What's Normal with Gabriel Sanders

Ever feel like you're living in one square inch of reality and calling it reality? Well, the fascinating Dr. Betty Kovacs has. I had the great privilege to talk her about life, death, religion, and everything in between on all dimensions of reality. Ever since she was child, learning about the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Dr. Kovacs started asking the big question of "WHY?" Her normal has always been trying to find ways to break out of the norm, step outside of it, and find something beyond that, because that is the nature of all of our creativity. We get into her studies of symbolic and mythic languages, how religion has influenced our way of life, how the pandemic is an example of the decay and destruction of the heart consciousness in western culture, quantum physics, essentially trying to answer the big questions of life and human existence, and so much more. We also dig into the amazing connections between the deaths of three people closest to Dr. Kovacs: her mother, husband, and son.  Dr. Kovacs earned her doctorate from the University of California, Irvine, in Comparative Literature and Theory of Symbolic/Mythic Language.  She taught Literature, Writing, and Symbolic/Mythic Language for twenty-five years.  She served many years as Chair and Program Chair on the Board of Directors of the Jung Society of Claremont in California and sits on the Academic Advisory Board of Forever Family Foundation.  Dr. Kovacs is author of Merchants of Light: The Consciousness That Is Changing the World, winner of the Nautilus Silver Book Award and the Scientific & Medical Network 2019 Book Prize.  She has also written The Miracle of Death: There Is Nothing But Life.  Dance life in snake boots! Leave each moment fully, then let it go. Enjoy, and thank you for listening.  Website:  https://kamlak.com    YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/user/KimberlySaavedra  Pinterest: @kamlak  https://www.pinterest.com/kamlak/merchants-of-light-betty-j-kovacs-phd/  Frequency of Love in a Dying World:  https://youtu.be/8ilOzvz-18w  Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/The-Kamlak-Center-Videos-Putting-Birth-Death-Back-Together-Again-213684922010449/  Merchants of Light:  https://www.amazon.com/Merchants-Light-Consciousness-Changing-World/dp/0972100555  The Miracle of Death:  https://www.amazon.com/Miracle-Death-There-Nothing-Life/dp/0972100504  Betty’s Facebook page:  https://www.facebook.com/people/Betty-Kovacs/100006184996784  * Undercover Vampire Policeman by Chris Zabriskie is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/  Source: http://chriszabriskie.com/uvp/  Artist: http://chriszabriskie.com/  Thank you for listening.  😁❤️🎤🤪😷🎧  Facebook: @whatsnormalwithgabrielsanders  Twitter: @wnwgspodcast  Insta: @wnwgspodcast  Email: emailwnwgs@gmail.com  + Podcast artwork created by the amazing Dan Meth. On Instagram: @danmeth.

A great title for this fun talk with Rena Strober. “Celebrating the Weirdness” exemplifies not only Rena’s normal and how she raises her daughter, but how being weird is not being boring, and it's how to celebrate what's different. Rena says she can respect those that are "normal" but that's "just not how she was made." To her, every day is an adventure.  Rena Strober is multi-talented. She is the co-producer, creator, and performer of the Sesame Street album "Imagine That!" She works with "Dotz" the blind children's choir, a voice actor, she was on the Broadway tour of "Les Miserables" (and knows another guest of the podcast), played the Witch in "Into the Woods" at the Charlottesville Opera House, was in the original LA cast of "Reefer Madness," featured in HBO's "Veep," the Disney Channel's "Liv and Maddie", performed on the dais at The Friar's Roast and on home plate at Shea Stadium, and so much more.  We get into classic Nickelodeon, a side story about Marc Summers of "Double Dare" fame, my connection to Ben & Jerry, our love for Mel Brooks and if he was indeed in "The Muppet Movie," and the amazing fact that her house is a pop culture museum.  We also get into her association with a famous murder in a NYC Italian restaurant, which was made into an episode for the OG "Law & Order," and Rena shares her feelings about fact vs fiction. Rena co-wrote and performed in her own musical "Spaghetti and Matzo Balls" which was based on that experience.   Order a "half double-decaffeinated half-caf... with a twist of lemon," dive in to this great talk, and celebrate weirdness with us! Be sure to check out her music video for "Imagine That!" on YouTube, and you can buy the album on her website: renastrober.com! You must also watch this promo video for "Imagine That" (https://www.renastrober.com/imagine-that-a-childrens-album/).... You will LOVE this album.  Mentions:  Academy of Music for the Blind (http://ouramb.org/) Guide Dogs of America (https://www.guidedogsofamerica.org/) "Law & Order: Organized Crime" (https://www.nbc.com/) Thank you for listening.     😁❤️🎤🤪😷🎧    Facebook: @whatsnormalwithgabrielsanders    Twitter: @wnwgspodcast    Insta: @wnwgspodcast    Email: emailwnwgs@gmail.com      + Podcast artwork created by the amazing Dan Meth. On Instagram: @danmeth.

Cheryl Kindred is a Newborn Care Specialist, Gentle Sleep Trainer, and former Post-Partum and Birth Doula. Inspired by the book "The Midwife's Apprentice," at age 9, she wanted to be a midwife or work with babies somehow.  Her first job was as a babysitter at age 11, and she found it incredibly rewarding. About a decade later, she began to make her commitment to the "well-rounded and comprehensive support to new families" even before becoming a mom herself. Of course, she finds babies amazing, wholesome, and the purest of souls; but she also wanted to make a difference with taking care of the baby and rewriting what's normal with being a parent. She has helped hundreds of adults with the transition to parenthood, with the importance of sleep of new parents and babies, essentially assisting the new parents with the totally abnormal experience of having a baby, and so much more.  We also get into the disparities of maternity and birthing care with minorities and those in rural communities that is still an ongoing major issue, normalizing how we refer to the "private" body parts, and the importance of consent.  * This is a very important episode. * (Plus: two special guests make their podcasting debut!)  Mentions: Book:  "The Midwife's Apprentice" by Karen Cushman. Movie: "The Business of Being Born" (2008), directed by Abby Epstein.    ** This episode is sponsored by the Motorola Connect40 Baby Monitor by Hubble. CLICK THIS LINK to get 10% off your order, with OFFER CODE: NEWBABY! > https://hubbleconnected.com/products/motorola-connect40-5-wi-fi®-video-baby-and-home-monitor?_pos=1&_sid=9020bbf40&_ss=r < Thank you for listening. 😁❤️🎤🤪😷🎧 Facebook: @whatsnormalwithgabrielsanders Twitter: @wnwgspodcast Insta: @wnwgspodcast Email: emailwnwgs@gmail.com Voicemail: https://anchor.fm/wnwgs/message + Podcast artwork created by the amazing Dan Meth. On Instagram: @danmeth.

My guest is my old friend, Dan Scheiman. He has a PhD in Ornithology, which is the study of birds. Dan is known as the bird man. He is Dr. Dan the Bird Man, and is the Bird Conversation Director of the Audubon Society in Arkansas.  Dan’s normal is fighting for the longevity of the planet, working on policy issues, conservation, forest management, protection of birds and their habitat, energy conservation, protecting the earth’s ecosystems, and more. He is fighting the good fight! This is a very important episode.   Audubon Arkansas: https://ar.audubon.org More on dicamba and the NATIVE Project: https://ar.audubon.org/conservation/working-lands   Bird-friendly forestry PSA: https://ar.audubon.org/news/bird-friendly-forest-management Interview with Dan for the “Better Know a Birder” series: https://ar.audubon.org/news/better-know-birder-dr-dan-scheiman   Mentions: “Silent Spring” by Rachel Carlson. “Animal Speak: The Spiritual & Magical Powers of Creatures Great & Small” by Ted Andrews. Movie: “The Big Year” (2011)  Enjoy your day. Take care of the planet.  Thank you for listening.   😁❤️🎤🤪😷🎧   🎤 WNWGS links:   Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/whatsnormalwithgabrielsanders   Twitter: https://Twitter.com/wnwgspodcast   Insta: https://www.instagram.com/wnwgspodcast   Email: emailwnwgs@gmail.com   Voicemail: https://anchor.fm/wnwgs/message + Podcast artwork created by the amazing Dan Meth. On Instagram @danmeth.

Dr. Errika Walker-Magra is board certified in Emergency Medicine, Navy veteran, yoga instructor, wife, mother, vegan, and more.  Being a minority is her normal.  She has recently been on the frontline of the Covid crisis, she’s a hero, but that’s not the topic of the talk. Errika has many normals to her “normal” life. Errika lives with her “interracial, inter-cultural, inter-lingual” family in an affluent, gated community, with a pool and tennis courts.  I don’t want to say enjoy this talk. Enjoy Errika because she is a fascinating person, a brave person, a hero, a strong female role model, a Black voice... and a human being trying to do the best she can like all of us: Now that is normal.   Thank you for listening.   😁❤️🎤🤪   Mentions:  Book: “Black Tax: The Cost of Growing up Black in America”.  “In Black & White” Hosted by Rick Lockhart II, online series. @ricklockhartii  “What Would You Do?” TV series.  “BrainPOP” https://www.brainpop.com   🎤 WNWGS links:   Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/whatsnormalwithgabrielsanders/   Twitter: @WNWGSpodcast   Email: emailwnwgs@gmail.com   Insta: @wnwgspodcast   Voicemail: https://anchor.fm/wnwgs/message + Podcast artwork created by the amazing Dan Meth. On Instagram @danmeth.