Exploring Nature, Culture and Inner Life

Join us for a conversation with TNS Host Steve Heilig and Dr. Anna O’Malley—both public health experts and music lovers—about how creative play, music-making, and dancing is soul medicine and builds individual and community resilience. This (outdoor) event happened just before Commonweal's Open House on May 22, 2022.The Open House, included tours, experiential workshops, food, and music. Anna O’Malley, MD: Anna is an Integrative Family and Community Medicine physician, a lover of Nature, a mother of two incredible daughters. As a Bravewell Fellow graduated from the University of Arizona’s Program in Integrative Medicine, Anna is inspired by working to transform medicine. Her residency training at University of California, San Francisco at San Francisco General Hospital and her work within the California prison system deepened her understanding of the social determinants of health, the beauty of the path of service, and the critical importance of inclusivity. Her practice of Integrative Family and Community Medicine in West Marin allows her the profound privilege of embodying the healer archetype in the village, exploring innovative models applying Community as Medicine, and honoring the mysterious and beautiful cycles of Life. TNS Host Steve Heilig: Steve is a longtime senior research associate with Commonweal, a co-founding director of the Commonweal Collaborative on Health and the Environment, a host of dialogues for the New School, and in other programs originating at or founded at Commonweal. Trained at five University of California campuses in public health, medical ethics, addiction medicine, economics, environmental sciences, and other disciplines, his other work includes positions at the San Francisco Medical Society, California Pacific Medical Center, and as co-editor of the Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics. He has served on many nonprofit boards and appointed commissions, and is a trained hospice worker. He is a widely published essayist and book and music critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, Huffington Post, and many other publications. Find out more about The New School at Commonweal on our website: tns.commonweal.org. And like/follow our Soundcloud channel for more great podcasts.

Join Host Michael Lerner in conversation with director and producer David Grubin. His recent film, "Free Renty: Lanier v. Harvard," tells the story of an African-American woman's struggle to reclaim her heritage. The film chronicles a historic lawsuit against Harvard University and raises critical questions about reparations. David Grubin, Free Renty, Director/Producer David is a director, writer, producer, and cinematographer whose films range across history, art, poetry, and science, winning every major award in his field, including two Alfred I. Dupont awards, three George Foster Peabody prizes, five Writer's Guild prizes, and ten Emmys. His films include The Trials of Robert Oppenheimer, The Buddha, Abraham and Mary Lincoln: A House Divided; LBJ; Truman; TR: The Story of Theodore Roosevelt; FDR, The Secret Life of the Brain, The Jewish Americans, Kofi Annan, Center of the Storm, Tesla, The Mysterious Human Heart, Language Matters with Bob Holman, Degenerate Art, In the Beginning Was Desire, Healing and the Mind with Bill Moyers - Wounded Healers. Find out more about The New School at Commonweal on our website: tns.commonweal.org. And like/follow our Soundcloud channel for more great podcasts.

From the personal to the universal, we can draw from archetypal stories and symbols to gain context for the events that shape our life experiences. Join TNS Host Michael Lerner for a conversation with Yvonne Smith Tanas, a Jungian analyst, psychotherapist, and astrologer, and Rachel Lang, astrologer and intuitive. They will discuss the relationship between Jungian therapy and astrology through an exploration of archetypes. The conversation will focus on how astrology can be a tool for healing and meaning-making in our lives. Yvonne Smith Tarnas, PhD is an astrologer, psychotherapist, and Jungian Analyst. Besides tending to her consulting practice, Yvonne is a clinical supervisor and instructor for the San Francisco Jung Institute and lectures on psychology and astrology. Publications include “Synchronicity, Intentionality, Archetypal Meaning in Therapy” (2015) and “Destined Meetings and the Healing Force of Relationships” (2021). Yvonne lectures for the Astrological Association of Great Britain, OPA, and ISAR as well as Jungian audiences. Rachel Lang is a professional astrologer, psychic medium, and author of Modern Day Magic: 8 Simple Rules to Realize Your Power and Shape Your Life. Rachel teaches courses like Astrology for Creatives, Working with Magic, and Relationships and Astrology, and she mentors the members of development circles. Her monthly horoscope columns appear in the Omega News and Conscious Living, and she contributes to a variety of publications, including Well+Good and Women’s Health. Rachel is the Outreach Director for the National Council for Geocosmic Research (NCGR), the VP of the Los Angeles NCGR chapter, and a committee member with the International Association of Ethics in Astrology. Find out more about The New School at Commonweal on our website: tns.commonweal.org. And like/follow our Soundcloud channel for more great podcasts.

SOLIDARITY | Connecting Across the Food Chain ~Co-presented with Real Food Media~ For the 21.5 million people who work across the food chain—from farm fields to meat packing factories to grocery stores—their jobs were already among the most low-paid, exploitative, and dangerous in the economy before COVID-19. The crisis has only heightened the stakes for food workers. Today, in the midst of the pandemic, these workers are among the most impacted while they toil to keep food on our tables. In this third conversation in the 2022 Roots of Resilience series. Leah Douglas is the agriculture and energy policy reporter at Reuters. Previously, they were a staff writer and associate editor at the Food and Environment Reporting Network, an independent, nonprofit newsroom. Leah’s reporting has been published in the Guardian, the Nation, the Washington Post, Mother Jones, NPR, the American Prospect, Time, and other outlets. Leah’s reporting has been cited in dozens of print and television media outlets, including the New York Times, Washington Post, AP, NBC Nightly News, and John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight. In 2021, ​Leah was a fellow in the U.C. Berkeley – 11th Hour Food and Farming Journalism Fellowship and won two awards from the National Association of Agricultural Journalists for feature and investigative reporting. ​Leah was the 2020 recipient of the National Farmers Union Milt Hakel Award for excellence in agricultural reporting. Ligia Guallpa, Workers Justice Project / Los Deliveristas Unidos For more than twelve years, Ligia Guallpa has been organizing New York City’s day laborers, construction workers, domestic workers, and, most recently, app-based delivery workers to build a government and economy that works for all of us. She is currently leading some of the most important issues of our time, including immigration, workers rights, climate change and runaway inequality. She is the co-founder and executive director of the Worker’s Justice Project and Los Deliveristas Unidos. Under her leadership, WJP has 12,000 members and is growing. Suzanne Adely, Food Chain Worker’s Alliance Suzanne joined the Food Chain Workers Alliance in 2017. A former New York City educator, she has a background in community organizing, public interest law, and international worker advocacy. Suzanne worked with several community-led organizations in Chicago and New York before beginning her global labor rights work. Host Anna Lappé, Real Food Media Anna is a national bestselling author, a renowned advocate for sustainability and justice along the food chain, and an advisor to funders investing in food system transformation. A James Beard Leadership Awardee, Anna is the co-author or author of three books on food, farming, and sustainability and the contributing author to fourteen more. One of TIME magazine’s “eco” Who’s-Who, Anna is the founder or co-founder of three national organizations including the Small Planet Institute and Small Planet Fund. In addition to her work at Real Food Media, Anna developed and leads the Food Sovereignty Fund, a global grantmaking program of the Panta Rhea Foundation. East & North Africa and elsewhere. Find out more about The New School at Commonweal on our website: tns.commonweal.org. And like/follow our Soundcloud channel for more great podcasts.

~Co-presented with the OMEGA Resilience Funders Network~ Join Host Michael Lerner in conversation with systems researcher, cultural activist, and social entrepreneur Rufus Pollock. In this conversation we share recent work mapping an emerging “metamodern” ecosystem centered on a radical, alternative approach to social change–one that is simultaneously paradigmatic, integrated, and engaged. Rufus Pollock, PhD Rufus is an entrepreneur, activist and author as well as a long-term zen practitioner. He is passionate about finding wiser, weller ways to live together. He wants his child (and all children) to live in a world of love, abundance and wisdom. He has founded several successful for-profit and nonprofit initiatives (and some unsuccessful ones) including Life Itself, Open Knowledge Foundation, and Datopian. His book Open Revolution is about making a radically freer and fairer information age and has been translated into multiple languages. His next book, Wiser Societies, is about the cultural dark matter that enables societies be wiser (and weller). Previously he has been the Mead Fellow in Economics at the University of Cambridge as well as a Shuttleworth and Ashoka Fellow. A recognized global expert on the information society, he has worked with G7 governments, IGOs like the UN, Fortune 500s as well as many civil society organizations. He holds a PhD in Economics and a double first in Mathematics from the University of Cambridge. Find out more about his work on his website: rufuspollock.com. Host Michael Lerner Michael is the president and co-founder of Commonweal. His principal work at Commonweal is with the Cancer Help Program, Healing Circles, Beyond Conventional Cancer Therapies, the Collaborative on Health and the Environment, and The New School at Commonweal. He was the recipient of a MacArthur Prize Fellowship for contributions to public health in 1983 and is author of Choices in Healing: Integrating the Best of Conventional and Complementary Therapies (MIT Press). Find out more about The New School at Commonweal on our website: tns.commonweal.org. And like/follow our Soundcloud channel for more great podcasts.

~Part of the Roots of Resilience in An Age of Crisis event series; co-presented with Real Food Media and the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance~ Sea vegetables, shellfish, fish—each species has its own story, culture, and policy issues. These species, their environments, and the cultures that depend on them are at risk due to agricultural runoff, genetically engineered seafood, and the climate crisis. Peleke Flores of Mālama Hulēʻia and Carl Wassilie of Dam Watch International join Host Tiffani Patton to share stories of resistance against the corporate takeover of the ocean and their efforts to protect keystone species, livelihoods, and cultures along the Pacific Northwest and in Hawai’i. Photo by Peter Vanosdall on Unsplash Carl Wassilie Carl was born and raised in Alaska, rooted deep in salmon culture and Salmon communities. His Yup’ik name is Angut’aq; and has feet in both the Yup’ik and Western worldviews as a Yup’ik biologist. Since the devastating 1989 Exxon Valdez Oil Spill, Carl has worked on defending salmon ecosystems and the communities and Relations on Mother Earth, that depend on them. As the rapid climate warming in the Arctic has brought natural changes to the marine and terrestrial landscape, Carl has been challenging the military industrial complex expanding North. Carl has worked with sovereign Tribes, First Nations and other communities across Turtle Island to protect the cultural survival of indigenous cultures by resisting oil, gas and mining companies that attempt to colonize some of the last great ecosystems left on the planet Peleke Flores Peleke Flores was born in Hilo, Hawai‘i, and raised in Waimea, Kaua‘i. He is a 2001 graduate of Waimea High School and attended Kapiolani Community College in the Pre-Travel Industry Management Program then transferred to UH Manoa taking up Hawaiian Language and Hawaiian Studies with a special focus on Mālama ‘Āina (Caring for Traditional Hawaiian food systems). He has dedicated over 20 years of his career working and volunteering for ‘Āina Based Non-Profit Organizations and family farms. He served as the Kū Hou Kuapā Coordinator at Paepae o Heʻeia on the Ko’olaupoko district of Oʻahu where a 88 acre 800 year old fishpond is located. His knowledge of mālama ‘āina practices and dry stack wall-building were of great value in the restoration of this sacred space. Peleke currently works for Mālama Hulēʻia where his ʻike and expertise are integral in restoring this wahi pana including the 40 acre, 600-year-old Alakoko fishpond. He is experienced in Traditional Hale Building, Uhau Humu Pohaku (hawaiian dry set), and restoring traditional Hawaiian food systems such as lo’i kalo, lo’i pa’akai, and loko i’a. Host Tiffani Patton Tiffani is a lifelong “foodie” turned activist, writing and researching food system change for more than seven years. A gifted writer and storyteller, she leads several areas of educational programming, communications strategy, engagement, and internal operations at Real Food Media. She co-produces and co-hosts the Real Food Reads and Foodtopias podcasts with Tanya Kerssen. Find out more about The New School at Commonweal on our website: tns.commonweal.org. And like/follow our Soundcloud channel for more great podcasts.

~Part of the Roots of Resilience in An Age of Crisis event series co-presented with Real Food Media~ In this conversation, Real Food Media’s Tiffani Patton talks with Mai Nguyen—farmer, organizer, and co-founder of Minnow—and Vera F. Allen—mother, partner, organizer, and farmer, and the co-founder of the Midwest Farmers of Color Collective—about the history of land theft, the work to get more land into the hands of BIPOC farmers, and what it means to farm regeneratively. Together, they’ll share strategies for personal and collective liberation through soil. Photo: Paige Green Photography in Made Local Magazine Mai Nguyen, Minnow Mai (pronouns they/them) is a farm owner-operator and social justice activist. They grow heirloom grain, cooperative economics, and racially equitable farm policy. Mai is currently co-director of Minnow, an organization focused on land tenure for farmers of color within the framework of indigenous sovereignty. You can find out more about Mai on their websites: farmermai.com and weareminnow.org. You can follow them on Instagram: @farmermainguyen. Vera F. Allen, Midwest Farmers of Color Collective Vera is a Black Navajo, mother, partner, organizer, and farmer, and the co-founder of the Midwest Farmers of Color Collective. She spends her time on issues affecting Indigenous peoples and all of our food. Although she has been a grower for most of her life, it was the Youth Farm and Market Project of Minneapolis that opened her world to food activism. Serving as the market coordinator and being guardian to a garden sewn by kids was a once in a lifetime experience that influences the work Vera chooses to do every day. Vera is working on food policy projects, a food fellowship, and continues to look for ways to serve BIPOC people in the quest for land rematriation and food autonomy. Tiffani Patton, Real Food Media Host Tiffani Patton is a lifelong “foodie” turned activist, writing and researching food system change for more than seven years. A gifted writer and storyteller, she leads several areas of educational programming, communications strategy, engagement, and internal operations at Real Food Media. She co-produces and co-hosts the Real Food Reads and Foodtopias podcasts with Tanya Kerssen. Find out more about The New School at Commonweal on our website: tns.commonweal.org. And like/follow our Soundcloud channel for more great podcasts.

Join Host Michael Lerner in conversation with medical oncologist and professor of medicine Adam Lerner, MD, about his work as a senior oncologist working with a large community of low-income communities of color in the Boston area (recorded in May of 2021). Adam Lerner, MD Adam is a Professor of Medicine, Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Boston University School of Medicine and a medical oncologist at Boston Medical Center. He received his MD from Yale School of Medicine, followed by an internal medicine residency at Boston City Hospital. He did his fellowship in Medical Oncology at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, and subsequently remained there while carrying out research in the cellular and molecular biology of T lymphocytes. In 1996, he joined the Hematology/Oncology Section at Boston Medical Center. Clinically, Dr. Lerner cares for patients in a large community of low-income communities of color with hematologic malignancies, cutaneous malignancies and sarcomas. Host Michael Lerner Michael is the president and co-founder of Commonweal. His principal work at Commonweal is with the Cancer Help Program, Healing Circles, Beyond Conventional Cancer Therapies, the Collaborative on Health and the Environment, and The New School at Commonweal. He was the recipient of a MacArthur Prize Fellowship for contributions to public health in 1983 and is author of Choices in Healing: Integrating the Best of Conventional and Complementary Therapies (MIT Press). Find out more about The New School at Commonweal on our website: tns.commonweal.org. And like/follow our Soundcloud channel for more great podcasts.

Join TNS Host Michael Lerner for a webinar conversation with astrologer and intuitive Rachel Lang. We will be looking at what astrology suggests may be ahead for us as individuals, as a country, and as a planet over the coming decade. We encourage you to view our last New School conversation with Rachel: Intuition, Astrology, Magic: A Spiritual Biography. https://tns.commonweal.org/podcasts/lang-lerner/#.Ye85-y-B1Z0 Rachel Lang Rachel is a professional astrologer, psychic medium, and author of Modern Day Magic: 8 Simple Rules to Realize Your Power and Shape Your Life. Rachel teaches courses like Astrology for Creatives, Working with Magic, and Relationships and Astrology, and she mentors the members of development circles. Her monthly horoscope columns appear in the Omega News and Conscious Living, and she contributes to a variety of publications, including Well+Good and Women’s Health. Rachel is the Outreach Director for the National Council for Geocosmic Research (NCGR), the VP of the Los Angeles NCGR chapter, and a committee member with the International Association of Ethics in Astrology. Find out more about her on her website. https://rachellangastrologer.com/ Host Michael Lerner Michael is the president and co-founder of Commonweal. His principal work at Commonweal is with the Cancer Help Program, Healing Circles, Beyond Conventional Cancer Therapies, the Collaborative on Health and the Environment, and The New School at Commonweal. He was the recipient of a MacArthur Prize Fellowship for contributions to public health in 1983 and is author of Choices in Healing: Integrating the Best of Conventional and Complementary Therapies (MIT Press). Find out more about The New School at Commonweal on our website: tns.commonweal.org. And like/follow our Soundcloud channel for more great podcasts.

~Part of the Money as Medicine series of conversations at TNS~ Join TNS Host Victoria Santos in a conversation with ancestors and money coach Morgan Curtis and with Xicana climate justice organizer, human rights advocate, and storyteller Niria Alicia Garcia. Morgan and Niria Alicia both live at Canticle Farm, a multi-racial, inter-faith, cross-class, intergenerational intentional community in Lisjan Ohlone territory (Oakland, California). They’ll talk about their journeys transforming ancestral legacies—one from the perspective of a person growing up in a wealthy, privileged family, and the other from the perspective of a person growing up in a migrant farmworker family. Niria Alicia Garcia Niria Alicia is a Xicana Indígena community organizer, educator, storykeeper and human rights advocate devoted to protecting the sacredness of Mother Earth and the dignity of historically oppressed peoples. She is a first-generation proud daughter of immigrant farm worker and forestry workers from Michoacan and Chihuahua, Mexico. In 2019, her climate justice work earned her the national “Emerging Leader Award” from GreenLatinos. This year, the United Nations gave her the highest honor given to young people, naming her the Young Champion of the Earth for North America for her work with Run4Salmon. Niria Alicia believes that true justice and healing will only begin when we rematriate and indigenize land, normalize indigenous values and honor the sacredness of women, 2 spirit peoples, and Mother Earth. Her proudest accomplishments and honors have been learning how to make tortillas in the traditional way from her grandmother, growing her first milpa from her family’s heirloom corn seeds, and inheriting her great-great grandmother’s metate, a culturally significant ancestral tool made from lava rock that has the hand imprints of the strong women she is proud to descend from. Morgan Curtis Guided by the call to transmute the legacy of her colonizer and enslaver ancestors, Morgan is dedicated to working with her fellow people with wealth and class privilege towards redistribution, atonement, and repair of ancestral harms. As a facilitator, money coach and ritualist, she works to catalyze the healing of relationships with self, family, ancestors, community, and the land, enabling the surrender of power and control so that resources can flow towards social, environmental, and economic justice. She is in the process of redistributing 100% of her inherited wealth and 50% of her income to primarily Black- and Indigenous-led organizing and land projects. She is currently a Masters of Divinity student at Harvard Divinity School, focused on racial justice and healing. Our Host, Victoria Santos, MA Victoria designs and facilitates group processes in communities, organizations, businesses, universities and schools. Warm authentic presence, compassionate communication, commitment to social justice and racial equity, and lifelong learning are threads running through all of Victoria’s work. She brings more than thirty years of experience and leadership in education, community organizing and community development. For ten years, Victoria assisted Sobonfu Somé in leading grief rituals according to the Dagara traditions of Burkina Faso. She is a Spanish-fluent Afro-Caribbean immigrant who was born in a rural village in the Dominican Republic. Music: Devi Daly singing, music composed by Coco Love Alcorn. Find out more about The New School at Commonweal on our website: tns.commonweal.org. And like/follow our Soundcloud channel for more great podcasts.