Exploring Nature, Culture and Inner Life

(A posting of a conversation from 2014 TNS Archives) Join us for conversation and with TNS Host Oren Slozberg and Lennon Flowers, founder of The Dinner Party: a community of mostly 20- and 30-somethings who’ve each experienced significant loss and who get together over dinner parties to talk about it and the ways in which it continues to affect their lives. Together, they’ve pioneered tools and community through which young people who’ve experienced significant loss can use their shared experience as a springboard toward living better, bolder, and more connected lives. Lennon Flowers Lennon is the co-founder and executive cirector of The Dinner Party. Lennon lost her mom during her senior year of college, following a four-year fight with lung cancer. It had been more than three years since her passing when she hitched up her wagon and headed West to Los Angeles. Suddenly 3,000 miles away from home and the friends she’d known for years, she found she no longer had anyone with whom she could talk about her mom, and explore the way in which her life, death, and absence continued to affect her. So when Carla, a friend, colleague, and soon-to-be roommate, invited her over for dinner, it was a no brainer. Lennon most recently served as community director for Ashoka’s Start Empathy. She has written for YES! Magazine, Forbes, Elephant Journal, Open Democracy, EdWeek, and GOOD. 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 Resilience Project at Commonweal This year we have all witnessed how major global stressors—from climate change and income inequality to pandemics and autocracy—can impact each other and cause massive, cascading changes in our world. At the same time, other factors including pollution, artificial intelligence, population growth, and social media seem unstoppable forces that escalate other risks. Many fear that a broader systems collapse could be a plausible scenario. Given what we know, how do we respond? In this roundtable conversation, join Christina as she brings together scholars, designers, and activists to share their perspectives on the polycrisis. Audience questions and comments will enrich the dialogue, and the moderator will lead participants in a creative exercise to generate new language and insights. 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 Real Food Media~ Just about twenty years ago, several dozen of the nation’s leading scientists, ethicists, and environmentalists gathered in Bolinas, California, at Commonweal to draft a declaration of principles for the regulation, policy, and commercialization of the emerging technologies of genetically engineered organisms. The result? The Pacific Declaration. Now, two decades later, with the rapid expansion of genetically engineered organisms throughout the food system and emergent in animal agriculture and beyond, the wisdom—and caution—of The Pacific Declaration is just as relevant; its words prescient. To mark this anniversary milestone and reflect on the current context and what we can learn from this history, join us in a conversation with Anna Lappé—the daughter of one of the Declaration’s founding signatories—as well as author Claire Cummings, The Center for Food Safety’s Rebecca Spector, The Cultural Conservancy’s Melissa Nelson, and others at the forefront of the conversation about genetic engineering and the future of food. Anna Lappé is a national bestselling author, a respected advocate for food justice and sustainability, and an advisor to funders investing in food system transformation. A recipient of the James Beard Leadership Award, Anna is the co-author or author of three books and the contributing author to more than a dozen others. Anna’s work has been translated internationally and featured in The Washington Post, The New York Times, Gourmet, Oprah Magazine, among many other outlets. A frequent public speaker, her popular TEDx talks have been watched nearly one million times. 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.

Jewish mystical traditions offer the adept a rich array of practices and paradigms supporting personal and communal healing and renewal. These include text, sacred time, sensory experience, meditation, imagination, play, and teshuvah—an annual and ongoing process of realigning the self with the cosmos. Join TNS host Irwin Keller in conversation with scholar and mystic, Rabbi Elliot Ginsburg, as they discuss Judaism’s esoteric side and what it might offer all of us in broken times. Rabbi Elliot Ginsburg, PhD Reb Elliott is Associate Professor of Jewish Thought and Mysticism at the University of Michigan, and rabbi of the Pardes Hannah minyan in Ann Arbor. He received his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania, and taught at Oberlin College, before coming to Michigan. He has received an NEH Fellowship and a Kellogg Foundation grant supporting his scholarship. Reb Elliot has written two books on the kabbalistic celebration of Shabbat and is currently working on a scholarly study of Jewish mystical prayer and meditation, and a multi-tiered study of Judaism as spiritual practice. Reb Elliot received his rabbinic ordination from Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi in 1998, and is senior faculty in the rabbinic ordination program of the Aleph Alliance for Jewish Renewal. 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.

Oncologist Dr. Donald Abrams is a true pioneer on many important fronts—AIDS care, medical cannabis research and policy, the “right to die,” and integrative cancer care. He has also participated in a number of Commonweal’s projects, providing invaluable expertise. A full professor of medicine at UCSF, he has just retired after a long career and will talk about some of the many issues he has confronted and maybe some lessons learned. Join him and his longtime friend and colleague TNS Host Steve Heilig this inspiring informal talk. Watch our 2014 two-part video series with Donald: https://tns.commonweal.org/podcasts/donald-abrams-m-d Donald Abrams, MD: He co-edited the Oxford University Press textbook Integrative Oncology with Andrew Weil, MD. He was also named a “Top Cancer Doctor” in Newsweek’s 2015 Special Health Issue on Curing Cancer. Prior to specializing in oncology, Dr. Abrams worked in the field of HIV. He has conducted numerous clinical trials investigating complementary therapies in patients with HIV, including therapeutic touch, traditional Chinese medicine interventions, medical marijuana, medicinal mushrooms, and distant healing. 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 and Anna O’Malley in a conversation exploring the role of physician in society at this planetary moment, community resilience in the face of COVID, and allyship with nature. Anna O'Malley, MD Anna is an integrative family and community medicine physician, founded and directs Natura Institute for Ecology and Medicine in the Commonweal Garden, and cultivates the medicine of connection to self, one another, and the Earth. 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.

The Learning Community Series at The New School Join TNS host Steve Heiig with two long-time members of the Commonweal community, Rachel Naomi Remen, MD, and Marion Weber. Rachel is a master story-teller and co-founder of the Commonweal Cancer Help Program. She is the author of Kitchen Table Wisdom and My Grandfather's Blessing, both international best-sellers. Marion is a pioneer of the healing arts movement, a long-time sand tray practitioner in the Commonweal Cancer Help Program, the inventor of group sand tray, and a deep seer into the wisdom and mystery traditions. Rachel Naomi Remen: Rachel is a Professor of Family Medicine at Wright State Boonshoft School of Medicine and the Founder and Founding Director of the Remen Institute for the Study of Health  and Illness (RISHI), which was at Commonweal for decades and is currently at Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine. She is one of the best known of the early pioneers of wholistic and integrative medicine. As a medical educator, therapist, and teacher, she has enabled many thousands of physicians to find individual meaning and purpose in the practice of medicine and thousands of patients to remember their power to heal. More than 30,000 medical students have completed The Healer’s Art, her groundbreaking  curriculum for medical students taught at the majority of medical schools in America. A master storyteller and observer of life, her bestselling books, 

The Learning Community Series at The New School Join TNS Host Michael Lerner in a webinar conversation with Lisa Simms Booth, the executive director at the Smith Center for Healing and the Arts. The Smith Center is a Washington, DC-based health, education, and arts nonprofit that develops and promotes physical, emotional, and mental resources for people affected by cancer. Lisa Simms Booth: In addition to serving as executive director for the Smith Center for Healing and the Arts, Lisa previously served as senior director of patient and public engagement at the Biden Cancer Initiative. Prior to joining the Initiative, she was at FasterCures, a center of the Milken Institute, playing leadership roles in partnership development, external affairs and operations. Lisa’s experience also includes working for political and advocacy organizations including LISTEN, Inc., The Alliance for Justice, Time Dollar Institute, Children’s Defense Fund, Democratic National Committee and the National Rainbow Coalition. 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.

The Learning Community Series at The New School Join TNS Host Michael Lerner in webinar conversation with Carl Safina, writer, marine conservationist, PBS host, and MacArthur fellow. Carl Safina’s lyrical non-fiction writing explores how humans are changing the living world, and what the changes mean for non-human beings and for us all. His work fuses scientific understanding, emotional connection, and a moral call to action. His writing has won a MacArthur “genius” prize; Pew, Guggenheim, and National Science Foundation Fellowships; book awards from Lannan, Orion, and the National Academies; and the John Burroughs, James Beard, and George Rabb medals. He grew up raising pigeons, training hawks and owls, and spending as many days and nights in the woods and on the water as he could. Safina is now the first Endowed Professor for Nature and Humanity at Stony Brook University and is founding president of the not-for-profit Safina Center. He hosted the PBS series Saving the Ocean, which can be viewed free at PBS.org. His writing appears in The New York Times, TIME, The Guardian, Audubon, Yale e360, and National Geographic, and on the Web at Huffington Post, CNN.com, Medium, and elsewhere. His books include the classic, Song for the Blue Ocean. Carl is author of ten books including Beyond Words; What Animals Think and Feel. His most recent book is Becoming Wild; How Animal Cultures Raise Families, Create Beauty, and Achieve Peace. He lives on Long Island, New York, with his wife Patricia and their dogs and feathered friends. More at CarlSafina.org and SafinaCenter.org . 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.

The Learning Community Series at The New School During this liminal time, where many old borders seem to have vanished, we are all trying to re-imagine how we might serve as hospice workers for the old, and midwives of the new. Join us for this webinar from The Learning Community series at The New School at Commonweal featuring TNS Host Michael Lerner in conversation with journalist, teacher, entrepreneur, civic leader and strategic advisor to philanthropic leaders Katherine Fulton. Katherine Fulton Katherine has been a leading strategic advisor to foundations, high-net-worth donors, and major nonprofits for the past 25 years. She spent a decade building Monitor Institute into one of the nation’s leading social sector consulting firms, and has published and spoken widely on the future of philanthropy, impact investing and social change. Previously she was a journalist, co-founding an award-winning, alternative newspaper company in the American South. Her conviction in the early 1990s that the internet would transform journalism led her to California, where she worked with the world’s leading futurists and scenario planners as a senior leader at Global Business Network. She has served on more than two dozen boards, including Commonweal’s, and is now the co-chair of The Long Now Foundation. She lives in Sonoma, CA, with her wife of 30 years, Katharine Kunst. 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.