Elika is a vocalist, composer, pianist, and artist. She considers herself a world citizen; her parents are from Iran, she was born in the US, she was raised in Kenya, and now lives in China.

Elika's love of music began when she was a child growing up in Africa. In between she has lived in Israel and Hong Kong. Her music beautifully expresses the diverse cultures that have been a part of her upbringing, blending and reflecting the influences of this varied background, drawing upon classical Western structures but incorporating instrumentation and styles from Iran to Ireland and China to Spain. You can find her work at elikamahony.com.

Linda is a psychotherapist, specializing in suicide prevention and community healing and is the co-founder of the Virtues Project that in 1991 launched into a global grassroots initiative to inspire the practice of virtues in everyday life. She is also a best-selling author of The Family Virtues Guide and A Pace of Grace. She has also published Graceful Endings and the novel called A Scent of Sage. For more than two decades, she has worked with indigenous peoples impacted by the trauma of residential school abuses. She has had many appearances on radio and television, including Oprah, and had her own television series in Canada.

Karen collaborates with Shrin Youssefian Maanian and Yasmin Farhoumand under the name Sky to produce music based on the texts of the Baha'i Faith. They have created two CDs. Their first CD is called A Cycle of Divine Love Songs and their most recent CD is called Now. We feature music from both CDs in the interview. Karen describes how she met Shirin and their first collaboration together making the play Pure, which is the story of a woman named Tahireh, who in the 19th century was an established Persian poetess who ultimately was martyred for her faith in the Bab, prophet founder of the Babi Faith and inaugurator of the Baha'i Faith. From that collaboration bloomed the inspiration of Sky.

Parivash left Iran in 1979 coincident with the inauguration of the Islamic Revolution in that country. Parivash describes how difficult it was for her to live in her country as a Baha'i. What pushed her over the edge to leave was the burning down of her family home by arsonists and not being allowed to attend university. She returned to Iran 30 years later and was amazed how much the country had changed in those 30 years. One of her missions while there was to find out how the Baha'is are doing under the oppression of the current regime. She committed herself to present to folks here in the States the situation of the Baha'is in Iran. I met Parivash when she was in my area making this presentation.

Chris is the author of the book Nudges From Grandfather: Honouring Indigenous Spiritual Technologies. It is the first in a series that is titled Honouring Indigenous Spiritual Technologies. Chris has a PhD in Law with his thesis titled “The Protection of Indigenous Medical Knowledge: Transforming Law to Engage Indigenous Spiritual Concerns.” It's not surprising the Chris is devoting his life to the protection of indigenous peoples. He grew up with a father that specialized in Indigenous Psychology and he lived and worked with several Native American communities. His website is ChrisKavelin.com.

Robert is a musician from the Portland, Oregon area and has written about 60 songs. For this interview I asked Robert to feature some of his songs from his album Sunshine Through the Rain. He has another CD called Shades of Love. His website is hadahproductions.com.

It wasn't Ken's intention, but life called him to serve at the Baha'i National Center in Wilmette, Illinois for 25 years. Ken currently serves as the Secretary General for the United States Baha'i National Spiritual Assembly, the governing council for the Baha'is in the US. Ken provides in this interview some very good explanations of some of the fundamental principles of the Baha'i Faith.

Lesa started out in life as a writer and then found the audio medium much more suitable in which to work with. She has taken the interviews from this program, A Baha'i Perspective, categorized segments from many of the interviews and then spliced together segments from different interviews but on the same theme. She presents these segments in a venue simulating a cafe. Thus she calls the work cafe Baha'i and more specifically Spiritual Journeys. You can find Spiritual Journeys on her website cafeBahai.com. On her website she also presents her audio book work. I include samples from both Spiritual Journeys and her audio book work in the interview.

A group of four dedicated calendar lovers in Portland, OR are combining their talents to teach how the Baha'i 19-day calendar can be used to develop a process for spiritual growth and awareness. Using art, scripture and mathematics, Cora and her husband Michael Palazzolo have created 19-Day Cards, a daily method for tracking and practicing with the spiritual qualities in the Baha'i calendar. “Heartist” Tammy Hill and her husband, Mark as marketing manager/videographer, make up the fun group who call themselves: Team 19. You can find their work at 19daycards.com. In this interview, Cora shares her story and how she came to create 19-Day Cards.

Beth is a physician, educator, writer and world traveler. In 1992 she was elected national President of Physicians for Social Responsibility, and since 2001 has represented the organization, International Society of Doctors for the Environment. As a result, she describes herself as an activist physician. She is currently developing a biography of Dr. Magdalene Carney, an African-American educator that had profound impact in her field. Beth explains in the interview how she used Facebook to gather stories and photos for the biography.

Shadi is a Baha'i musician that has produced three CDs: Leather Bound Book, Verdant Isle, and her latest release Daughters of the Kingdom. I asked Shadi to pick five songs from her latest CD to showcase for this interview. You can find her music at her website http://www.shaditolouiwallace.com/

Dorothy was one of two women to graduate in 1953 from the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Law. In 1969 Dorothy was the first woman dean of a major American law school, the University of Southern California Law School. It was Judge Nelson that first introduced the concept of mediation in the CA court system. This was unheard of back in the day, and it wasn't easy to make it happen. In 1987 she was instrumental in founding the Western Justice Center to develop creative programs to teach students, teachers and members of the community ways to resolve conflict peacefully. She is still active in this organization to this day.

Mary has both an M.B.A. and a Ph.D. in Economics. She received the distinguished American Association of University Women dissertation grant, two Fulbright professorships, and a Reese Phifer fellowship. Among her publications is one co-authored book and over 60 journal articles and book chapters. Her career includes teaching for over 35 years at numerous universities. She has worked for the World Bank and The Gambia. In 2000, she was recognized as a University of Alabama Professor of Economics, Emeritae. We discuss the Baha'i perspective on economics during the interview.

Patti is a children's author who has written books from a a Baha'i Perspective that include such titles as "Are You Happy," "Maggie Celebrates Ayyam-i-ha," and "Something Important". "Something Important" also has the little girl Maggie as the central character. We discuss Patti's work and have her read excerpts from her Maggie series. You can find her books on the website bahaibookstore.com.

Zinnia is a singer song writer and we feature her songs in the interview. Zinnia's mother is Phillipino and her father is Iranian. They came to Canada as religious refugees and had to start their life over. Zinnia was very much aware of this as she grew up and the experience is reflected in her music. You can find her music on iTunes under the name Zinnia.

I met Alan at a Baha'i song writers workshop held at the Desert Rose Baha'i Institute in Arizona December 2015. When I heard Alan's voice and music and knew I had to feature him on A Baha'i Perspective. I did something different this time when featuring a musician. Rather than playing back recorded material, Alan preferred that we did the whole interview live including his song playing.

Although the sound quality is not as good as a recorded piece of music, the dynamics of the interaction between me and the musician was very different and I liked the way it happened. There are a number of musical pieces that we feature on the interview. You can find his music and the jewelry that he makes at http://cosmicountry.com/.

Roger has had a lifelong interest in the fundamental harmony of science and religion and a focused desire to transcend the worldly conflicts that obscure it. He is currently working on a book dedicated to advancing that cause in practical terms. We talk about his work in the context of this Baha'i principle.

Louis is the author of the book, "No Jim Crow Church - The Origins of South Carolina's Bahá'í Community", which traces the history of South Carolina's Bahá'í community from its early origins through the civil rights era. He relates developments within the Bahá'í community to changes in society at large, with particular attention to race relations and the civil rights struggle.

The book's coming out is apropos to the recently released poll indicating that the Bahá'í Faith is the 2nd largest religion after Christianity in South Carolina. Louis retells the amazing story of the first known declarant of the Bahá'í Faith, Alonzo Twine, in 1910. It's a tragic story, but we discuss the mystical significance of such a tragedy with the amazing emergence of the Baha'i Faith in South Carolina.

Avrel is both an author and a musician. We talk about three books he's written and he reads excerpts from all three, and we talk about three of his musical compositions and play them in the interview. You can find all of his literary works on his website The Trailhead . His song "One Sky" can be found on YouTube.

Emily is a graduate student focusing on contemporary Islamic communities. Emily caught my eye because it seems that the Islamic community is so misunderstood these days. We talk about the misconceptions of Islam and her graduate work in this area.

Emily just became a mom so at times her daughter decides to chime in. During the first 20 minutes of the interview, there is an intermittent hum that appeared as she spoke. We finally fixed the problem so please be patient.

Niki describes her spiritual journey from being a Christian to becoming a Baha'i. She is a poet and one of her interests is alternative health and healing. She shares her poetry on the interview and we talk about the Baha'i perspective on health and healing.

Amazingly Duanne, who loved books, had dyslexia, and wasn't able to read for the first two years in school. Despite his disability, he pursued a life of books and became a prolific author of articles and short stories. Some of his writing include the history of the Baha'i Faith in Kansas, where he lives. He reveals the amazing fact that Enterprise, Kansas is the second Baha'i community established west of Egypt in 1897. He shares with us a number of his writings during the interview. Below are links to his works:

Index of his work

Hidden Meanings in the Poetry of Robert Hayden

Sweet Scented Streams Poems for Devotions

It's About Living

Summer Shorts II: Best Kept Secrets

Candace tells her interesting story on how she became a Baha'i and how a small town girl from Oregon happened to end up in Chicago working for the Baha'i National Center starting as a secretary and having a host of jobs including editing of a children's magazine. She also authored "Baha'i Temple"  for Arcadia Publishing, a photographic history of the Baha'i House of Worship in Wilmette Illinois. She is the administrative assistant for the Wilmette Institute.