Commonweal Newsletters
June 21, 2004
Dear Commonweal Board Members and Friends:
This is the Summer Solstice Letter from Commonweal. The brilliant tall grass, the quilts of wildflowers, the dance of sun and fog, and the long rolling waves crashing on the beach below Pacific House affirm the beauty of the creation.
You know, from my last Letter, that last year was difficult at Commonweal. Commonweal Co-Founder Carolyn Brown died. Barbara Smith Coleman, Co-Founder of Smith Farm Center for the Healing Arts in Washington, D.C., where we offer the Cancer Help Program on the East Coast, died. My Mother died. I had a heart attack. It was a year of loss and transformation for our community.
At this Summer Solstice, there is a resurgence of collective energy at Commonweal. Charlotte Brody, as I reported in the last Letter, was named Executive Director of Commonweal in January. Charlotte is doing a superb job. Equally important, every current program at Commonweal is in creative bloom.
This Letter describes Charlotte Brody's new charge as Commonweal Executive Director; the rebirth of the Commonweal Garden; Rachel Naomi Remen's work transforming medical education; the ongoing miracle of the Cancer Help Program's twentieth year; a key victory that Sharyle Patton helped win in international toxic chemical regulation; David Steinhart's efforts to reform the California youth prison system; Burr Heneman on how the U.S. Commission on Oceans has adopted key principles Commonweal has long advocated; Steve Lerner's forthcoming book from MIT Press, Diamond: A Struggle for Environmental Justice, the remarkable story of the grassroots struggle Commonweal joined in Norco, Louisiana, for which Margie Richard won the Goldman Environmental Award; the dynamic growth of the Collaborative on Health and the Environment; reflections on whether skills in healing can help us live saner lives in these heart-breaking times; the story of my heart attack; acknowledging Commonweal staff; and deep gratitude to the Commonweal Friends and foundations that make all Commonweal's work possible.
Charlotte Brody Takes Over as Commonweal Executive Director
Charlotte Brody, Commonweal's new Executive Director, has served for the past eight years as Executive Director of Health Care Without Harm: The Campaign for Environmentally Responsible Health Care. HCWH started at a Commonweal conference eight years ago. It has become one of the most successful international environmental health campaigns in the past decade, with over 400 partner organizations in over 54 countries. Commonweal Senior Associate Davis Baltz has coordinated HCWH programs in California for many years. Charlotte will retain a senior policy role with HCWH at Commonweal. The shared focus that both Charlotte and Davis will have on HCWH work will enable Commonweal to make an ongoing contribution to this powerful citizen initiative.
Charlotte was welcomed to the Bay Area on May 27 at The Annual Gala of the Breast Cancer Fund, where TBCF Executive Director Jeanne Rizzo presented Charlotte with the Bella Abzug Award for Activism. Charlotte gave a beautiful talk that focused less on activism than on the contribution of women's voices to our understanding of moral evolution. Drawing on the work of Carol Gilligan, the great Harvard theorist of feminine developmental psychology, Charlotte emphasized that relationship is central to women's perception of how good work is done. While little boys are focused on learning the rules of the game, little girls will only follow rules as long as they work for the community playing the game. If the rules cease to work, girls seek to change them. In our time, when the rules that govern business as usual are manifestly not working, this application of Gilligan's developmental theory seemed a particularly useful one.
Charlotte is commuting to Commonweal from Washington, D.C., one week out of the month, while her son finishes high school. She will be at Commonweal for two months this summer, and then commute again till next June when she and her family will move to West Marin. I will say more about what it is like for me to turn administrative responsibility for Commonweal over to Charlotte at the end of this Letter. Suffice it to say here that the experience is one of joy; that I remain fully engaged with Commonweal as President; and that this leadership partnership with Charlotte brings Commonweal the fresh leadership it needs and retains all the care and commitment I have put into Commonweal for the past three decades.
Charlotte writes:
As Michael writes, I have been commuting across the width of the country to Commonweal for the last six months. On each of my monthly visits, as I drive in and turn left off Mesa Road at the Commonweal sign, I start to cry. I am overwhelmed by the honor of being asked to be a caretaker of Commonweal and its quail, rabbits, buildings, programs, people and spirit.
Much of what I've done in my first six months has been new broom work: new directors for the garden; a new way of doing budgets; the hiring of new staff members Eleni Sotos and Cynthia Loebig; a new plan for renovation and expansion of Commonweal's offices; and, soon, a new website and faster internet service at Commonweal. Happily, the more experienced brooms at Commonweal do an extraordinary job of maintaining Commonweal and its programs every day and there isn't very much that needs sweeping.
At the other end of my commute is Washington, D.C. Most days, I take the commuter bus to work along with many people heading to jobs at the Pentagon, the State Department and the World Bank. These days the banter on the bus is cynical and dark. Many of us have just stopped talking. It's easy to forget that Washington hasn't always felt like this that Washington can also be a good place full of good people trying to get good things done.
That sense of the possible, that knowledge of the light in darkness, is what, I think, unites all the Commonweal programs. It doesn't need to be this way. Physicians and medical students can reclaim the heart and soul of medicine. People living with cancer can replace fear with hope. The juvenile justice system can be reformed and the ocean ecosystem can be protected. My experience with Health Care Without Harm affirms this hope as health care institutions around the world reduce their waste, phase out incineration and end the use of unnecessarily dangerous materials like mercury and PVC plastic.
The experience of Health Care Without Harm has convinced me that there are enough people who, if they know what the problem is and how it might actually be solved, will work to create the solution. And that solving a problem can give you the hope and the resources to address bigger problems. At Commonweal, I hope to be part of decades of cooking up larger and larger solutions to the problems we all face.
Penny Livingston and James Stark, Nationally Recognized Permaculturists, Selected As New Co-Directors of the Commonweal Garden
One of Charlotte Brody's first decisions at Commonweal was the selection of Penny Livingston and James Stark as the new Co-Directors of the Commonweal Garden. They are beginning their work in the Garden in August. The Commonweal Garden has had a long and varied history. In recent years, the focus was on restoration ecology and grazing practices in the Point Reyes National Seashore. Last year, the Commonweal Board of Directors decided that we wanted to refocus the Garden on its original mission: as a resource for the Commonweal community and a welcoming environment for Commonweal guests and staff.
Penny Livingston and James Stark have long operated the highly successful Permaculture Institute in Point Reyes Station, fifteen miles north of Commonweal. Penny is a life-long Marin resident and James grew up on a family farm in Canada. They are nationally recognized for their extraordinary work with permaculture gardening. Among other things, they are responsible for the garden installation at the Institute of Noetic Sciences, an organization that explores the interface of spirituality, remote healing, and other similar issues. Commonweal and IONS have shared interests for many years.
Penny and James are highly respected in the West Marin organic gardening community, and plan to draw several gifted local residents into their new work in the Garden. We are deeply grateful to have them with us.
25 Leading Medical Schools Offer "Healer's Art" Course with 12 More in Training; ISHI Offers New Workshops; "Finding Meaning in Medicine" on Web Flourishes
One of the most successful social change strategies Commonweal has ever embarked on is Rachel Naomi Remen's strategy to transform medical education and the practice of medicine through the Institute for the Study of Health and Illness (ISHI) at Commonweal.
This past academic year, 2003-2004, ISHI's medical school curriculum, The Healer's Art, was offered at 25 medical schools nationwide. Faculty at an additional twelve schools are currently training with ISHI and are preparing to offer the course in the 2004-2005 academic year. We estimate that, nationally, more than 650 medical students and 175 faculty will be involved in the course this year.
The list of medical schools that offer Rachel's Healer's Art course is so remarkable that I just have to share some of the schools with you. Among the twenty-five medical schools offering the course in 2003-4 are University of California, San Francisco; Dartmouth; Harvard; Oregon Health and Sciences University; University of California, San Diego; University of Health Sciences, Kansas City; University of Minnesota, Duluth; University of New Mexico; University of Texas, Houston; University of Washington; Stanford; Yale; University of Arizona; University of Kentucky; East Tennessee State; University of Missouri; University of South Dakota; University of Toronto; University of Virginia; University of Cincinnati; SUNY Upstate; Loma Linda University; University of Texas, Dallas; Albert Einstein College of Medicine; and the University of Wisconsin.
Rachel writes:
Since you last heard from us, ISHI has developed and offered a new workshop, Kitchen Table Wisdom: Finding and Telling Your Stories. This three-day event was offered in Marin County to 63 women and two men. Post-workshop evaluations were so enthusiastic that ISHI will offer the workshop again this July and will add two more workshops: Reclaiming Awe: A Workshop on Mystery for Health Professionals, and Reclaiming the Heart and Soul of Medicine, a CME workshop for physicians. In addition, Bob Rufsvold, Matt Zwerling and Rachel will be offering a new four-day retreat workshop at the Commonweal site, called Healing the Wounded Healer, Finding Refuge in the Heart of our Service. (With this mailing we are including a flyer describing these workshops.)
ISHI also offered a workshop on the Healer's Art for medical school deans at the 2003 meeting of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) in Washington DC and will present there again in 2004. In addition, Rachel gave a keynote presentation and offered a Healer's Art workshop to seventy of the medical school educators attending the Society for Teachers of Family Medicine (STFM) meetings in New Orleans in January 2004.
On the home front, ISHI offered the Healer's Art for the twelfth year at UCSF, and the UCSF medical school class voted its teaching award to The Healer's Art as Best Elective Course of 2004. We also offered a Healer's Art course module on Commitment and Service to fourth year students at the 2004 American Medical Student Association (AMSA) Humanistic Medicine Task Force retreat.
We also are delighted that ISHI's Finding Meaning in Medicine program is thriving under the leadership of Bob Rufsvold, M.D. This program enables physicians and medical students to form storytelling discussion groups in their home communities to explore the meaning of their work and reclaim their commitment to it. More than 400 physicians are presently registered on the FMM website. The website now offers online discussion groups for physicians and medical students nationwide as well as information on how to set up ongoing community discussion groups. Our web address is: www.meaninginmedicine.org
And finally some staffing news: We take great pleasure in welcoming our new Program Administrator, Christina Tucker. Christina comes to us with an extensive communications background and impressive administrative skills the perfect person to round out our team of diversified talents. Bob Rufsvold is now our Associate Director and Jan Ellis is the Associate Director of the Healer's Art Program. We continue to be grateful to Patricia Marina for her administrative, event planning and general support.
Commonweal Cancer Help Program As Vital As Ever in Its Twentieth Year
This is the twentieth year of the Commonweal Cancer Help Program. As I write, we have just completed the 117th Cancer Help Program week-long retreat. Once again we witnessed the quiet miracle of the Cancer Help Program. Hope replaced fear. Life purpose was rediscovered. A bond of love that could not be imagined among strangers was undeniable at the week's end. Life stories that seemed irreversibly broken found a way to mend. Faces wan and creased with anxiety became relaxed and radiant. And each healing is entirely unique. The Cancer Help Program itself is as good as it ever has been. On the last evening of this retreat, I looked around the room at the faces of both the participants and the staff. I wondered at the miracle that has kept the core staff of the Cancer Help Program committed and harmonious for two decades. I attribute a lot to the gentle leadership of Waz Thomas, Cancer Help Program Coordinator and Commonweal General Manager, who organizes each retreat and teaches the yoga classes twice each day. Lenore Lefer, a preternaturally gifted group leader, held the psychological experience of this retreat with her quiet capaciousness. Jenepher Stowell, Retreat Center Director and one of the Senior Staff Members on the retreats, interviewed all participants at the beginning and end of the week, and taught a session on Sacred Space that was central to the experience of many participants during the week. Jnani Chapman, Massage Coordinator, once called the "Michelangelo of massage" by a CHP participant, brought the gift of her hands and her long experience with cancer. Rebecca Katz was the "culinary muse," whose meals are exceptionally nourishing and beautiful. Irene Gallwey offered the sandtray sessions, startling some participants with the power of the breakthroughs they experienced. I would recognize the contribution of each staff person if space allowed.
When I wrote to you in January, applications for the Cancer Help Program were down. I told you that applications for healing retreats all over the country have been depressed this past year. The good news is that we can get applicants into the program quickly. The shorter waiting list has also enabled alumni to return for renewal, as they did in the early years of the Cancer Help Program. We welcome CHP alumni who want a second week at Commonweal.
We are actively exploring new healing programs at Commonweal. Adding a program for people living with heart disease is one of the first things we plan to explore. We also want to keep spreading the news about the Cancer Help Program, and we ask you to help us. Please let people who are facing cancer know what a helpful experience the Cancer Help Program offers.
First International Treaty to Ban the 12 Most Toxic Chemicals Goes Into Effect
The first international treaty to ban 12 of the most toxic chemicals in the world went into effect last month after being ratified by the 50th country (France). Sharyle Patton played a critical role as Northern Co-Chair of IPEN, the International POPS (Persistent Organic Pollutants) Elimination Network, during the long struggle to win the treaty. She continues her role as a senior IPEN activist, and is part of the International POPs Elimination Project (IPEP) Steering Committee, the group responsible for setting up regional hubs in the developing world where key NGO activists come together to develop national plans for implementing the treaty. IPEN recently received a grant of $1 million from the Global Environmental Facility of the United Nations to do this grassroots work. Sharyle was invited to address the European Union Parliament last November to describe IPEP and to encourage government support for IPEP activities.
Continuing her work to bring breast milk advocacy groups into dialogue with environmental groups interested in using the biomonitoring of breast milk as an advocacy tool, Sharyle worked closely with Peggy O'Mara, editor of "Mothering Magazine," to create a series of articles about toxic chemicals and breast milk. These articles were published in the Winter 2004 issue of the magazine, which is one of the premier publications recommended by pediatricians for new mothers.
Juvenile Justice Program Continues Sustained Fight to Reform California Youth Authority; Broadens Scope of Its Work in Violence Prevention, Mental Health Services
David Steinhart, the Director of the Commonweal Juvenile Justice Program, writes:
For many years, Commonweal has been involved in the effort to reform the California Youth Authority. Steve Lerner wrote four Commonweal books on the CYA in Commonweal's early years. This year, brutality and substandard conditions in CYA facilities made headlines for months, peaking in April with widely-aired videotape of guards beating up wards at the N.A. Chaderjian School. Sacramento corrections officials have basically pleaded "no contest" to continuing allegations of mistreatment. In March, Governor Schwarzenegger appointed a 28-member statewide advisory panel on juvenile justice reform. I was among those asked to serve on the advisory panel. The most likely change to come about this year: revisions of state law governing parole and aftercare for wards released from CYA institutions. Worth noting is the fact that the new Governor (more so than his predecessors) demonstrates a willingness to listen to critics and to take action to bring about youth corrections reforms. We are continuing to work closely with state and local policymakers to move the reform agenda forward this year.
Aside from the CYA, the Juvenile Justice Program has broadened our scope of work and our funding base over the last several months. We are nearing the end of a two-year grant from the California Wellness Foundation to produce policy and budget analyses on the subject of youth violence prevention. In January, we received a $30,000 grant from the Walter S. Johnson Foundation to develop a California-based model of aftercare for young people released from state and local institutions. Together, the Wellness Foundation and the California Endowment have awarded $50,000 to the Juvenile Justice Program for statewide policy work on mental health services for juvenile offenders. We also have received a small grant from the Zellerbach Family Fund to supply a network of youth advocacy groups with technical assistance on CYA and related juvenile justice reform.
U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy Adopts Key Principles Commonweal Has Advocated
Anyone who reads the newspapers has probably noticed the rising public awareness that the oceans of the world are in serious jeopardy. Commonweal co-founder Burr Heneman, first named his work of the past seven years at Commonweal the California Ocean Policy Reform Project, when the focus of the initiative was reforming California ocean policies with the first comprehensive state legislation in California history. Now, the project's work has gone far beyond California, so the name has become the Commonweal Ocean Policy Program.
Burr writes:
The U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy, appointed in 2001 by President Bush, released its much-anticipated report on April 20, 2004. Two of the report's key recommendations strongly support the emphases of Commonweal's Ocean Policy Program.
The Commission called for many changes in the status quo, but the New York Times coverage, focused on our main issues: "Our oceans and coasts are in serious trouble," the commission's chairman, Adm. James D. Watkins, a former chief of naval operations, said at a news conference here today. The existing management system, which spreads responsibility across what he called "a Byzantine patchwork" of federal and state agencies and local fishing councils, "is simply not up to the task" of preventing degradation, Admiral Watkins said. The goal of the governmental restructuring that he called for would be to use what he called "ecosystem-based management" and to abandon the current practice of assessing the prospects and perils of each species or habitat individually. The report also recommended doubling the current federal research spending on oceans.
Ecosystem-Based Management
The Commission adopted ecosystem-based management as one of its guiding principles: "U.S. ocean and coastal resources should be managed to reflect the relationships among all ecosystem components, including humans and nonhuman species and the environments in which they live." The pity is that such an obvious and basic concept was not a mandate in federal ocean management legislation years ago.
Commonweal has been helping establish ecosystem-based ocean resource management in California since 1997, and our efforts and those of our colleagues have been rewarded. The state is now a leader, for example, in moving away from blinkered management that allows over-harvesting of one fish species after another without regard for effects on the target population or the complex life systems that that population depends on. California's reforms include a radical overhaul of traditional fishery management techniques plus adding new tools, especially the creation of marine protected areas where fishing is prohibited for all or most species.
Sustainability is another, and related, guiding principle in the Commission's report: "Ocean policy should be designed to meet the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs." That suggestion comes six years after California adopted sustainability as a mandate for marine life management and a dozen years after the Rio Earth Summit introduced much of the world to that simple concept. (Commonweal, readers may recall, was deeply engaged in the Earth Summit.)
Integrated Ocean Observing Systems
As part of its recommendation to double our investment in ocean science, the Commission's section on science and research provides a welcome endorsement of a national network of regional integrated ocean observing systems: "The Integrated Ocean Observing System" will substantially advance our ability to observe, monitor, and forecast ocean conditions and will contribute significantly to global Earth observing capabilities. The information generated by the IOOS will have invaluable economic, societal, and environmental benefits, including improved warnings of coastal and health hazards, more efficient use of living and nonliving resources, safer marine operations, and a better understanding of climate change.
As we reported to you last time, the Ocean Policy Program is culminating a successful four-year effort to secure $21million in state funding for initiating the backbone of such a system on the California coast. This summer, our partner, the State Coastal Conservancy, will approve grants of those funds to two consortia that include the state's major marine science and earth-observing institutions.
While we applaud the Ocean Commission for these and its other recommendations, so far they are only recommendations. There are already stirrings on Capitol Hill, however, as legislators from both parties who were waiting for the report respond by beginning to draft various approaches to legislated reform.
Margie Richard Wins Goldman Environmental Prize; MIT to publish Steve Lerner's book on her struggle to relocate her community away from a Shell plant in Louisiana
On April 19, 2004 at a great annual ceremony at the San Francisco Opera House, Margie Richard, leader of Concerned Citizens of Norco, was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize for North America. The Prize carries a stipend of $150,000. Margie was the first African-American woman to receive the award. She was honored for her leadership in the decade-long struggle in Norco, Louisiana, to win the right of African-American residents of the Diamond neighborhood in Norco to be guaranteed decent prices if they chose to sell their homes so they could move away from the fence line of a Shell Chemical plant.
The timing of Margie's award from Commonweal's perspective could not have been more perfect. Commonweal Research Director Steve Lerner spent much of the past two years writing a deeply researched report on Margie's struggle on behalf of the Diamond community. Diamond: A Struggle for Environmental Justice will be published by MIT Press this Fall. Steve chronicles Margie's story and the story of the extraordinary community of people and organizations that came together to support the residents of Diamond.
Margie won the Goldman Award not only for her courageous leadership in Norco. Norco became, over the past few years, a great symbol of the environmental justice struggle of thousands of residents of fence line communities throughout the United States. For there are hundreds if not thousands of Norcos scattered across America, where poor people of every color live near chemical factories, toxic waste dumps, intensive livestock operations, toxic military facilities, or other places that continuously endanger their health, simply because they do not have the resources to put a roof over their heads somewhere safer. Upon receiving the Goldman Award, Margie burst into a gospel song. Margie's faith and the faith of her community had sustained their struggle through many years. It was that faith that she praised in the moment of her recognition.
Readers of this Letter may remember that Commonweal played a critical role in helping Margie and the Diamond community win the right to move away from the Shell Chemical plant fence line. I met Margie Richard during a "toxic tour" of Louisiana with my friend Gary Cohen, Director of the Environmental Health Fund in Boston. Margie was living with her mother directly on the fence line with the Shell Chemical plant. The air gave me and many other visitors a headache within a few hours. Margie showed me the lot near hers where a young boy mowing an elderly woman's lawn ignited a gas leak from the Shell plant with his mower. The boy and the woman burned to death.
Something within me caused me to make a fundamental commitment to support Margie and her neighbors. I invited my friends Janet and Bob Moses down to see Norco. Janet is a Commonweal Advisory Board Member and a pediatrician at MIT. Bob directs the Algebra Project and was a legendary leader of the civil rights movement in Mississippi. I also invited a dozen friends from the environmental health funder community down to see Norco. A whole community of Commonweal friends spent two years working with the national and international coalition of funders and environmental health activists that made Margie's struggle their own. Commonweal friends Rachel Bagby, a nationally renowned performance artist, Herbert Bedolfe of the Homeland Foundation, Mil Duncan, then with the Ford Foundation, Janet Maughan of the Rockefeller Foundation, Pete Myers, then with the W. Alton Jones Foundation, and Peter Warshall, then editor of CoEvolution Quarterly, were among those who made deep contributions to the work.
Steve Lerner, Director of the Commonweal Research Institute, also played a critical role in the process. He made numerous visits to Diamond to document the struggle, and posted all those interviews, with people on all sides of the issues in Norco, on the Commonweal website for the world to see. My longtime assistant Michael Rafferty, who had spent memorable years in Louisiana as a butcher and a speechwriter for a Louisiana politician, also became deeply engaged with Norco, creating two homemade films with the power to bring viewers deeply into the Norco experience.
Because of the deep mutual suspicion between the staff at the Shell complex in Norco and the activists, Commonweal's central contribution was the development of a constructive dialogue with Royal Dutch Shell at the local, national, and international level and Concerned Citizens of Norco. We did this by engaging members of the environmental health funder community as concerned witnesses to the conditions in Norco and by creating a bridging dialogue between Shell and the activist community.
In the end, Royal Dutch Shell and Concerned Citizens of Norco negotiated an agreement that Shell would offer to purchase, at a fair price, the homes of any Diamond residents who wanted to relocate. No one knew how many residents would accept the offer, but as it turned out, almost all of the hundreds of residents in the four-block Diamond neighborhood did accept buy-out offers, and have moved to homes where they can breathe the air without feeling sick.
Thus, Margie Richard's Goldman Award reflected the power of what can happen when national and international networks of grassroots-based environmental health advocates come together in support of a just cause. In this instance, we were fortunate to be met by thoughtful people within Royal Dutch Shell who have real commitments to achieving better outcomes in the communities around the world where Shell works. Commonweal made a difference in Norco.
Collaborative on Health and the Environment Has 900 Partners Working to Bring Science To Patients, Health Professionals, Health-Affected Communities, and People Like You
The Collaborative on Health and the Environment (CHE) is the national partnership of organizations and individuals that Commonweal co-founded 27 months ago with many other colleagues at a conference at the San Francisco Medical Society.
CHE's purpose is to help patient groups, health professionals and many other concerned citizens and organizations understand the revolutionary scientific discoveries that show more linkages between environmental contaminants and many modern diseases and disorders including asthma, learning and developmental disabilities, heart disease, cancer, infertility and pregnancy compromise, Parkinson's Disease, and endometriosis.
CHE has evolved five basic strategies for helping our Partners understand the new science and decide what measures to take both individually and collectively in response. First, we sponsor monthly Partner Calls that discuss the environmental health science on different diseases and conditions. The topics have included breast cancer, learning disabilities, endometriosis, asthma, and infertility.
Second, we have Working and Discussion Groups on topics of shared Partner interest. These include Elise Miller's Learning and Developmental Disabilities Initiative, which has become a small nation unto itself, Ted Schettler's Science Working Group, and Alison Carlson's Infertility and Pregnancy Compromise Discussion Group, just to name three of the most active groups.
Third, we sponsor regional conferences that bring the science to different key parts of the country, as well as an annual national conference in San Francisco. We have held these conferences in New York, Boston, Seattle, and Orlando. The Seattle conference resulted in the birth of CHE Northwest in Seattle, also guided by Elise Miller. A CHE Florida network may come into being. It is quite possible that this year will witness the emergence of CHE state chapters in Pennsylvania, Oregon, and possibly Texas.
Fourth, we operate two websites, CHEforHealth.org, the organizational site, and ProtectingOurHealth.org, Pete Myers' CHE Science website, which features a whole set of science fact sheets on environmental health and disease produced and coordinated by Ted Schettler, M.D. Partners also often sign up for Pete Myers' extraordinary daily summary of environmental health science news, called Above the Fold. Above the Fold is the must-read summary of scientific studies and developments reported in the media around the world, which is gathered, synthesized, and produced with absolute state-of-the art software. If you want to sign up for Above the Fold, just go to ProtectingOurHealth.org and you can find out how.
Fifth, we innovate constantly. We go where the interests of Partners are reaching a critical level. One of the major innovations CHE developed this year was to create a database of the almost 200 diseases and disorders that are, according to leading toxicology texts, linked to environmental contaminants. The database, available on the web at ProtectingOurHealth.org, analyzes the diseases and conditions according to the strength of the scientific evidence supporting an association with environmental contaminants.
This month, Eleni Sotos joined us as CHE Coordinator, replacing Jeanette Swafford, who did a superb job as Founding Coordinator of CHE and is now becoming a Senior Associate focused on CHE's most important patient constituencies. Eleni was previously Grants Manager for the Jenifer Altman Foundation. She has a passionate interest in seeing CHE achieve its long-term mission. Frieda Nixdorf, who has won a solid place on the CHE team as a very effective Administrative Assistant, ably assists her. CHE Co-Director Steve Heilig remains focused on health professional constituencies. He has produced several outstanding issues of San Francisco Medicine on CHE's work which have been widely distributed. CHE Co-Director Sharyle Patton is focused on services for California CHE Partners and on environmental justice, labor, and international CHE Partners.
We warmly invite any reader of the Commonweal Letter to join CHE. It is so simple. You go to www.healthandenvironment.org and sign up. We promise: no more than two e-mails a month, an invitation to the Partner Calls, and rich opportunities to engage more deeply if you so choose.
How Can We Best Live with the Deep Collective Wounds of Our Times?
I save my more personal reflections for the end of these Letters. You can well imagine that I am as concerned as most of you are with the momentous political events that are unfolding around us. In this Letter, I ask whether all that we have learned from years of work in healing can help us in living better lives with the deep collective wounds of our time specifically, with the acute anguish many of us feel about direction that our country and the world have taken. Polls show over 70 percent of Americans on both sides of the great cultural divide believe the country is "moving in the wrong direction."
My focus here is not on the content of our anguish, which varies according to our political perspective, but on how we carry this anguish. This is presumably a difficult question for sensitive people on both sides of the cultural divide in our divided nation.
My belief is that skills that help heal our personal wounds may also help metabolize the distress of our collective wounds. If you let yourself feel your distress at what is happening to America and the world fully, where are you led? I am led in five directions, one external and four internal.
First, externally, I need to act on my beliefs, to contribute as much as I can to the causes that are helping the country to move on in the direction of the values that are core to Commonweal's work and to my own being. Second, internally, basic stress reduction techniques like exercise, yoga, Tai Chi, relaxation, and breathing techniques, and taking time in nature and with friends all truly help to reduce the stress of the world situation as much as they help to reduce more personal kinds of stress.
Third, I protect myself from the continuous barrage of stressful political news. I practice what Andrew Weil calls "news fasts" periods of time when I tune out from the news barrage. In the first months after my heart attack, I could not watch the news at all. I went through a "news fast" that lasted several months. As I recovered, I reconnected to the media world. Now, I listen to the news, but with restraint.
Fourth, when I really feel the stress of the political world, I practice a skill adopted from the psychological tradition of Psychosynthesis, one of the most elegant transpersonal psychologies, that teaches us how to move consciously between identification and dis-identification with different parts of ourselves. In this instance, that involves the capacity to step away from the part of me that is so deeply engaged with the political world. I remember that there is a deep core peaceful center of me that is far beyond the political world and beyond the anguish.
Fifth, while I need to step back from the troubles of the world, I also need to act effectively in the political world. Stepping into the political battle brings suffering with it. But I would suffer even more if I did not act on my beliefs. To cope with the unavoidable suffering of political choice, I need the skills from healing work to deal with suffering. None of us wants to suffer. Yet we all know life brings suffering with it. In all the spiritual traditions, suffering is also indispensable to progress on the path to wisdom and compassion. The paradoxical nature of suffering, which both wounds and cleanses us, is one of the most extraordinary gifts of being human. The spiritual traditions especially praise suffering that we take on consciously to alleviate the suffering of others. Conscious work in the political world to achieve a more just and sustainable world community can be a way of taking on suffering in service to others.
History shows that collective suffering can change collective consciousness, just as personal suffering can transform individual consciousness. The incalculable suffering of whole peoples has repeatedly led to the evolution of civilizations, and of collective consciousness. It is my hope that the terrible suffering that America is experiencing and inflicting both on itself and on the world may, somehow, prove redemptive. One can see human history as meaningless. Or one can see history as one of the driving forces behind the evolution of human consciousness. I choose, as an act of free will, to believe the latter. William James once said that in the debate over the existence of free will, his first act of free will was to believe in free will. That is also my choice.
If I see in history the movement of human consciousness toward freedom, I see even our most tragic mistakes as opportunities for both personal and collective learning. But to learn from our mistakes, we must also find it in ourselves to be compassionate toward those who may have erred. If we turn on our opponents with the psychic venom that they have turned on us, we may be victors in the short run by chance, but there is no redemption. Rather, it is the tradition of Gandhi, of King, and of Mandela that shows us the way to redemption. It is the path of forgiveness that redeems.
Reflections on the Year After My Heart Attack
This past year has been a remarkable one for me personally. With Charlotte Brody at the helm at Commonweal, I do not have administrative responsibilities for the first time in thirty years. Charlotte and I have worked out a partnership that enables me to continue to contribute all that I can to Commonweal. I remain President of Commonweal, and of Smith Farm, which offers the Cancer Help Program and other healing arts programs in Washington, D.C. Shanti Norris is the gifted Executive Director of Smith Farm. Marni Rosen directs the small group of foundations administered at the Jenifer Altman Foundation, which help extend the work of Commonweal and Smith Farm out into the world. Surrounded by this triad of gifted and energetic leaders, I am able to focus on the things I do best. I read recently the wise old observation that one should always leave a phase of life before it leaves you. I may have managed to do that.
It has been a year since my heart attack. The moment that will stay with me always occurred right after my heart attack. I was being loaded into the helicopter on a grassy field next to the Bolinas Firehouse for the ride to the hospital. I saw in my mind's eye a pale and radiant sun low on a horizon. A voice I had never heard before said with perfect authority: "You know what this is about." Hovering in the tiny craft between earth and sky, I knew I wanted to live with every fiber of my being. I also knew I was unafraid to die.
Home from the hospital, I immersed myself in healing work. I did an hour and a half of yoga, meditation, and Tai Chi each day. I walked, bicycled, or swam for an hour each day. I did artwork, kept a dream journal, read continuously in the spiritual literature, and went back into psychotherapy. I worked with two healers. These are exactly the steps that many participants in the Cancer Help Program have taken in their quest for healing.
My wife Sharyle and I committed ourselves while I was still in the hospital to my friend Dean Ornish's approach to reversing coronary artery disease. Dean is the great pioneer of a program that uses diet, yoga, exercise, and support groups actually to reverse coronary artery disease naturally. This approach is fully endorsed by my cardiologist, Mark Wexman, and other progressive cardiologists across the country. Sharyle and I participated in two cardiac rehabilitation programs. The first was the Ornish Heart Disease Reversal Program. The second was a non-residential, eight-week program directed by Mark Wexman. Both programs taught the same four fundamentals: a low-fat diet, yoga or Tai Chi for stress reduction, a support group, and exercise.
I committed to all four elements of the program completely. I lost twenty-three pounds, not at all unusual for a man on the program. My cholesterol, never very high, dropped into a very low risk range. I was able to taper off all the medications except a small dose of a statin drug, folate, niacin, aspirin, and a supportive supplement program. I became more fit than I have been in twenty years or more.
The first two months after the heart attack were extremely difficult. Within days of returning from the hospital, I realized I was in a state of acute anxiety. Anxiety and depression are common following heart attacks. Most people simply medicate the anxiety or depression. But I was interested in learning from the anxiety. I had lived with anxiety during periods of great stress in my life for the twelve years before my heart attack. I had studied anxiety. I knew from personal experience that anxiety responds powerfully to good therapy, and that the goal of the therapy is to uncover the unconscious source of the anxiety. Once the source is known, and the psychic instruction of the source acted on, the anxiety classically disappears. So I used medication as sparingly as possible, so that the anxiety could be my teacher.
The anxiety lasted two months. It was during those first two months that I began to experience what I later came to liken to a searchlight moving from room to room of my personality, showing me in each room what needed in this new light to be put in order. As I made the changes, great and small, the anxiety would often diminish for awhile. But it did not end. And I was reaching the end of my rope, since acute anxiety is very hard to live with.
One day two months after the heart attack, sitting in our back bedroom, which became my refuge from the world during these difficult months, I suddenly knew what the anxiety was hinting to me. The anxiety was hinting that I should seek to surrender my life as fully as I am able to the great pattern of coherence in the universe call it Truth, God, Nature, or what you will that I had sought with varying levels of effort to align myself with for the past thirty years.
I actually laughed out loud. "Is that what you want?" I said to that inner prompting. "I can do that." And I did. I decided to focus my life as best I imperfectly could on following the almost invisible thread I had tried to follow for over three decades. It was not a new direction, but a deeper commitment to an old direction. I surrendered my life to this effort in a way I had never surrendered it before. Within a week, the anxiety had faded away.
For months after the heart attack, I lived immersed in a numinous world. Every rock and tree held significance. It was months before I was able to be with groups of people. I read only in the spiritual literature. I began to understand the psycho-geography of my dreams. When I was traveling in dream world North or up in the mountains, I was traveling toward spirit. When I traveled South, I moved toward the world of desire. When the surf was up in the inner ocean, the psychic surf was up. The dreams had a whole elaborate vocabulary with which they gave me hints of the direction I was to take.
I knew I was engaged in a process of psychic rebirth. I knew that I was experiencing what William James in Varieties of Religious Experience described as a spiritual awakening. I knew there was nothing fancy or exalted about spiritual awakenings. They are the common stuff of Alcoholics Anonymous and most Twelve Step Programs. I read the literature on such awakenings so I could map the experience.
Nine months after the heart opening, I began to feel myself ready to return to the world. That process of returning to the world had actually been building for the previous six months, step by step. I am now fully back in the world of work. But my relationship to the world of work has shifted. Actually, my relationship to my whole life has shifted. I remain surrendered, however imperfectly, to that quiet force that unites us only if we do not give it a name.
Now that I am back in the world of work, I am sometimes concerned that the numinosity I experienced so deeply in those first nine months might fade completely. Many friends in the Cancer Help Program have described to me how they lost the numinosity completely, and how deeply they regret its loss. I am doing everything I can to follow the thread of this awakening.
I cannot describe how much I owe to my family and my friends. My wife and partner Sharyle Patton is the person who beyond all others sustained me through this whole experience. Dean Ornish has been a Godsend as a friend and guide. Rachel Naomi Remen, Jenepher Stowell, Waz Thomas, Catherine Porter, and many others at Commonweal, my son Josh, my brothers Steve and Adam, and a whole community of friends helped me through this year in which three women I loved died and I had a heart attack. Anyone who has been through something like this knows the truth that it is an unimaginable upwelling of love that really sees you through. Commonweal has provided a healing community for many hundreds of people over the past three decades. When my time came, Commonweal, my family, my friends, and Sharyle made a healing place for me.
Commonweal Folk You Hear Less About
Some people at Commonweal are on stage much of the time. Other people work more behind the scenes. The actors could not go on without the people who make it all possible. At the heart of Commonweal's work is the Board of Directors. Colleen Hicks, who had served on the Board since the beginning, rotated off the Board in January with our profound gratitude for her extraordinary service to our community. Martin Krasney and Francesca Vietor are the newest Board members. Marty is a longtime senior member of the San Francisco non-profit and educational community. He has served in senior board and staff roles with California Tomorrow, Marin Country Day School, the Aspen Institute and other organizations. Marty has been writing fiction in recent years, publishing beautiful short stories. He recently completed a novel. Francesca is also a longtime contributor to the nonprofit community, having worked with Greenpeace, Rainforest Action Network, and the Center for Environmental Health, among other organizations. Francesca also served as the first Director of the Environment for San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown. They join artist Arthur Okamura, businesswoman Beth Setrakian, architect Simon Bruce and educator Winifred Mauzy on the Commonweal Board.
On the staff, Vice President for Finance David Parker recently completed twenty-six years of service to Commonweal, ably supported by his wife, Nadine Parker, Administrative Assistant, and Commonweal's new Staff Accountant, Vanessa Marcotte. We are grateful for David's many years of quiet service to the community.
This year, my assistant Michael Rafferty retired. Raff was one of the most loved and creative members of the Commonweal community. Raff was the founder of The Bolinas Hearsay News, the local newspaper. He is a fourth-generation butcher, novelist, painter, film-maker, and currently Dean of the Faultline Institute of Very Higher Education, Bolinas's uniquely quirky adult education program. Raff is working part-time on an oral history of Commonweal's first three decades.
Cynthia Loebig has taken Raff's place at the hub of Commonweal. Cynthia is a librarian, a gardener who worked on the staff of Findhorn in Scotland, and a beautiful new presence in the Commonweal community. Mark Rafferty continues the Rafferty lineage at Commonweal. Mark identifies himself in staff meetings with a single word: "Maintenance." In fact, with a hundred acres of land and a dozen buildings, Mark is the caretaker of a huge and complex domain, to say nothing of his role managing the Retreat Center with Retreat Center Director Jenepher Stowell. Mark is supported in maintenance by Carolyn Brown's oldest son, Charlie Brown. Charlie is a wonderful presence in the Commonweal community.
Commonweal Friend Josie Merck in New York wrote me last year asking why these Letters do not give adequate credit to Mimi Mindel's splendid work as Curator of the Arts for the past decade at Commonweal. This Fall, Mimi will curate her last major exhibit, with work by many of the dozens of artists who have exhibited at Commonweal over the past ten years. This has been a glorious contribution to Commonweal and the West Marin community. Mimi will remain in her other role as a senior staff member in the Cancer Help Program, maintaining CanServe, the cancer resource data base that provides information on the best oncologists, massage practitioners, acupuncturists, psychotherapists, and other health professionals recommended by Cancer Help Program alumni. People call Mimi from all over the country for referrals.
Thanks Beyond Words to Commonweal Supporters
One of the most amazing parts of my job is writing personal thank you letters to each person who contributes to Commonweal. It is amazing because Commonweal has a quite uniquely dedicated family of people who believe in our work across the entire United States. We do not list contributors by the size of their contributions. The contributions range in size from $10 to $100,000, and from this listing you cannot tell the size of contributor gifts, as you can with most organizations. Many of the gifts to Commonweal come from those whose lives have been touched by the Commonweal Cancer Help Program. Their support makes it possible for us to continue the Cancer Help Program, which receives little in the form of grants. When I look over the list of those who have donated since my last Letter, I see the names of many beloved friends of this community of work. I cannot put into words the extent of our gratitude.
Recent contributors to Commonweal include:
Bernard S. Aarons, Suzannah and Gerry Abrams, Karen E. Adams, Donna and Tom Ambrogi, Evangeline Andarsio, MD, Anne M. Andrews, Nancy H. Angelo, Rita Arditti, Janet E. Arnesty, MD and John C. Good, MD, Anthony Back, Alan Baer, Ms. Lillian Baer, Bradforn A. Balkus, Iris Baranof, Ann and John Barnes, Kenneth Barnes, Debra Barry, Katherine Barshay, Carl Bellini, Walter N. Bieneman, Sally Little Berger, Keith I. Block, M.D. and Penny B. Block, Leon M. Bloomfield, Steve Bookoff, Bruce Bothwell, Wendy Botwin, William E. Boyle, MD, Barbara Bramble, Paula Braverman, Janet Breuner, Delia Brinton, Mary Jane Brinton, Elliott D. Buchdruker, Catherine Burke, Jodi Bush, Chris and Penny Camarata, Andrew and Dawn Carmen, Jim Carroll, Barrie R. Cassileth, Stephen G. Chandler, MD, Tina Chase, M.F.T., Deborah A. Chiarucci, Lena Choo, Linda Hawes Clever, MD, Philip J. Collora, Patricia A. Compton, Carroll Covey, Madeline Crivello, Jean Curtiss, Ladonna Dakofsky, Margaret A. Dale, Dale C. Dallas, MD, Nicholas J. Daniello, M.D., Marcy Darnovsky, John Davey and Lisa Ericksen, Art Davidson, Karen A. Day, Arthur J. Deikman, MD, Thomas and Gun Denhart, Michael Dentinger, Richards Dillingham, Mia Dodson, William Drayton, Gloria G. Dunn, MD, Mr. J. Dvorson, Arthur and Carla Eaton, Edith Eddy, Judith Einbinder, Jonathan Ellenthal and Suzanne Epstein, Barry Elson, MD, Nancy England, Greg Erion, Hilarie Faberman, Sara Faulkner, MD, Bruce Feldstein, Tom Ferguson, M.D., Debra Fidler, Wayne Field, Patrick W. Flanigan, MD, Samuel and Juliet Fleischmann, Alan and Carolyn Follett, William W. Fore, Rochelle D. Foster, Helena R. Foster, Burt and Reva Frauman, Charles and Virginia Fritz, George Fulginiti, Matthew Gardner, Louise Gartner, Deborah J. Gerner, Louise Gilbert, John W. Gildner, Cynthia Gin, Daniel Goleman, AnneKathryn Goodman, Amnon Goodman, Suzan R. Goodman, Paula Gordon, Susan Gotbetter, Peter Goyton, Sally Gradinger, Cynthia J. Graham, Lindy Graham, Richard M. and Gretchen D. Grant, Dudley & Susan Green, David A. Greenburg, Sharon Grodin, Gene and Elogeanne Grossman, Michael Groza, Joan and David Grubin, Jessie Gruman, Ph.D., David S. Gullion, MD, Gus Gustafson, Carla Hagler, Jeanne Halpern, Susan Halpern, Ralph W. Hartman, Francis Hatch, Frank Hatch, Eileen Heitzler, Ruth Hennig, Evangeline Hermanson, Susan Hester, John Hidalgo, Yoshio and Jane Hisaoka, Chris Hitt, Lois Crozier Hogle, George and Ann Hogle, Roy W. Howard, Barbara Jackson, Lynne Jahnke, Robert Jones, Myla and Jon Kabat-Zinn, Miki Kashtan, Susan R. Katz-Snyder and Alan B. Snyder, Jerry and Jacqui Kaufman, Lakshmi Praja Sowmya Kaza, MD, Pat Kelley, Kevin Kelley, Mrs. Clark Kerr, Jill Kneerim, Dr. Sanford Koltonow, MD, Mary Kraft, MD, Kathy Kriletich, Cynthia G. Kreger, Louisa Kreisberg, Alyse Laemmle, Rabbi Susan Laemmle, Kandace Larocque, Phil Lee, Beth Lepore, Thomas Lewis, Noreen and Mitchell Linden, Barbara Lipkin-Luther, Marvin H. Lipton, Mike Litrel, Erica Bast Little, Madeline Littlefield, Richard Lonergan, Kimbrough and Paulette Lowe, Jennifer Lucas, Julia Lunsford, Betty P. Lupton, Martha Lyddon, Constance Mahoney, Howard Maisel, Victoria H. Maizes, Betty Joan Maly, M.D. and John C. Meyers, M.D., S. Jerome Mandel, Lucille Marchand, Lee Marcus, Joan Martin, Colleen Martin, Joseph E. Mason, Jr. M.D., Winifred Mauzy, Elaine McCarthy, Dennis McCullough, Heather McFarlin, Robert and Ruth McGibon, Susan B. McIntosh, Robert and Pauline McIvor, Michael R. McVay, MD, Martha A. Mejia, Margaret Mellon, Josie Merck, Doris Meyer, Pamela Meyer, Frances and Warren Michael, Elise Miller, James S. Miller, William Brad Miller, MD, Sylvia Mitchell, Andrea Mok, Victoria Monge, Sue Moore, Laura Morgan, MD, Elba O. Moxley, Dorothy Mozen, Fitzhugh Mullan, M.D., Anne Firth Murray, Mary Louise Myers, Anita Nager, Patricia Nagle, Albert Neilson, Lewis T. Nerenberg, MD, Marion Nestle, Shirlee Jeanne Newman, Dave and Carol Nishihara, Jane Norling, Martin J. Nygaard, Lynden and Charlotte Olstead, Nancy and James Osborn, Gail Paradise, Charles Pattie, Jennifer Pearson, Frederica Perera, Janet Perlman, MD, Linda Perry, Stephen Perry, Jack & Eve Petajan, Joan E. Peterson, Julien and Diane Phillips, Cornelius Pietzner, Edith Piltch, Diana Pittman, Maria Politzer, Robyn Pope, Denise T. Powell, Sarah D. Pritts, James A. Ramenofsky, Moe and Pam Reitman, James B. Renfrew, Stefano and Kelly Resta, Rita G. Rhoades, Bob Riboli, Peggy Rigal, Jeanne Rizzo, Anne S. Rogotzke, Antoinette Rose, MD, Ruth Rosen, Monica Rosenthal, William Rothbard, Diana and Don Rothman, Mary Russin, Roth Sanders, Bobby Sarnoff, Sarah Schafer and Reuben Hale, Gail L. Sawyer, MD, Steve Schechter, Gregory W. Schneider, Joyce Schnobrich, Margaret Schreiber, Belle Shayer, Suzanne Silkworth, Jay Simoneaux, Deloy Simper, Paul Siri, Eva H. Slinker, Douglas and Elizabeth Slye, Kathryn Smith, Robin Smith, Mary Stephens Smith, Michael Smith, MD, Shelley Sorenson, Carl S. and Leitha J. Spetzler, Kenneth Spicer, Jr., Clare H. Springs, William Stewart, James Steyer, April Strasbaugh, Joyce and Donald Stovall, Craig and Maureen Sullivan, Carolyn Svenson, Deborah Szekely, Maria Thomas, Andrew and Madeleine Tilin, Louise M. Todd, Eveline l. Tom, Barbara J. Tooma, Mary Ann Valiulus, Valerie Vargas, Elizabeth Vayhinger, Murry and Marilyn Waldman, Katherine E. Walker, MD, Harold and Laura Ware, Marjan Wazeka, Arnold Weiss, Ann Weissman, Albert and Susan Wells, Catherine G. West, MD, Ruth E. Westra, Mark Wexman, M.D. and Karen Wexman, M.D., Elaine Winthrop, Eleanor Winthrop, Jane Holt Wythe, Gary Yates, Rachel Young, Lindsay Young, Robert Zimmer, and Matthew Zwerling.
If by any chance you contributed to Commonweal since the last Letter and do not see your name listed, please let us know so we can correct the mistake.
Thanks to the Foundations That Make Commonweal Work Possible
These are the foundations that have supported Commonweal's work since the last Letter. They truly make Commonweal's work possible. We acknowledge with gratitude the support of:
Alan and Nancy Baer Foundation, Alberta S. Kimball Foundation, Bank of America Foundation, Beldon Fund, Bernard Osher Foundation, Boyce Charitable Fund, Breast Cancer Fund, California Endowment, California Wellness Foundation, Cedar Tree Collective, Collective Heritage Institute, Compton Foundation, Dallas Jewish Community Foundation, David L. Klein Foundation, Donald Magnin Family Fund, Emmett Family Ltd Partnership, Fine Family Foundation, Flow Fund, George Family Foundation, Health Care Without Harm, Homeland Foundation, Louise Gartner Philanthropic Fund, J & R Herman Support Foundation, Jewish Federation of Greater Dallas, John Merck Fund, Katz-Snyder Fund, Maisel Family Philanthropic Fund, Marin Community Foundation, McCarthy Family Fund, Nancy and James Osborn Fund, Nathan Cummings Foundation, New York Community Trust, Peninsula Community Foundation, Ruth Hennig Fund, San Francisco Foundation, Seven Springs Foundation, Stuart Four Square Fund, Szekeley Family Fund, Triangle Community Foundation, UCSF, Viking Office Products. Walter S. Johnson Foundation, and The Zellerbach Family Fund.
In Closing
That is the news on this Summer Solstice from Commonweal. We are deeply grateful for your continuing interest in and support of Commonweal's work. We enclose an envelope in case you are able to consider making a summer contribution to Commonweal. We truly need your help to keep the work going. Individual contributions make a most profound difference in what we can do here. You are the community of Commonweal Friends that make it possible.
With warm best wishes,
Michael Lerner President