Exploring Nature, Culture and Inner Life

Join TNS Host Michael Lerner in a spiritual biography conversation with rabbi, teacher, writer, music-maker, and performer Irwin Keller. Rabbi Irwin Keller Irwin has served as spiritual leader of Congregation Ner Shalom in Sonoma County, California, since 2008, and received his rabbinic ordination through the ALEPH ordination program in 2021. He is a co-founder and steward of the Taproot Community – a deep dive into mystical learning and spiritual practice for activists, artists and community ritualists. He was a lawyer and advocate (including being the primary author of Chicago’s first gay rights law), and was a singer in America’s Favorite Dragapella Beautyshop Quartet, the Kinsey Sicks, dubbed by NPR “the Royal Shakespeare Company of drag performance.” In his blog, Itzik’s Well, he writes about life, loss, family, hope, change, Torah, gender, sexuality and the usefulness of an outsider’s perspective. 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 Irwin Keller for a conversation with artist and oceans activist Josie Iselin. Josie creates hauntingly beautiful artwork featuring the seaweed and kelp of our Bay Area coastline and ocean. Her research accompanies the image-making process and leads her ever deeper into the science and ecology of the near-shore ocean universe. Co-presented with The Mesa Refuge. https://mesarefuge.org Watch a video about Josie’s work to accompany this podcast at: https://www.youtube.com/embed/Qlgrl-vrjnY 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 Point Reyes Books~ Commonweal invites all to join in the return of Frank Ostaseski, a renowned teacher, in discussion with his friend, student, and New School Host Steve Heilig. In recent years Frank has endured both heart and stroke incidents, and he will talk about living through those challenges, his long friendship with the late Ram Dass, and more. Frank has distilled hard-won lessons from his own life journey and synthesized 30 years of being with dying into his personal brand of wisdom. He is the author of The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully. Copies are available for purchase at Point Reyes Books. Frank Ostaseski is a pioneer in end-of-life care. In 1987, he cofounded the Zen Hospice Project, the first Buddhist hospice in America, guiding a model for mindful and compassionate care for almost 20 years. In 2005, he founded the Metta Institute, training countless healthcare clinicians and caregivers and building a national network of educators, advocates and guides for those facing life-threatening illness. He inspires and engages audiences from Harvard Medical School students, to Mayo Clinic clinicians, and Wisdom 2.0 seekers. His work has been highlighted on The Oprah Winfrey Show, featured by Bill Moyers on his PBS television series On Our Own Terms and honored by H.H. the Dalai Lama. 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.

For nearly three decades, Commonweal, through its Juvenile Justice Program, has been an active and influential advocate for reforms of the California juvenile justice system. Now, the Governor has signed historic legislation (SB 823) that will permanently close the state’s youth prisons system, shifting all state-committed youth to county facilities and programs. This webinar will explore the impact of the closure bill on law enforcement, probation, and other government agencies as well as the impact on youth and community organizations. Join TNS Host Steve Heilig in conversation with David Steinhart—the Juvenile Justice Program Director who helped lawmakers draft the reform bill. David Steinhart has been the director of the Commonweal Juvenile Justice Program since 1992. He is recognized, both within California and nationally, as an advocate, expert and author on a wide range of youth justice issues. In California, David was a prime architect of the landmark 2007 juvenile justice realignment law (SB 81) that moved non-violent youth out of the state Division of Juvenile Justice and into local control with more than $100 million per year million in state funds. David also co-drafted California’s Juvenile Justice Crime Prevention Act which has provided local agencies with more than $100 million per year in state funds for youth programs since its inception in 2000. On the national front, David is the principal advisor on detention risk assessment to the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI)—now active in 37 states. David has trained justice system personnel on detention reform in more than 30 states. He is the author of the JDAI Practice Guide on Juvenile Detention Risk Assessment. 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 Michael Lerner in conversation with Thomas Yeomans, author of writings on psychosynthesis and spiritual psychology as well as three volumes of poetry and a children’s book. He presently consults to individuals and organizations in Europe and North America on issues of personal and social change and transformation. Thomas Yeomans, PhD is the founder and director of the Concord Institute. His background includes education at Harvard, Oxford, and the University of California with professional work in the fields of literature, education, and psychology. Since 1970 he has worked as a psychotherapist, teacher, and trainer of professionals in Psychosynthesis and, more recently, Spiritual Psychology throughout North America and in Europe and Russia. In the last decade he has developed a theory and practice of group work within a spiritual context which he uses in training and consulting to organizations in this country and abroad.

Join Michael Lerner in conversation with Chris Desser—environmental lawyer and community activist. From our podcast: For me meditation practice… creates a place for me of rock bottom truth. Which isn’t to say that true things aren’t unfolding in the process, but it is a place where one just knows. And that knowing is—it’s not just that it’s a comfortable place to be, it’s an essential place to be… and I think that that rock bottom truth is for me a place of clarity of intent. Christina L Desser Chris is a fellow of On the Commons, a think tank focused on developing the concept of The Commons as an overarching analytical structure organizing across sectors and disciplines. She served on the California Coastal Commission and the San Francisco Commission for the Environment. In 2003, she co-founded Women’s Voices, Women Vote, a project that successfully increased the participation of single women in the electoral process. She was co-editor of Living with the Genie—Technology and the Quest for Human Mastery (Island Press, 2003). Chris has practiced environmental law has served on the boards of many companies, foundations and progressive non-profits including Women Donors Network, The Rockwood Leadership Program, Patagonia, Mother Jones Magazine, and the Rainforest Action Network.

Join Michael Lerner in conversation with nurse midwives Ariska Razak, RN, and Carol Densmore, CNM, talking about birth and the healing wisdom of earth-based traditions. Ariska Razak, RN, CNM, MPH Arisika’s work integrates the disciplines of Women’s Studies/ Women’s Spirituality, and Women’s Health and Spiritual Dance, through the incorporation of the teachings of earth-based spiritual traditions, women’s spirituality, and women’s health into the language of movement and dance. She has worked as a nurse midwife, health care provider, and health care administrator for over 25 years, serving as staff nurse-midwife and director of the Nurse-Midwife Service at Highland Hospital in Oakland; director of the Alameda County Pre-term Delivery Prevention Project, and Assistant Administrator for Ancillary services at Cowell Hospital, UC Berkeley. Carol Densmore Carol brings 25 years of experience in education, program development, and clinical care to her current position as the Director of the Cambridge Health Alliance Doula Program in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This unique, multicultural program offers emotional, social, and educational support for childbearing women at the Cambridge Birth Center and Cambridge Hospital. She has attended births in Boston area hospitals and homes, a Mexican border birth center and an Indian desert village. In India, she traveled extensively and researched the training of village health workers and traditional midwives. She holds Master’s Degrees in Education and in Public Health from Boston University and is a Certified Nurse Midwife.

Across the United States, thousands of people, most of them in low-income or minority communities, live next to heavily polluting industrial sites. In Sacrifice Zones: The Front Lines of Toxic Chemical Exposure in the United States, Steve Lerner tells the stories of twelve communities, from Brooklyn to Pensacola, that rose up to fight the industries and military bases causing disproportionately high levels of chemical pollution. He calls these low-income neighborhoods “sacrifice zones”—repurposing a Cold War term coined by U.S. government officials to designate areas contaminated with radioactive pollutants during the manufacture of nuclear weapons. Join Michael Lerner in a conversation with Steve about the residents of a new generation of “sacrifice zones,” tainted with chemical pollutants, who need additional regulatory protections.

In celebration of the 35th anniversary of Commonweal Garden, founder Avis Rappaport Licht—and Regenerative Design Institute founders Penny Livingston Stark and James Stark—speak with Michael Lerner about their work with the earth and teaching hundreds of programs on permaculture, nature awareness, and leadership. Join them as they honor all those who have contributed to making the Commonweal Garden what it is today.

~Co-presented with the Mesa Refuge~ Please join New School host and Zen Meditation teacher Jaune Evans in conversation with Buddhist meditation and organic gardening mentor Wendy Johnson. This dialogue will be grounded in the examination of four core principles of Zen Buddhism and gardening: cultivating the way, maintaining fertility in your practice, propagating new life, and tending the earth. There will be ample opportunity to interact with the presenters during this practical presentation. Wendy is a Buddhist meditation teacher and organic gardening mentor who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. She began practicing Zen Buddhist meditation in 1971 and has led meditation retreats nationwide since 1992 as an ordained lay dharma teacher in the traditions of Vietnamese Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh and the San Francisco Zen Center. As one of the founders of the organic farming program at Green Gulch Farm Zen Center, Wendy has been teaching organic agriculture and meditation for decades. Since its inception in 1995, she has been a mentor and advisor to the Edible Schoolyard Project affiliated with Chez Panisse restaurant. She served as a founding instructor of the College of Marin’s innovative Organic Farm and Gardening Project established in 2009, where she taught organic agriculture for the first seven seasons of the program. In 2000 Wendy and her husband, Peter Rudnick, received the annual Sustainable Agriculture Award from the National Ecological Farming Association. She is the author of Gardening at the Dragon’s Gate, published by Bantam in 2008. Jaune Evans is the executive director of Tamalpais Trust, which supports global indigenous-led organizations. She is a Soto Zen teacher and priest in the Everyday Zen sangha guided by Norman Fischer. Jaune also leads the Heart of Compassion sangha in Point Reyes on Friday mornings at the Presbyterian Church. Her love for stories and West Marin have deep roots. She has served as a board member and advisory committee member of the Mesa Refuge, and has also received two of Mesa’s writing fellowships. Jaune is a new member of the Commonweal Board of Directors, former director of the Institute for Art and Healing at Commonweal, and is currently a facilitator in Commonweal’s Healing Circles program. 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.