The New School at Commonweal

~Part of the Roots of Resilience in An Age of Crisis series co-presented with Real Food Media~ Seed savers Kristyn Leach of Namu Farm and Second Generation Seeds in Yolo County, California, and Jessika Greendeer of Dream of Wild Health in Twin Cities, Minnesota, will talk about the “why” behind their seed-saving practices. Together with Host Tiffani Patton, Jessika and Kristyn will explore the role of seed-saving in preserving and connecting to culture and why we need seed diversity to withstand the climate crisis. (Photo: Tiffani Patton) Kristyn Leach grows Asian crops in California’s Central Valley. Her focus is on preserving and adapting Korean plants, agronomic wisdom, and culture. She partners with the Namu Restaurant Group, providing their restaurants with produce and working with their chefs and cooks on breeding projects. She founded a seed line within Kitazawa Seed Company, the oldest purveyor of Asian vegetable seeds in the United States, called Second Generation Seeds. Second Generation is a collaborative project that hopes to connect or reconnect communities of the Asian diaspora with the crops that have sustained them. Jessika Greendeer is a Ho-Chunk Nation tribal member from Baraboo, Wisconsin, and a member of the Deer Clan. She is currently the seed keeper and farm manager at Dream of Wild Health. Jessika has worked as the Agricultural Division Manager for her nation and had previously served as a garden mentor within her nation’s organic community gardens. She is a U.S. Army combat veteran and completed a Veteran-to-Farmer training program at the Rodale Institute in Pennsylvania. 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. Tiffani brings years of active engagement in food policy discussions, event organizing, storytelling for change, facilitating important discussions around food system transformation, and the connection of art, music, and culture to food in the Bay Area and beyond. 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.

Social media and other technology have a huge influence on our minds, behavior, and spirit. How do we best navigate our high-tech horizon in ways that allow for wholeness and presence? Join TNS Host Rabbi Irwin Keller in conversation with Aden Van Noppen, founder and executive director of Mobius, an unconventional collective of technologists, scientists, activists, and spiritual teachers dedicated to creating a world in which technology brings out the best in humanity. Aden Van Noppen was a senior advisor to the U.S. Chief Technology Officer in the Obama White House Office, where she developed the led programs that leverage tech as a tool for social and economic justice. After that, she spent a year as a resident fellow at Harvard Divinity School focusing on the intersection of tech, ethics and spirituality and was an affiliate at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society. Aden was also part of the founding leadership team of The Sanctuaries, the first interfaith arts community in the country. Her work has been featured in the New Yorker, The New York Times, WIRED, and elsewhere. Host Irwin Keller Rabbi Irwin Keller has been the spiritual leader of Congregation Ner Shalom in Sonoma County, California, since 2008. His past work included LGBT advocacy, HIV legal services, and 21 years as a singing drag queen with The Kinsey Sicks, America’s Favorite Dragapella Beautyshop Quartet. Irwin’s sermons and essays on Torah, mysticism, God, politics, disillusionment, and hope can be found on his blog, Itzik’s Well, found at irwinkeller.com. Irwin is a steward and faculty member of Commonweal’s Taproot Gathering. 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 Oren Slozberg and Diana Lindsay, co-directors of Healing Circles Global for a conversation on the beginnings of Healing Circles and how it has evolved into a global resource for healing, social connection, and meaningful service. In this conversation, we’ll explore: The ideas from Christina Baldwin, Ann Linnea, Parker Palmer, Michael Lerner, and Janie Brown that deepen the work of Healing Circles Global. Offering welcoming, safe, and nourishing circles for healing and connection for anyone from anywhere at no to low cost. Providing meaningful experiences of learning, service, and belonging for our global community of healing circles volunteers. Creating a sustainable, loving, global community for healing circles work. Find out more about Healing Circles Global: healingcirclesglobal.org Find out more about The New School at Commonweal: tns.commonweal.org. *** Don't forget to like and subscribe. And, to get news of upcoming events or new resources, follow us on Facebook (facebook.com/TNSCommonweal) and Instagram (instagram.com/tnscommonweal/).

~Part of the Widening Circles Series Co-Presented with Healing Circles Global~ Join us for an intimate conversation with Michael Lerner, Commonweal President, and the acclaimed Janie Brown, founder of Callanish Society, a grassroots non-profit organization in Vancouver, BC, for people living with, and dying from, cancer. In this conversation, we’ll explore: The personal impact of intentional healing in removing obstacles and supporting healing in every possible way. How to set the conditions for healing in the retreat setting. How radical acts of love can promote healing up to the moment of death. Find out more about Healing Circles Global: healingcirclesglobal.org Find out more about The New School at Commonweal: tns.commonweal.org. *** Don't forget to like and subscribe. And, to get news of upcoming events or new resources, follow us on Facebook (facebook.com/TNSCommonweal) and Instagram (instagram.com/tnscommonweal/).

~Part of the Widening Circles Series Co-Presented with Healing Circles Global~ Moving Forward: Circles for Healing and Coming Together / Michael Lerner, Parker Palmer, Christina Baldwin, Diana Lindsay, Lisa Simms-Booth, and Rahmin Sarabi, moderated by Oren Slozberg We are transitioning into a post-COVID world with challenges on many levels, from our own health, national polarization and the global polycrisis. Facing these challenges, the need for healing and circle work is as important as ever, maybe even more. Moderated by Oren Slozberg, executive director of Commonweal, an intergenerational panel with Christina Baldwin, Parker Palmer, Michael Lerner, Rahmin Sarabi, Lisa Simms Booth and Diana Lindsay will reflect on circle work in our new unfolding world. Find out more about Healing Circles Global: healingcirclesglobal.org Find out more about The New School at Commonweal: tns.commonweal.org.

~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.