2008 and 2009 Conversations at The New School at Commonweal

Healing People, Healing Organizations: The Whitman Institute Social Entrepreneurs and the Jesiuit Model of Social Change
Edd Conboy

This conversation was recorded on December 31, 2009

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Edd is not your typical therapist. He combines his training and real world business experience in his effort to help clients get unstuck and create new pathways in their lives. Edd also works with individuals whose normal stress has advanced into a state of distress, supporting them as they move into effective action, and begin to sustain joy in their lives as they strive to attain their life goals.

A seasoned therapist with more than twenty years experience in the field, Edd has worked as a coach and consultant to bring the skills, knowledge, and expertise of the psychotherapeutic community into non-traditional settings in addition to his work as a private practitioner. While working with people from all walks of life, from business, community and non-profit leaders to inner-city youth, he is particularly effective working with a wide range of individuals facing unique stresses like those of world-class professional and amateur athletes, survivors of trauma, as well as couples with chronically ill children.

A significant part of his experience has involved coaching individuals who work and live under enormous pressure and excel in highly stressful settings, hi-tech companies in Silicon Valley, international law firms, non-profit organizations, federal agencies, and philanthropic foundations.

Often working with complex cases involving such issues as those related to post-traumatic stress and paranormal experiences, Edd strives to create an atmosphere that is compassionate and affirming. When appropriate, his work with clients is energetic, goal-directed, brief and highly focused. He strives to stay attuned to his clients’ concerns and helps them develop effective strategies for living full, meaningful lives.

Edd has also designed and implemented leadership development programs for young emerging leaders in public-benefit organizations, as well as social-emotional intelligence and compassionate listening trainings.

Prior to developing his consulting practice, Edd worked in the performance psychology field helping elite athletes and their coaches manage the many stressors, both on and off the field, that came into play as they prepared for major competitions. These clients included several world champion professional athletes, all-american collegiate athletes, and younger competitors and their families in a wide variety of athletic settings. He has also worked with musicians and other performing artists deal with the pressures that come with being on stage. Experiences with these clients taught him that, although the settings are quite different, most successful performers develop the capacity to create positive, personal narratives that foster success. In addition he has learned that many of these traits are available to individuals who do not live and work in the public arenas.

Edd completed his undergraduate studies in philosophy at Loyola College in Baltimore, Maryland, and completed his graduate work in counseling psychology with a dual emphasis in family therapy and school counseling at San Francisco State University. His training also included a year of post-master's studies in family therapy at the California School of Professional Psychology in Berkeley, California.

In 2006 Edd was designated a Fellow with The Whitman Institute in San Francisco, California.

As part of the council’s Community Partnership Initiative, Edd divides his time between the University City Office and the council’s new Avenue of the Arts Office at Broad Street Ministry where he directs their counseling services.

Edd Conboy, MS, MFT can be reached at 215-382-6680 ext. 4313, or by email.

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December 5 & 6, 2009

Coming Back to Life: A Weekend with Joanna Macy and The Work That Reconnects

Presented by The New School at Commonweal, Point Reyes Books, and Living Leadership Institute

There are powers within us and between us that can be
renewed and deepened for the healing of our world.
They belong to no government, corporation, or military
force, but to the self-organizing nature of life itself.

The Work That Reconnects draws on spiritual traditions (mainly Buddhist) and living systems theory to help us uncover these powers. We will discover how they can bring forth fresh vision, courage, and creativity in this time of planetary crisis.

Joanna Macy, Ph.D., is an ecophilosopher and activist known worldwide for her teaching and worshop methodology. Her books include Coming Back To Life; World As Lover, World As Self; Mutual Causality;, and translations of Rilke's poetry.

Joanna's website has more information about The Work That Reconnects.

David Servan Schrieber, author of "The Instinct to Heal: Curing Depression, Anxiety and Stress Without Drugs and Without Talk Therapy" and "Anti-Cancer: A New Way of Life"

This conversation was recorded with Michael Lerner in December 2008.

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With a medical degree and a Ph.D in cognitive neuroscience, I divide my time today between the United States, where I am a clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh, and France, where I am a lecturer in the Faculty of Medicine of Lyon I. Until 2001, I directed the Center for Complementary Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh's Shadyside Hospital. I was also Chief of the Hospital's Division of Psychiatry and director of the Behavorial Sciences teaching program.

I received medical degrees from both Laval University, in Canada, and the Necker Faculty of Medicine, in Paris, France. I performed my internship in internal medicine and psychiatry at the Royal Victoria Hospital of McGill University (Canada), then I obtained one of the first Ph.D's in Cognitive Neuroscience in the United States at Carnegie-Mellon University (Pittsburgh) under the guidance of Nobel Laureate Herbert Simon, and one of the founders of modern neural network computer modeling Jay McClelland. I was then a resident and later Assistant Professor at the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic at the University of Pittsburgh. In Pittsburgh, I was the cofounder, with Dr. Jonathan Cohen (now director of the Center for the Study of Brain, Mind and Behavior at Princeton University) of the Laboratory of Clinical Cognitive Neurosciences, which I co-directed for eight years. My research was related to computer modelling of cognition and emotions in neural networks, and the study of the links between the limbic system and the prefrontal cortex using functional brain imaging (PET and functional MRI). Since 1998, I have participated in both clinical and fundamental research projects with the aim of explaining the efficacy and action mechanisms of a set of medical approaches described as 'complementary' or 'alternative' at the Center for Complementary Medicine of Shadyside Hospital at the University of Pittsburgh. In the course of my academic career, I have authored more than ninety scientific monographs and I have received several awards for my work. I have been invited to speak at numerous conventions, and universities, such as the universities of Stanford, Columbia, Cornell, and Cambridge. In the 1990s, following the first Gulf War, I also worked in the humanitarian field. I worked as a general practitioner in Irak (Kurdish territory) in 1991, with Medecins Sans Frontieres/Doctors Without Borders, then on a voluntary basis, again with MSF, in Guatemala, India (Tibetan refugees), Tajikistan and Kosovo. As a member of the first Board of Directors, I was part of the group that founded MSF,USA/Doctors Without Borders, USA and I served on the Board from 1991 to 2000. Since June 2000, I have been a member of the OECD's council of experts on Brain Research and Education Sciences, which suggests directions for education policy based on developments in neurosciences. I was the first consultant for this program on the issue of emotional intelligence. David Servan-Schreiber's web site has more information.

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Sunday, November 22, 2009

Righteous Chops on the Family Farm
with Nicolette Hahn and Bill Niman

Download the audio file or subscribe to our podcasts. You may also download the PDF file here of Nicolette's presentation to follow along with as you listen. A streaming version is included below as well.

Nicolette Hahn Niman is rancher, attorney and writer. Much of
her time is spent speaking and writing about the problems of
industrialized livestock production, including the book
"Righteous Porkchop: Finding a Life and Good Food Beyond Factory Farms" (HarperCollins, 2009) and three essays she has written on the subject for the New York Times.

Bill Niman is a cattle rancher in Northern California, proprietor of BN Ranch, and Founder of the natural meat company Niman Ranch, Inc. He was a member of the Pew Foundation's National Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production, which released recommendations for reform of the nation's livestock industry in April 2008.

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Sunday, November 15, 2009

A Conversation with Fritjof Capra

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Fritjof Capra, Ph.D., physicist and systems theorist, is a founding director of the Center for Ecoliteracy in Berkeley, California, which is dedicated to promoting ecology and systems thinking in primary and secondary education. He is on the faculty of Schumacher College, an international center for ecological studies in the UK. Dr. Capra is the author of several international bestsellers, including The Tao of Physics , The Web of Life, and The Hidden Connections: A Science for Sustainable Living. His most recent book, The Science of Leonardo, was published in paperback by Anchor Books in December 2008. www.fritjofcapra.net.

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Sunday, October 18, 2009

"It's About Lyme"

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A two-part community awareness program for the town of Bolinas, this will be a chance to learn more about one of the
fast growing epidemics in our world today. How does one contract Lyme? What is the protocol once one is infected?
What is the long range prognosis for recovery? What is the nature of chronic Lyme disease? These are among the
issues to be raised and discussed, in a context of
information presented and treatments explored.

At the Bolinas Fire House, from 1-3 PM:

A screening of "Under Our Skin," an award-winning documentary about the controversy surrounding the endemic. To view the film's trailer, go to www.underourskin.com

At Commonweal Library, from 3:30-5:30 PM:

A community gathering for a discussion between the film's director/producer Andy Abrahams Wilson and Win Bertrand, MD of Gordon Medical Associates in Santa Rosa, followed by a question and answer session.

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Sunday, October 11, 2009

Healing Yoga: A Conversation with TKV Desikachar and Kate Holcombe

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TKV Desikachar is the son and foremost student of the legendary yoga master T Krishnamacharya -- teacher of Patthabi Jois, BKS Iyengar, and Indra Devi.
Kate Holcombe is a senior student of Mr. Desikachar and founder of the Healing Yoga Foundation in San Francisco.
For over 45 years, TKV Desikachar has devoted himself to teaching yoga and making it relevant to people from all walks of life and with all kinds of abilities. His teaching method is based on T Krishnamacharya's fundamental principle that yoga must always be adapted to an individual's changing needs in order to derive the maximum therapeutic & personal benefit. In addition to the three decades of yoga training he received from his father, TKV Desikachar holds a degree in structural engineering. He is one of the world's foremost teachers of yoga and a renowned authority on the therapeutic use of yoga. We invite you to visit the Healing Yoga Foundation website.

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Sunday, October 4, 2009

The Music of the Spheres: Rediscovering the Harmonic Relationship Among the Planets
A Conversation with Walter Murch

Download the audio file or subscribe to our podcasts. Note: This conversation relied heavily on Mr. Murch's visual presentation, which is unavailable. Still, we found the conversation so compelling as to make it available for listening. Please familiarize yourself with this article for further understanding of Walter's work in this area.

Walter Murch is an Academy Award winning film editor and sound designer who has done celebrated work with George Lucas, Francs Ford Coppola, Anthony Minghella, and others. He is the subject of Michael Ondaatje's "The Conversations," based on their dialogues when Murch was editing Minghella's The English Patient (based on Ondaatje's novel). He has written an acclaimed book on film editing, In the Blink of an Eye. But his greatest historical contribution may yet prove to be in astronomy, where he has refined and rehabilitated an ancient observation that the planets and moons in our solar system are arranged in a harmonic relationship that gives scientific expression to the concept of "the music of the spheres." Please prepare for this conversation with this astonishingly interesting polymath by reading the interview with Murch.

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Sunday, August 9, 2009

ARE WOMEN HUMAN?

Reflections on Sexual Violence --
A Conversation with Catharine A. MacKinnon

Commonweal, Main Building

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Catharine A. MacKinnon is America's foremost feminist legal scholar and a leading public intellectual and political philosopher. She has made major contributions to law and public policy on equality, sexual harassment, pornography, trafficking, rape, and genocide. MacKinnon is a lawyer, teacher, writer, and activist on sex equality domestically and internationally. She is Elizabeth A. Long Professor of Law at the University of Michigan, The James Barr Ames long-term visitor at Harvard Law School, and Special Gender Adviser to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. She has taught at twelve law schools including Yale, Stanford, Chicago, Osgoode Hall (Toronto), Columbia, and Hebrew University (Jerusalem) and been a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study (Berlin, 1992-3) and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (Stanford, 2005-6). Widely published in many languages (three of which she speaks in addition to English) her dozen books include Sex Equality (2001/2007), Toward a Feminist Theory of the State (1989), Only Words (1993), Sexual Harassment of Working Women (1979), and most recently, Women’s Lives, Men’s Laws (2005) and Are Women Human? (2006). MacKinnon created the concept that sexual abuse violates equality rights, pioneering the legal claim for sexual harassment as sex discrimination and, with Andrea Dworkin, recognition of the harms of pornography as civil rights violations. The Supreme Court of Canada has largely accepted her approach to equality, hate speech, and pornography. Representing Bosnian women survivors of Serbian genocidal sexual atrocities, she established legal recognition of rape as an act of genocide and won with co-counsel a $745 million verdict at trial. She works with Equality Now, an international NGO promoting sex equality worldwide, and the Coalition against Trafficking in Women (CATW). Empirical studies document that Professor MacKinnon is one of the most widely-cited legal scholars in the English language.

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August 2, 2009

Life Over Cancer: Keith Blocks's Program for Integrative Cancer Treatment
A talk and book-signing with Keith Block, MD

Download the audio file or subscribe to our podcasts.
Download a PDF of Keith's presentation to review while listening to the audio.

Keith gave a 40 minute talk, answer questions, and signed copies of his new book, "Life Over Cancer."

Andrew Weil, M.D., writes in his preface: “Life Over Cancer sets the course for what I believe is the future of successful cancer treatment,” “I believe in Keith’s program and would go to the Block Center if I were facing a diagnosis of cancer.  It is where I have sent and will continue to send my friends and family members,” and “Life Over Cancer is the program every cancer patient deserves in order to have the best chance for recovery and restoration of health.”Keith's book-cover says: "Dr. Keith Block is at the global vanguard of innovative cancer care. As medical director of the Block Center for Integrative Cancer Treatment in Evanston, Illinois, he has treated thousands of patients who have lived long, full lives beyond their original prognoses.

Now he has distilled almost thirty years of experience into the first book that gives patients a systematic, research-based plan for developing the physical and emotional vitality they need to meet the demands of treatment and recovery. Based on a profound understanding of how body and mind can work together to defeat disease, this groundbreaking book offers:

• Innovative approaches to conventional treatments, such as “chronotherapy”–chemotherapy timed to patients’ unique circadian rhythms for enhanced effectiveness and reduced toxicity
• Dietary choices that make the biochemical environment hostile to cancer growth and recurrence, and strengthen the immune system’s ability to attack remaining cancer cells
• Precise supplement protocols to tame treatment side effects, relieve disease-related symptoms, and modify processes like inflammation and glycemia that can fuel cancer if left untreated
• A new paradigm for exercise and stress reduction that restores your strength, reduces anxiety and depression, and supports the body’s own ability to heal
• A complete program for remission maintenance–a proactive plan to make sure the cancer never returns Also included are “quick-start” maps to help you find the information you need right now and many case histories that will support and inspire you.

Encouraging, compassionate, and authoritative, Life over Cancer is the guide patients everywhere have been waiting for." Keith is a longtime Commonweal friend and an extraordinary resource for cancer patients and health professionals.  He will be accompanied by Mark Renneker, M.D., also a longtime Commonweal friend and an equally eminent investigator of medical treatments for a wide range of serious illnesses.  Don't miss this special opportunity to learn from one of the foremost pioneers of integrative cancer treatments.

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July 15, 2009

What Is Art?
Reading Shakespeare's 'Hamlet' and Tolstoy's What Is Art?
with Handord Woods, Shakespeare Scholar and
Eric Karpeles, Discussant

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Hanford Woods teaches Shakespeare at Dawson College in Montreal and is a longtime Bolinas resident. Eric Karpeles is a new Bolinas resident and recently spoke for The New School on Paintings in Proust. We recommend reading "Hamlet" and "What Is Art?" (both available on Internet!) in advance of the conversation.

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July 8, 2009

Russell Jaffe, MD
"The Alkaline Way: Diet, Supplements, Detoxification, and Real Health Care Reform.

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We have (again!) a special opportunity for a conversation with a remarkable Commonweal friend, Russell Jaffe, M.D. Russ will talk with us about "The Alkaline Way: Diet, Supplements, Detoxification, and Real Health Care Reform." Trained in Clinical Pathology at the National Institutes of Health, Russ served on the permanent NIH staff as a practicing molecular biologist and molecular pathologist. In the course of his later career, Russ has worked extensively in optimal health, nutrition, Oriental Medicine, and color and music therapy. He was the founding Chairman of the Scientific Committee of the American Holistic Medical Association. In 1984, Dr. Jaffe developed the lymphocyte response assays (LRA) by ELISA/ACT tests. These tests enable physicians to examine the responses of patients' immune systems to challenges. He is also the founder of Perque, a nutritional supplement company.

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Friday, June 12, 2009

My Book is a Painting--Marcel Proust & the Resonance of the Visual Images
with Eric Karpeles

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Download a PDF of amazing slides from Eric's presentation.

Eric Karpeles, author of Paintings in Proust, will present an illustrated talk entitled "My book is a Painting: Marcel Proust & the Resonance of the Visual Image." Some of you shared with me the privilege of hearing a remarkable talk Eric gave last year in Point Reyes. I was so stunned by his presentation that I wanted to hear it again myself and to give others the opportunity to hear it for the first--or second--time.

Paintings in Proust has received considerable acclaim in the US, Britain and France, where the French edition sold out its first printing in three weeks. Salman Rushdie called it his favorite book of the year. The NY Times claimed the book elicited "the literary equivalent of a hosanna."  A NY Observer critic wrote that the work is "authoritative, intelligent, amusing, and can be enjoyed without prior exposure to Proust." The same can be said about Eric's talk, which, while specifically about Proust, is also generally about the mind of the artist and the creative process.

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Thursday, June 4, 2009

Dogs Never Lie about Love and other Topics
A Conversation with Jeffrey and Leila Masson

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Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson is a writer who lives with his family in New Zealand. He has been a professor at several universities in Canada and America. After serving as Projects Director of the Sigmund Freud Archives, he wrote a series of books critical of psychiatry and therapy.  In the 1990’s he turned his attention to animals, and in particular, their emotional lives. His book “When Elephants Weep” became an international best seller, as was “Dogs Never Lie About Love”.  Since those two books he has published six more books about animals. 

Jeff believes: “When animals are no longer colonized and appropriated by us, we can reach out to our evolutionary cousins. Perhaps then the ancient hope for deeper emotional connection across the species barrier, for closeness and participation in a realm of feelings now beyond our imagination, will be realized”.

Dr. Leila Masson is a pediatrician interested in disease prevention through healthy nutrition and life style. Her goal is to help her two sons and her husband - and all her patients - to live in optimal health. Dr. Masson provides biomedical treatment for children on the autistic spectrum, a wholistic approach to behavior and learning challenges, as well as assessment and treatment of children with allergies and other pediatric health problems. Dr. Masson's aim is to treat the whole child, not just the symptom, and to support the family on their path to better health.

Please visit Jeffrey’s websites at

www.jeffreymasson.com/animal-books/when-elephants-weep.html

www.jeffreymasson.com/library.html

www.jeffreymasson.com/animal-books/dogs-never-lie.html

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Monday, March 30, 2009

Wireless or Wellness
A Conversation with Cindy Sage and Nancy Evans of the BioInitiative

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New wireless technologies have changed the face of the world in the last decade. Cell and cordless phones, and the wireless towers that send their signals around town have very real bioeffects. Decision-makers and the public are just learning about possible health risks. What can you do to help protect your health? These and other important topics will be covered by Cindy Sage, Sage Associates, Co-Editor of the BioInitiative Report. She and 14 other scientists and public health experts have written a definitive report on the science and public health implications of wireless technologies. She will discuss the report and answer your questions about wireless.

Cindy Sage is the owner of Sage Associates, Montecito, CA. She also is a Research Fellow at Orebro University Hospital, School of Health and Medical Sciences, Department of Oncology, Orebro, Sweden.

Nancy Evans is a health science writer and editor with more than three decades of experience in health science publishing. She is an honorary member of Sigma Theta Tau, the international honor society in nursing.

Diagnosed with breast cancer in 1991, Nancy became a leader in the grassroots breast cancer movement, and has spoken on breast cancer issues nationally and internationally. She is currently Health Science Consultant to the Breast Cancer Fund in San Francisco.

Nancy is the original editor of State of the Evidence: The Connection Between Environment and Breast Cancer, published by the Breast Cancer Fund in a new 5th edition. She also co-facilitates (with Cindy Sage) the EMF Working Group of the Collaborative for Health and the Environment.

Nancy has co-produced three documentary films (with Allie Light and Irving Saraf): Rachel s Daughters: Searching for the Causes of Breast Cancer Children and Asthma Good Food, Bad Food: Obesity in American Children. She is also a mother and a grandmother.

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Friday, March 27, 2009

'Endocrine Disruptors in Indoor & Outdoor Air',
An interview with Julia Brody, Ph.D

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Julia Brody is a leader in research on environmental pollutants and breast cancer and in public engagement in science. She is the executive director of Silent Spring Institute, a research organization dedicated to studying the links between the environment and women's health, especially breast cancer.

Dr. Julie Brody and her team at the Silent Spring Institute in Massachusetts are well-known pioneers in exploring linkages between toxic chemicals exposures and breast cancer, prompted by the high incidence of breast cancer in Cape Cod. Upholding the legacy of Rachel Carson in exploring how environmental threats contribute to disease incidence, Brody has produced compelling results from her work in Cape Cod, where she has tested 120 homes and their inhabitants for levels of toxicants. Recent work has brought her team to Richmond and Bolinas where the team as tested a number of homes for the presence of toxic chemicals in indoor and outdoor air.

Householders in both towns found the results surprising. Like most people, they assumed that exposures to toxicants occurred primarily if one were to live near an industrial area, a military facility or near the site of some sort of chemical accident. Brody s research indicates that many of us may be additionally exposed to toxicants through the use of products we use everyday, products such as cleaners, personal care products, paints, solvents, or the materials we use in constructing our houses.

Dr. Brody has also explored how best to present monitoring results to study participants. Most medical monitoring, such as dental X-rays, mammograms and others is conducted to determine whether a medical intervention may be called for. Biomonitoring humans for levels of toxic chemicals, except in the case of extreme exposures, is different. The levels of toxic chemicals found in the body of an individual are generally not predictive of individual health outcomes. Yet learning about one s own chemical body burden can be perplexing or alarming, given that many of the chemicals monitored may be closely connected to health harm in laboratory studies. Given that information about the presence of toxic chemicals in everyday products is limited or nonexistent, researchers may be unable to tell project participants how to avoid future exposures. Many researchers prefer not to tell monitoring participants individual results in order to avoid these problems. Dr. Brody s research indicates however, that despite these uncertainties, many participants want to know about and want to discuss their levels of exposure and have found ways to make use of this information.

Click on the link to visit the Silent Spring Institute website.

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Friday, March 6, 2009

Decision-Making As If Consciousness Matters
A Conversation with Mark Gerzon

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Mark Gerzon, a leader in building global community and conflict resolution, believes critical decisions are often deeply flawed because they are made in settings that neglect the importance of nurturing a consciousness that elicits our deepest wisdom. His passion is designing environments that meet Einstein's transformative challenge: to ensure that we do not try to solve problems on the same level awareness at which they were created. Join us for a very special New School Conversation.

Mark Gerzon is Founder and President of Mediators Foundation and author of 'Leading Through Conflict: How Successful Leaders Transform Differrences into Opportunities'.

You are also invited to visit EastWest institute website ...'working to make the world a safer place by addressing the seemingly intractable problems that threaten regional and global stability.'

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December 6, 2008

FINDING BEAUTY IN A BROKEN WORLD, A Conversation with Terry Tempest Williams.

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Terry Tempest Williams, one of the most exquisite and powerful voices for healing ourselves and the earth. Terry has been called 'a citizen writer' who speaks out eloquently on behalf of an ethical stance toward life. A gifted naturalist and fierce advocate for freedom of speech, Terry has shown us how environmental issues are social issues that ultimately become matters of justice. 'So here is my question,' she asks, 'what might a different kind of power look like, feel like, and can power be redistributed equitably even beyond our own species?'

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Saturday, November 22, 2008

LIFE LESSONS IN HEALING: Cancer, Trauma, and Mind-Body Medicine With James S. Gordon, MD.

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Jim Gordon is one of America's leading authorities in mind-body medicine. He founded the influential Cancer Guides training program, sponsors the premier Food as Medicine training, and conducts Healing the Wounds of War trainings in Israel, Gaza and other conflict zones. Jim Gordon is the Founder and Director of The Center for Mind-Body Medicine (CMBM), a Clinical Professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Family Medicine at Georgetown Medical School, and recently served as Chairman of the White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy.

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Yoga For Trauma: A Conversation with Therese Poulsen. This event was held at Commonweal on Thursday, September 18th, 2008.

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Therese Poulsen is the founder and director of Breath of Hope Foundation, through which she brings yoga and integrative healing to children traumatized by natural disasters or war in Sri Lanka, Indonesia and other countries in the Global South. Therese has been teaching yoga and integrative approaches to healing for over two decades. More >>

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Dharma Talk and Meditation with Shodo Harada Roshi. This event was held at Commonweal on Sunday, September 14th, 2008.

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Shodo Harada Roshi was born in 1940 in Nara, Japan. He began his Zen training in 1962 when he entered Shofuku-ji monastery in Kobe, Japan, where he trained under Yamada Mumon Roshi (1900-1988) for twenty years. He was then given dharma transmission (inka) and was subsequently made abbot of Sogenji monastery in Okayama, Japan, where he has taught since 1982.

Harada Roshi (Roshi means "teacher") is heir to the teachings of Rinzai sect Zen Buddhism as passed down in Japan from Hakuin and his successors. Harada Roshi's teaching includes the traditional Rinzai practices of daily sutra chanting, zazen (seated meditation), sanzen (private interviews with the teacher), susokkan (breathing), koan ('past cases') study, samu (work), sesshin (intensive retreats), teisho (lectures by the teacher), and takuhatsu (alms receiving). More >>

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Life Lessons in Sustainability and Resilience

Conversation with Paul Hawken

Co-sponsored by The New School, Mainstreet Moms and Point Reyes Books. This event was held at Commonweal on Sunday, September 7th, 2008.

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Paul Hawken is an environmentalist, entrepreneur and author. Paul heads the Natural Capital Institute www.NaturalCapital.org, which has created a hub for global civil society www.WiserEarth.org, a collaboratively written, free content, open source networking platform that links NGOs, funders, business, government, social entrepreneurs, students, organizers, academics, activists, scientists and citizens. More >>

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Making Waves and Riding the Currents: Activism and the Practice of Wisdom

Book Reading and Conversation with Charles Halpern

Co-sponsored by The New School and Point Reyes Books.

This event was held at Point Reyes Books on Saturday, August 23rd, 2008.

 

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Charles Halpern is social entrepreneur and a pioneer in legal education, public interest advocacy, and philanthropy. The founder of the nation's first public interest law firm, and a major public interest law school, he ran the Nathan Cummings Foundation, and was the founder of Demos, a New York-based think tank. During his years of activism, he began to see ways to develop his inner resources to complement his cognitive and adversarial skill, a journey described in his book, Making Waves and Riding the Currents: Activism and the Practice of Wisdom (Berrett-Koehler). This book illustrates the life-enhancing benefits of integrating a commitment to social justice with the cultivation of wisdom. More info >>

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A Conversation with Mark Finser, Chair of the Board of RSF Social Finance
Michael Lerner conducted this interview on August 22nd, 2008.

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Mark A. Finser is Chair of the Board of RSF Social Finance. RSF Social Finance provides innovative investing, lending, and philanthropic services to catalyze the growth of organizations creating a more sustainable future. Mark grew RSF's assets from $6,000 in 1984 to $120M today. Since 1984, RSF has made a total of $130M in mission-related loans to social enterprises. Mark brings communities of philanthropists and socially responsible investors together to further RSF's mission: to transform the way we work with money. Mark serves on the governing boards of the following organizations: New Resource Bank, an innovative community bank that serves green and sustainable companies; Investor's Circle Foundation, a non-profit, national angel investor group that invests in socially responsible companies; and B Lab, a non-profit organization supporting B Corporations which are a new type of corporation meeting specific social and environmental performance standards.

Mark is an advisor to the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE) and Sophia House, a shelter for homeless mothers and children. He leads TBL Capital, a sustainable venture fund he founded in 2007. Mark has a lifelong interest in biodynamic agriculture, integrative medicine, and meditation. He lives with his family in Mill Valley, California.

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Investing for the Earth and the Common Good: A Conversation with Jed Emerson, Senior Fellow with Generation Foundation, Fellow with Said Business School at Oxford University and past Founder and Executive Director of Roberts Enterprise Development Fund. Michael Lerner conducted this interview on August 22nd, 2008.

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Jed Emerson is recognized as an international leader in the field of strategic philanthropy, social entrepreneurship, and blended value investing. His career has spanned work in management, academia, investing and human services. He has launched nonprofit ventures, lead foundation initiatives and engaged in research assessing global innovations in sustainable investing and finance. His work on alternative investing, nonprofit capital markets, foundation strategy, Social Return on Investment frameworks, social purpose business development and other areas of practice has been viewed as significant in terms of its broad contribution to the field and efforts to support others engaged in the community application of business skills and practice.

In 2000, Jed began focusing upon his interest in the Blended Value Proposition (BVP), which states that instead of operating in terms of non-profit and for-profit constructs or a double bottom-line, there is a single, blended value proposition for both for-profit and nonprofit firms, as well as philanthropy and capital investments, with multiple value components and generated returns. More >>

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A Conversation with Jerry Mander

Will Globalization Soon Be Over? What do climate change, peak oil, and resource depletion mean for the dominant economic paradigm?

This event was held at Commonweal on Sunday, August 17th, 2008.

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Jerry Mander is the founder and director of the International Forum on Globalization (IFG) a "think tank" and activist community with Board and Associate members on every continent. IFG has focused since 1994 on exposing the negative impacts of economic globalization on nature, human communities, equity, and democracy. IFG publishes reports, positions papers, and books, and also produces private and public education events, from private strategic seminars to large teach-ins. Best known among these were the huge events in Seattle in 1999 in opposition to the World Trade Organization. IFG has been generally credited with being among the leading international organizations that have defined, articulated and acted on a comprehensive critique of economic globalization. More info >>

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Mapping Local Resilience in Bolinas: Looking back through the Bolinas Community Plan history and Looking forward to the answers we'll need for a thriving future.

Conversation with Steve Matson and students of the Regenerative Design Institute

Co-sponsored by The New School and Mainstreet Moms.

This event was held at Commonweal on Tuesday, July 1, 2008.

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Participants came for images and stories from the pioneering Bolinas Community Plan "old guard" days. Steve Matson showed his beautiful and evolving maps, and explained how he and the Regenerative Design students at the Commonweal Garden have started to visualize more local economy, diverse and creative food production, wild paths for wildlife, community-building, and more -- on paper.

Below is a slideshow from one of our event attendees, Bill Braasch. Many thanks to Bill for the slideshow. You can visit his blog here.

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Everyone a Changemaker: A Conversation with Bill Drayton, CEO and Founder, Ashoka. Michael Lerner conducted this interview on April 25th, 2008.

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Bill Drayton is a social entrepreneur. He is the founder of Ashoka, Youth Ventures, and Get America Working -- three deeply complementary efforts to make the world a better place. Ashoka, the oldest and larger of these ventures, has created a global community of social entrepreneurs in over 70 countries around the world. Bill talks about these three projects in this extended interview with Michael Lerner.

Bill has been a social entrepreneur since he was a New York City elementary school student. He was born to a mother who emigrated from Australia as a young cellist and an American father who, also unafraid to step into the unknown, became an explorer at an equally young age. Public service and strong values run through the stories of both parents' families. These family influences, the rich diversity and openness of life in Manhattan-as well as America's deep cultural concern with equity, which flourished during the Civil Rights years-all interacted with one another and with Bill's temperament to plant Ashoka's earliest roots. More >>

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Demeter, Buddha and the Bears: The Ancient Roots of Contemporary Spiritual Healing Community Conversation and Gathering with Michael Samuels, MD.

This event was held at Commonweal on Sunday, March 30th, 2008.

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The Eleusian Mysteries, the story of Demeter and her daughter Persephone, was the most important art and healing ritual for consciousness transformation in history. The mysteries were enacted in ancient Greece for 2000 years. The Tibetan Buddha realms provide the technology of guided imagery and were the high point of body, mind and spirit technology for thousands of years. The Bear Dance conducted currently in southern California has healed the Chumash people for thousands of years. These three rituals help us understand how we can heal patients with spiritual tools in present day medicine. Dr. Michael Samuels is currently working with all three forms to develop a contemporary spiritual technology to aid in healing patients today.

Michael Samuels is the founder and director of Art As a Healing Force, a project started in 1990 devoted to healing oneself, others, the community and the earth with creativity and art making. Michael teaches Art and Healing at San Francisco State University, Institute of Holistic Studies. He is a bear dancer with the Chumash People. He has used creativity, art and guided imagery with patients with life threatening illness and life crises for over thirty years in private practice and in consultation. He lectures and does workshops nationwide for physicians, nurses, artists, and patients on how to use creativity and spirituality in healing. He has organized many nationwide conferences on creativity and healing and visited and participated in projects in hospitals where creativity, art and music are used with patients. Michael is currently working on a book on Native American Healing and a book on Animals and Spirituality. He is the author of 21 books including the best selling Well Body Book, Well Baby Book, Well Pregnancy Book and Seeing With the Mind's Eye, one of the first books on guided imagery. Seeing With the Mind's Eye was named as one the 10 most influential health books. More info >>

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The Story of Stuff

Movie Screening and Community Discussion with Annie Leonard, expert in international sustainability and environmental health issues.

This event was held at Commonweal on Sunday, March 9th, 2008.

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From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It'll teach you something, it'll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever. More info >>

Annie Leonard is an expert in international sustainability and environmental health issues, with more than 20 years of experience investigating factories and dumps around the world. Coordinator of the Funders Workgroup for Sustainable Production and Consumption, a funder collaborative working for a sustainable and just world, Annie communicates worldwide about the impact of consumerism and materialism on global economies and international health.

Annie's efforts over the past two decades to raise awareness about international sustainability and environmental health issues has included work with Global Anti-Incinerator Alliance, Health Care without Harm, Essential Information and Greenpeace International. She currently serves on the boards of GAIA, the International Forum for Globalization and the Environmental Health Fund. Previously she has served on the boards of the Grassroots Recycling Network, the Environmental Health Fund, Global Greengrants India and Greenpeace India.

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What Really Happened in the '60s

Conversation with Lloyd Kahn

This event was held at Commonweal on February 22nd, 2008.

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Lloyd Kahn creates visually exquisite and conceptually visionary books about the buildings we live in. His most recent book is Home Work: Handbuilt Shelter. A longtime Bolinas resident, Lloyd was living in San Francisco in the 1960s and has a powerful narrative about what he believes really happened between 1963 and 1967. He has some wonderful visual images that capture that iconic moment in time. Lloyd spoke about the decade and shared some slides from Home Work -- evidence that the power of the 1960s lives on in the buildings visionary home builders are still creating today.

Lloyd Kahn is the editor and publisher of Shelter Publications in Bolinas, California. He was formerly the shelter editor for the Whole Earth Catalog, the editor of the 1973 book Shelter. Shelter Publications has been in business for 37 years and has also published the international bestseller Stretching, by Bob Anderson. Their latest book is The Barefoot Architect: A Manual On Green Building. More info >>

Below is a slideshow from one of our event attendees, Bill Braasch. Many thanks to Bill for the slideshow. You can visit his blog here.

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A Conversation with Binka Le Breton, writer and lecturer on environmental and human rights. Michael Lerner conducted this interview on February 22nd, 2008.

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Binka Le Breton lives on a Brazilian rainforest farm, runs the Iracambi Rainforest Research Center, lectures and broadcasts internationally on rainforest and slavery topics, is president of Amigos de Iracambi, is on the board of directors of the Keystone Center and, in her spare time, writes books. Binka's most recent book, The Greatest Gift: The Courageous Life and Martyrdom of Sister Dorothy Stang, is based on the 40 years Sister Dorothy Stang spent aiding in the struggle of poor farmers for land rights against logging and development companies in Brazil.

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Not Just a Pretty Face: The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry

Book Reading with Stacy Malkan, Communications Director of Health Care Without Harm

Sponsored by Point Reyes Books and The New School.

This event was held at Commonweal on February 16th, 2008.

 

Stacy Malkan's new book, Not Just a Pretty Face: The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry exposes the toxic truth about the products we smear on our bodies and slather in our hair. The book tells the inside story of the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, a national coalition of health and environmental groups working to eliminate toxic chemicals from everyday products. The campaign launched in 2002 with a report that revealed that more than 70% of personal care products-including shampoos, deodorant, fragrance and lotion-contain phthalates, a set of industrial chemicals linked to birth defects and reproductive harm.

Since 2001, Stacy has served as the communications director of Health Care Without Harm, a global network of 440 groups in 52 countries working to reduce the environmental harm of the health care industry. Prior to that, She worked for 10 years as an investigative journalist and newspaper publisher in the Colorado Rockies. In her new book, Stacy describes what she's learned along the way about the science and politics of chemicals, and the inspiring stories of the activists, entrepreneurs, scientists and politicians who are working for a healthier future. More info >>

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