This time last week I found myself weeping in hotel room in the Middle East.I had just spent my day filming in a dusty refugee camp on the border of Syria and Jordan where I had interviewed a single mother of six children who’s answer to my question, “If you could wish for anything in the world right now, what would it be?” was “Anything? If I could have anything, it would be a tarpaulin for the roof because it leaks in the rain and winter is coming.”I was in Jordan; a country on the front line of a global... Read full article »

This morning I was beamed in over Skype to talk to about 200 dental students at Tufts Medical School. The future dentists had just watched my documentary, The Connection which is about the science of the mind-body-health connection and their professor had arranged for me to answer their subsequent questions. I’ve lost count of the number of similar Q and As I’ve participated in, so you might think that this would be no big deal. But a question from one of the students really threw me. Bright-eyed and inquisitive, she wanted to know what role spirituality had played in my... Read full article »

Here in Australia the lazy, hazy days of the summer holidays are coming to an end. My beaded, braided, sun-tanned family and friends are making their final trips to the beach, organising hair cuts, opening emails, and planning their inevitable return to work and school. Amidst our good intentions and “new-year new-me” promises, there is an interesting theme I’m detecting before the crazy-busyness of our everyday lives recommences. One friend described her dread at the thought of returning to her high-stress, high-stakes, all-or-nothing job. Another described his uncertainty about why he’s going back to thankless work, and another was questioning... Read full article »

In 2009 I found myself in the South Pacific island nation of Samoa the day after a 3.5 metre tsunami rolled through and killed more than one hundred people. I was there as a video journalist — a one-man band traveling with a light camera and editing kit in order to get to people and places conventional crews cannot. At the heart of my story were the remarkable people from the Australian Federal Police Disaster Victim Identification team who worked tirelessly to find and identify the missing tsunami victims so their families could get closure.   I felt that the... Read full article »