Exploring Nature, Culture and Inner Life

~Part of the Widening Circles Series Co-Presented with Healing Circles Global~ Join TNS Host Michael Lerner in an intimate, wide-ranging conversation with Parker Palmer—accomplished writer, teacher, activist, community organizer, and founder and senior partner emeritus of the Center for Courage & Renewal. Their rekindled friendship provides rich territory for embracing the challenge of becoming whole over the course of a lifetime. In this conversation, we explore: Why “no fixing, no saving, no advising, no setting each other straight.” Creating circles of trust to sustain the journey to an undivided life. How to value ignorance in search of a life of love and service. 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 series co-presented with Real Food Media. https://realfoodmedia.org In this wide-ranging conversation, we’ll hear from UCSF Associate Professor of Medicine Dr. Rupa Marya along with A-dae Romero-Briones of the First Nations Development Institute discuss efforts around the country to take on the aftermath of centuries of government-sanctioned and led land dispossession and cultural decimation. Together with TNS Host and Author Anna Lappé, Rupa and A-dae will share strategies toward a vision to protect and uplift Native agro-ecological traditions, including efforts to rematriate thousands of acres of land across the country. 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 Widening Circles Series Co-Presented with Healing Circles Global~ Join host Diana Lindsay in conversation with Christina Baldwin and Ann Linnea, co-founders of PeerSpirit and The Circle Way. Christina and Ann trained thousands of people in The Circle Way around the world. They consulted with organizations and communities who want to give more voice to everyone around the circle, whether the conversation takes place in a board room, a nurses’ lounge, or a community. In this conversation, we explore: How the circle is common first culture, one of the building blocks that allowed us to become social beings—from the campfire to the council fire and onward. Why cultures developed a “neutral” structure of circle that could be adapted to different uses by different peoples. Stories of how the structure of circle becomes a foundational tool for personal, local, and global change. Find out more about Healing Circles: healingcirclesglobal.org Find out more about The New School at Commonweal: tns.commonweal.org. And like/follow our Soundcloud channel for more great podcasts.

Michael Lerner via zoom at the Integral Yoga Institute in San Francisco. 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 Bolinas Museum~ Point Reyes National Seashore is home to a significant Marconi wireless radio station built in the early 20th Century; Commonweal is based on the transmitting station grounds in an Art Deco structure, built by Marconi’s successor company, RCA. The surviving buildings and antenna fields are now on the National Register of Historic Places. Here, as was Marconi’s dream, the first transoceanic signal, from Bolinas to Hawaii, was achieved in 1914. The history of worldwide wireless radio transmission is more than technological: it launched an age of wireless communication which is still evolving. It contains its own language (Morse code), culture (among radio operators, and as lifelines to ship crews), and overarching sense of purpose. Join us for a conversation with Carola DeRooy Davis, retired archivist and curator of the Pt. Reyes National Seashore Museum and Archives. Carola and Irwin will discuss the history of the Marconi/RCA stations and their cultural reverberations (including their impact in the development of the town of Bolinas). We will also hear about the tremendous efforts made to ensure preservation of this site, which threw a lifeline to ships at sea and land stations around the world for 84 years. 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 in a spiritual biography conversation with writer, speaker, and editor David Lorimer. David’s recent book, A Quest for Wisdom: Inspiring Purpose on the Path of Life was published in 2020 by Aeon Books. 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 Ladybird Morgan to witness and participate in a Wisdom Circle with Pat McCabe (Weyakpa Najin Win) and Susan Balbas, indigenous women leaders and elders. They will explore what is most alive for them today; talk about their work in social justice, environment, and community-building; and discuss what they are carrying forward and what they are letting go of in these changing times. Pat McCabe (Weyakpa Najin Win, Woman Stands Shining) Pat is a Diné (Navajo) mother, grandmother, activist, artist, writer, ceremonial leader, and international speaker. She is a voice for global peace, and her paintings are created as tools for individual, earth and global healing. She draws upon the Indigenous sciences of Thriving Life to reframe questions about sustainability and balance, and she is devoted to supporting the next generations, Women’s Nation and Men’s Nation, in being functional members of the “Hoop of Life” and upholding the honor of being human. Susan Balbas Susan (Cherokee/Yaqui) is a community organizer and carries valuable expertise in all levels of nonprofit operations and management. She is board chair of the nonprofit Front and Centered, a statewide coalition of over 60 community of color-led organizations working toward environmental justice, and executive director of Na’ah Illahee Fund, a Native-led community-based organization that advances sustainable Indigenous communities in the Pacific Northwest. Mother of three and grandmother of three, Susan has studied extensively with herbalists, is an avid gardener, cook, and a voracious reader of historical novels. Host Ladybird Morgan, RN, MSW Ladybird has worked as a registered nurse, clinical social worker, healer and educator for 20+ years. She is the co-founder and Executive Director of Humane Prison Hospice Project whose mission is to implement end of life care in prisons by supporting and training prisoners to be caregivers. Ladybird has worked with many organizations including The Zen Hospice Project, Hospice by The Bay, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) Commonweal and the UCSF/ MERI Center’s Last Acts of Kindness Program. She holds space for families and caregivers, medical practitioners, as well as directors of programs and institutions around the world to find their clearest voice as they step across significant thresholds in aging, life and at death. 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 in conversation with Dwight McKee, MD, about innovative responses to COVID-19 and cancer. This is part one of a two-part conversation. Dwight McKee, MD Dwight brings a comprehensive perspective to the practice of oncology and hematology and is at the forefront of the application of integrative medicine to the field of cancer care. He is board certified in medical oncology, hematology, nutrition, and integrative and holistic medicine. He co-authored a textbook on Herb, Nutrient and Drug Interactions (Mosby 2008), recently completed After Cancer Care with Gerald Lemole, MD, and Pallav Mehta, MD (Rodale 2015), and edited the Cancer Strategies Journal from 2011 to 2014. He received his MD degree from the University of Kentucky in 1975, followed by a rotating surgical internship at Washington Hospital Center in Washington, DC. Host Michael Lerner Michael is president and co-founder of Commonweal in Bolinas, California. He co-founded Commonweal in 1976. His projects include the Commonweal Cancer Help Program, Healing Circles, Beyond Conventional Cancer Therapies, The New School at Commonweal and The Resilience Project. A Harvard graduate, he received a PhD and taught at Yale in the early 1970s before moving to Bolinas, California, in 1976. He received a MacArthur fellowship for contributions to public health in 1984. 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 in conversation with Dwight McKee, MD, about innovative responses to COVID-19 and cancer. This is part two of a two-part conversation. Dwight McKee, MD Dwight brings a comprehensive perspective to the practice of oncology and hematology and is at the forefront of the application of integrative medicine to the field of cancer care. He is board certified in medical oncology, hematology, nutrition, and integrative and holistic medicine. He co-authored a textbook on Herb, Nutrient and Drug Interactions (Mosby 2008), recently completed After Cancer Care with Gerald Lemole, MD, and Pallav Mehta, MD (Rodale 2015), and edited the Cancer Strategies Journal from 2011 to 2014. He received his MD degree from the University of Kentucky in 1975, followed by a rotating surgical internship at Washington Hospital Center in Washington, DC. Host Michael Lerner Michael is president and co-founder of Commonweal in Bolinas, California. He co-founded Commonweal in 1976. His projects include the Commonweal Cancer Help Program, Healing Circles, Beyond Conventional Cancer Therapies, The New School at Commonweal and The Resilience Project. A Harvard graduate, he received a PhD and taught at Yale in the early 1970s before moving to Bolinas, California, in 1976. He received a MacArthur fellowship for contributions to public health in 1984. 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 Steve Heilig in conversation with author, journalist, and Covering Climate Now executive director Mark Hertsgaard about what’s next for climate change, the defining issue of our time. Now that climate denial has been voted out of the White House, what are the paths and the obstacles to progress in Washington and abroad, including a strengthened the Paris Agreement? What role can civil society, especially the news media, play? We know of no better expert on the “big picture” and what is or isn’t being done than our special guest for this talk. Join us. Mark Hertsgaard has covered climate change since 1989, reporting from 25 countries and much of the United States in his books Earth Odyssey: Around the World In Search of Our Environmental Future and HOT: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth, as well as for outlets including The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, The Atlantic, Time, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Mother Jones, Scientific American, Bloomberg Businessweek, The Guardian, Le Monde, L’espresso, NPR, the BBC, and Link TV. He is the environmental correspondent and investigative editor at large at The Nation and a co-founder of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism initiative committed to more and better coverage of the climate story. 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.