Here’s a link to a Youtube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1ssPWYWYUukHjJvkDqHcyw) where I read some excerpts from my new book, Mindful Ethnography: Mind, Heart and Activity for Transformative Social Research, summarize the key ideas I address in each chapter, and reflect further on these ideas and my motivations for writing them. I include some brief activities for applying mindfulness to ethnographic research, guiding listeners in some short meditative and contemplative practices oriented around field work.
The tracks are accompanied by music: composed, electronically produced and mastered by my son, Andrés Orellana (who goes by the name “Abstract Apathy” for his music, which can be found on Spotify and other music platforms). The cover image of the book was designed by my visual-and-performing artist daughter, Elisa Noemí. 
I enlisted my children’s artistic talents not just to support them as emerging artists, and not just because I’m a “proud mama” (though I am), but because despite our very different approaches (Elisa via theatre, storytelling and visual arts; Andrés via music; I via research and writing), we have much in common. We have influenced each others’ thinking and ways of being over the year. For sure, my kids have learned some stuff from me, but I have also learned from them in substantive and important ways. They really have been some of my greatest teachers, and my own ways of seeing, thinking, doing, and being have been enriched through our extended, informal, family collaboration. I also share their art and music as a way of balancing the heady or “mind”-centric nature of academic writing with more heart-centered stances. As you listen to my words, you can rest your eyes on the beautiful image Elisa created, and imbibe the gentle background music Andrés performs. Academic reading doesn’t have to be onerous. And academic work doesn’t have to be boring. It can be a creative, spiritual and aesthetic experience that connects our minds and bodies and anchors us in the world. I hope you will enjoy!
In my last blog I had promised to begin unpacking a series of seeming tensions between a “critical” stance (i.e. focused on naming and changing power relations in the world) and a more “spiritual” one (i.e. focused on compassion, love and acceptance).
in coalition with others to respond to the matters of the day, taking action on immediate items (e.g. defending immigrant rights), and being prepared to respond to whatever comes up. Be mentally, emotionally and physically prepared to respond to hate, with love and a firm stance of solidarity for anyone who is attacked.
While I don’t like my tax dollars going to funding the U.S. war machine, I do believe in paying taxes to offset my use of the world’s resources, and if the government isn’t going to tax me, I will just have to tax myself. I am gravely concerned that the Trump presidency can set us back on the ticking clock to stall Climate Change in ways that we simply cannot afford.
