citibank (BP).

To its credit, Sirius doesn’t dwell on conspiracy theory. It sheds light on the groups and their activities.

“Bread and Circus” distracts 

David Wilcock notes that “perception is being managed by as little as five major media corporations. Viacom, AOL/Time Warner, Disney, The News Corp and Clear Channel together control newspapers, corporate news websites, television stations and movies.

A CIA report reveals that its public affairs office “now has relationships with reporters from every major wire service, newspaper, news weekly and television network in the nation. . . . In many instances, we have persuaded reporters to postpone, change, hold, or even scrap stories.”

Meaningful news and information have been co-opted, says Greer. “Keep people fat, keep ‘em happy, keep ‘em diverted and keep ‘em entertained with drivel and shock and nonsense.” Narrator Thomas Jane notes that public approval is crafted “not through excellent policy, but rather through diversion and distraction.”

Are we ready for disclosure?

The director told ET First Contact Radio that when humanity is ready, we will ask for disclosure about extraterrestrial civilizations.

We are all connected in time and space, Kaleka believes. He seeks to pursue truth in his filmmaking. “Humanity must rise as a better civilization if they want to be a part of a very galactic and universal idea,” he notes.

Co-creating peace and prosperity

“The sciences are here to give us a new civilization,” Greer says. “If the people lead, the leaders will follow.”

Sirius closes with a startling question. If powerful interests have silenced hundreds of new energy inventors over the years, how will they suppress tens of thousands?

To learn more and to take part, visit Sirius Disclosure and Dr. Greer’s blog.

If you like Sirius, you might enjoy: Thrive; Avatar.

The heart and soul of money is not far from our own in Money and Life. Director Katie Teague’s masterpiece studies money and the economy while guiding viewers on a hero’s journey towards flow and genuine abundance. You can watch it streaming and on DVD beginning May 1.

Money was created to serve us. Over time it’s been manipulated, devalued and deified. We spend our lives working for it, chasing it, wanting it.

By understanding money and participating mindfully in its exchange, we can recover deep parts of ourselves: creativity, happiness and human connection. We can live the lives we were meant to live.

All money exists as debt

Money is simply an agreement to use something (gold, wampum, spices etc.) as a medium of exchange. It lost real value when President Richard Nixon took the U.S. off the gold standard in 1971.

The privately owned Federal Reserve Corporation decides how much money to print. Members meet behind closed doors with no public input or accountability. Large banks receive the cash and multiply it through a process called fractional reserve banking.

Keeping just 10 percent on reserve, banks loan out the rest at interest. They drain more out of circulation than they put in. In this game of musical chairs, there must always be losers.

Rushing towards crisis

Debt-based economics is a pyramid scheme, says Ellen Brown (Web of Debt). The economy must grow fast enough to keep debt growing. “Eventually the whole world is in debt,” she observes.

The system is unstable, filled with boom and bust cycles. We’ve had 96 banking crashes and 187 monetary crises in the last 25 years, notes Stuart Valentine, president of CenterPoint Investment Management.

“We’ve totally forgotten that we’ve invented it, that we made it up,” says Lynne Twist (The Soul of Money).

Circulation is key

“Money took over not as a means, but as a measure of wealth,” says physicist and environmental activist Vandana Shiva (Making Peace with the Earth). “Our lives have become more monetized and commodified,” says philosophy professor Jacob Needleman (Money and the Meaning of Life).

Past societies valued art, pleasure, culture, spirituality and family, notes visionary activist Jean Houston (The Possible Human). Today, money takes center stage as never before. “Money was never meant to be hoarded or amassed,” says Rabbi Steven Leder (More Money Than God). “It was meant to circulate as a way of uplifting the community.”

“Money has become a substitute for kinship, a substitute for a felt sense of reciprocity and interrelatedness,” observes clinical psychologist Aaron Kipnis (Angry Young Men). Ancient coins were forged with symbols of God and nature. When Caesar’s image replaced those symbols, money became associated with the power of the state.

Opportunity emerges

The financial crisis of 2008 presents us with a great opportunity, Shiva believes. We’ve reached the limits of a system that idolizes money while exploiting people and the natural world.

The “financialization” of the economy in the 1990’s intoxicated us with the promise of “easy money.” Binary digits speed through computer networks, distant from goods and services produced by people and nature.

Financial wealth is “nothing but a fiction,” says David Korten (Agenda for a New Economy). Our economy is “turning the living wealth of people, community and nature into financial wealth.”

Measuring real wealth

We created GDP (Gross Domestic Product) after the Depression and World War II to measure well-being. GDP reflects the dollar amount of goods and services produced nationally. “The faster we take useful resources out of the environment, run them through the economy and dispose of them as toxic waste into our air, water and soils, we count that as progress,” Korten notes.

A truer measure of progress is how economic activity improves our quality of life. “The crisis today stems from the fact that there’s almost nothing left to convert into the realm of goods and services,” says Charles Eisenstein (Sacred Economics).

“Planet Finance now is getting bigger than Planet Earth,” says Rebecca Adamson, a Cherokee who advocates nationally for local tribal issues.

Signs of revival

An efficient financial system “should be run like a public utility,” notes futurist and evolutionary economist Hazel Henderson (Ethical Markets). “Any financial system that is using up more than 10% of a country’s GDP is inherently out of control … becoming a cancer on the real economy.”

Adamson buys locally. When shopping outside the community, she looks at corporate behavior and values. Socially responsible investing is now a $3 trillion marketplace, says Valentine.

Forging equitable, sustainable, beautiful

At its most moving, Money and Life shares personal stories. Scott Morris graduated from college with $50K in student loans. His monthly payment equaled his monthly living expenses. He faced a choice: live or pay the debt.

Determined to do meaningful work, Morris founded myLocal Cooperative. Its HERO Rewards program and Merit social purpose currency are helping communities build real wealth and sustainability.

Judy Wicks (Good Morning, Beautiful Business) radically redefined growth when she founded the White Dog Café in Philadelphia. “How is my business going to affect my community, customers, staff and nature,” she asked. “We can grow by raising consciousness … increasing our knowledge … deepening our relationships … being healthier, increasing our well-being, having more fun.”

From heedless growth to inner growth

The Fed shifted emphasis towards capital (finance and banking) and away from labor (working people) in the 1980s, says national journalist William Greider (Come Home, America). Regulation and policy changes propelled corporations to focus on one goal: maximize profits. A robust economy, Greider explains, allows wages to rise and spread prosperity broadly.

A democratic, “trickle up” economy powered by people is emerging, scholars say. To participate, we must ask: What do I care about? What kind of work do I want to do? How do I spend, save and use money?

Thousands of global, local and regional currency systems are being developed. They are designed to work alongside national money, bringing diversity to our “monetary ecology.”

Society speaks

Humanity is coming of age in today’s economic crises, says Eisenstein. “What we’ve done is we’ve created scarcity. The money system creates artificial scarcity where there need be none. For example, there’s nothing more abundant on Earth than water,” he notes. Many factors, including its association with money, have contributed to making water scarce.

Scarcity leads to hoarding. “It’s an addiction,” says John Perkins (Confessions of an Economic Hitman). Sociology professor Juliet Schor (Plenitude) sees the Occupy Movement as a “long awaited response to a period of financial shenanigans. Financial malfeasance and criminal activity captured government, and crashed our economy.”

Walking her talk

Money and Life is a thoughtful, comprehensive film that exposes the myth of lack. Everyone who wants to transform their relationship with money and life should see it. Animation and archival footage infuse this serious subject with light-heartedness.

Trained in depth and developmental psychology, Teague left her counseling practice to make this film. She felt driven to create, to move “from division to rediscovering the undivided,” she told GAIAFIELD Radio.

Embarking on a “divine scavenger hunt beyond trust,” she had no background in finance. “Receive what is given,” was her guidance. Teague trusts that Money and Life “will find the eyes and ears that are waiting for it.”

To learn more and to get involved, visit their website.  ★★★★★

If you like Money and Life, you might enjoy:  Living Without Money; The Money Fix.

Meryl Streep’s masterful portrayal of The Iron Lady seems more poignant this week with the passing of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

Thatcher rose to power with stubborn resolve, serving as Britain’s first female prime minister from 1979 to 1990. She espoused free market economics. Ideas are more important than feelings, she declared. The mother of twins dutifully administered the medicine she believed was best for all England.

Thatcher weakened labor unions and privatized public utilities. She deregulated financial markets. Britain’s economy boomed for some. Unemployment, hunger and homelessness grew. When she instituted a poll tax, people took to the streets.

Thatcher led England to war in the Falkland Islands when Argentina invaded. Victory cost many lives. National pride temporarily distracted from the social impact of Thatcher’s policies.

Streep captures the prime minister’s humanity as director Phyllida Lloyd stays objective politically. The story is told in flashbacks as Lady Thatcher, stricken by dementia, recalls her early days of glory and anguish.

Young Margaret idolized her father, a grocer. She married businessman Denis Thatcher (Jim Broadbent) after a whirlwind romance. Her fledgling days in politics brimmed with excitement and possibility. She spent less and less time with her family.

Thatcher ruled in step with U.S. President Ronald Reagan, who also believed that a free market would cure all. Reagan’s “trickle down” economics has since been disproven.

A woman in a man’s world, Margaret Thatcher ruled from her head, not her heart. “It used to be about ‘doing something,’ but now it has become about ‘being someone,’” she said.

I appreciate the emotional depth of this biopic. Margaret Thatcher emerges as an admirable, capable leader despite her controversial approach.

In a world that works for everyone, “my country” becomes “our world.” Concern for “my children” grows to include “our children.” Old politics and ideologies have failed. Now grassroots initiatives, social entrepreneurs and cooperatives step up to revive economies. Our hearts lead the way. ★★★★★

It’s been a promise fulfilled and a dream realized to have finished this film.  It took me 11 years to complete, so there were definitely moments when I questioned my motivations, my calling to do this project, and whether or not I was the appropriate steward for the stories, spiritual wisdom, and healing transmissions I was given and entrusted with.  Being able to share these gifts with others has been overwhelmingly powerful and joyful.  And, I’ve seen the benefit or the efficiency of sharing from the one-to-many (sharing the film and doing Q&A afterward to groups) vs just the one-to-one paradigm of working with single clients.

I see my role as a bridge person, so being able to show people how to apply ancient wisdom to their day-to-day lives is a challenge I embrace.  I may give someone a ritual I’ve been taught and at the same time advise them to see a surgeon.  I may perform a clearing ceremony and at the same time suggest that the person refrain from using their credit card so much.  I think we have to be able to have reverence for the mystical, while at the same time, be able to manage the mundane.  A friend of mine said it best, “Forget spiritual…let’s start with functional.” 

Ooh, spoiler alert!!! It has happened a few times, but I did make a request of my Guides to make it so there is more of a seamless experience.  I don’t like just handing over the keys to my car, but I’m glad to give rides to those who are of the highest consciousness. 

TALKING STORY is our pilot project, but we hope to sponsor other media projects that promote the preservation and celebration of the Art of Healing.  We are currently looking for support to screen TALKING STORY in as many different places as possible and to help us to develop a TV series or Web Series. The most important thing we want to emphasize is that the preservation of the world’s healing practices and spiritual traditions is not because we want to be nice guys and help those cultures over there, but rather because these are all part of our collective pharmacopeia and we should all be concerned with what is available or what is disappearing from our medicine cabinet.

The book is in progress and can be an accompaniment to the film or can stand alone.  Writing the book allows me to delve deeper into my experiences and I have the luxury of being able to comment in hindsight, whereas the film is a snapshot of a certain time in my life.

Congratulations and thank you again! Thank you for supporting our film and including us in your Moviespirit.org community.

To sponsor a screening of Talking Story, contact the director. Read the Moviespirit review.

A healer is born in Talking Story, a documentary adventure about traditional healers and their practices. Director Marie-Rose Phan-le meets over a dozen world healers as she reclaims her own family legacy.

Director of photography Joseph Hudson captures vivid, memorable portraits of each healer amidst the ancient cultures of Hawaii, Peru, Nepal, Vietnam, India and China.

During the journey, Phan-le discovers her own calling to heal. To sponsor a screening of Talking Story, contact the director.

From restless traveler to healer

“In the wake of globalization, many cultures were on the verge of losing their elders, and with them, precious healing traditions and spiritual knowledge,” notes Phan-le. Following a successful career in TV and film, she decided to document this wisdom.

At age four, Phan-le emigrated with her family from Vietnam to the U.S. Tales of her great-grandfather, a seer, and her aunt, a healer, became taboo. She was urged to assimilate into Western culture.

Phan-le observes, interviews and receives healing from each elder. All hold a spiritual world view. Compassion and selfless service emerge as common themes.

Called to honor and preserve

“Talking story” is what Hawaiians call slowing down and sharing stories. Every healer entrusts Phan-le with his or her own story.

Each visit is memorable. Pablo Amaringo Shuna (Don Pablo) is a retired shaman who runs an arts school for underprivileged children in the Peruvian Amazon. Robert Po’okapu Keli’iho’omalu Sr. (Uncle Robert) is a charismatic Hawaiian elder. He founded a Nature Walk filled with rare medicinal plants after lava flow spared his land in 1990. Powerful footage shows the molten lava dissolving highways and yards.

Honoring Goddess Pele

Sylvester Kepilino (Papa K), a well-known kahuna and master of lomilomi, expresses his reverence for the Hawaiian Volcano Goddess Pele. Hawaiian healing combines the use of physical elements of the islands with prayer. God is the actual healer, he says.

Phan-le visits her aunt Tran Thi Lien, a retired healer. Aunt Lien explains how three goddesses worked through her to heal illnesses of the body, mind and spirit.

Her niece has the ability to become a healer if she chooses, her aunt reveals. First, she will have to pass a test of character. A healer becomes a sacred vessel for compassion, a conduit between heaven and earth. Later, she is told to undergo training, purification and spiritual practice.

Oracle tests character

In one dramatic scene, an oracle takes over Phan-le’s body. The crew films as her body cries and writhes in pain. Finally the being speaks, telling listeners to purify themselves. After returning to normal consciousness, the director did not remember the incident.

Witnessing power and mystery

Talking Story introduces you to power and mystery as it highlights teachable moments. In making this film, defining her dream and living it, Phan-le demonstrates upaya, skillful means.

The director now practices healing and is writing a book. She founded the Healing Planet Project, a non-profit dedicated to preserving the healing arts.

If you like Talking Story, you might enjoy:  The Road to Q’ero: A Journey Home; Samsara.

Talking Story   2011  /  NR  /    1 hour,  25 min

Cast Overview:   Pablo Amaringo Shuna, Robert Po’okapu Keli’iho’omalu Sr., Mary Fragas, Sylvester K. Kepilino (Papa K), Tran Thi Lien, Takka Bahadur Rokaya, Sonam Gyalpo, Nyadak Lama, Dragpa Choden (Agu Lama), Samten Chobal, Tsering Chobal Lama, Mangale, Sher Bahadur, Rigzin Mangyal, Tsering Paljor, Dongba

Director:  Marie-Rose Phan-le

Genre:  Documentary, Adventure