The New School at Commonweal

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.

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.