Exploring Nature, Culture and Inner Life

Joanne Kyger On Time: Poems 2005-2014 ~Co-presented with Point Reyes Books~ There is no poet with more whimsically tough a mind… She’s the best of the west. —Robert Creely No other poet of my gen­eration has been able to make the pleasures and particu­lars of the ‘everyday’ as luminous and essential and cen­tral. —David Meltzer A longtime Bolinas resident, Kyger will read from her work and be in discussion with her longtime friend and admirer, Steve Heilig of The New School. Copies of her brand new book On Time: Poems 2005-2014 (City Lights Publishers) will be available for purchase and signing. Joanne Kyger One of the major poets of the SF Renaissance, Joanne was born in 1934 in Vallejo, CA. After studying at UC Santa Barbara, she moved to San Francisco in 1957, where she became a member of the circle of poets around Jack Spicer and Robert Duncan. In 1960, she and then-husband Gary Snyder traveled in Japan and India where, along with Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky, they met the Dalai Lama. She returned to California in 1964 and published her first book, The Tapestry and the Web, in 1965. In 1969, she settled in Bolinas, where she continues to reside today. She has published more than 30 books of poetry and prose, including Strange Big Moon, The Japan and India Journals: 1960-1964 (2000), As Ever: Selected Poems (2002), and About Now: Collected Poems (2007), which won the 2008 Josephine Miles Award from PEN Oakland. She occasionally teaches at Naropa University. Find out more about The New School at tns.commonweal.org.

Michael Pollan The Trip Treatment: New Research on the Healing Properties of Psychedelics ~Co-presented and sponsored by Point Reyes Books~ How are we to judge the veracity of the insights gleaned during a psychedelic journey? It’s one thing to conclude that love is all that matters, but quite another to come away from a therapy convinced that “there is another reality” awaiting us after death, as one volunteer put it, or that there is more to the universe—and to consciousness—than a purely materialist world view would have us believe. Is psychedelic therapy simply foisting a comforting delusion on the sick and dying? So writes author and journalist Michael Pollan in his recent New Yorker article, “The Trip Treatment.” Join TNS Host Michael Lerner for a conversation with Michael Pollan about his research and thoughts—on the subject of new research on the healing properties of psychedelics, among others. Read Michael Pollan’s letter about his New Yorker article. Photo: Ken Light. Illustration: Stephan Doyle. Michael Pollan For the past 25 years, Michael has been writing books and articles about the places where nature and culture intersect: on our plates, in our farms and gardens, and in the built environment. He is the author of Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation (2013) and of four New York Times bestsellers: Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual (2010); In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto (2008); The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals (2006) and The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World (2001). The Omnivore’s Dilemma was named one of the ten best books of 2006 by both the New York Times and the Washington Post. Michael grew up on Long Island and was educated at Bennington College, Oxford University, and Columbia University, from which he received a Master’s in English. He lives in the Bay Area with his wife, the painter Judith Belzer, and their son, Isaac. Find out more about The New School at tns.commonweal.org.

Rachel Naomi Remen, MD Trusting the Process: The Basics of Discovery Model Learning ~A Healing Circles and New School Event~ Please join us for this series with Dr. Rachel Remen. She is joined by Commonweal Founder Michael Lerner as well as Healing Circles-Langley Founders Diana and Kelly Lindsay. In part 1 of this series, Michael Lerner introduces the speakers and Healing Circles community. Diana and Kelly Lindsay give an overview of Healing Circles-Langley and the work being done there. Finally, Michael talks about the theory and process work that has been the heart of the Commonweal Cancer Help Program for decades and is the “curriculum” for the Healing Circles programs developing now. In part 2, Rachel gives an overview (and some experiences) of the discovery model curriculum for medical students, The Healer’s Art, which is presently taught annually at more than 80 medical schools in the United States and in seven other countries. Rachel has developed this experiential model to create a community of inquiry in which mutual healing, clarification of deep meaning and values, and personal transformation become accessible. Her discovery model philosophy and curriculum design is integral to the work of Commonweal’s new program, Healing Circles. In part 3, Michael, Rachel, Diana, and Kelly sit together to explore the important pieces of the day, and bring in audience questions. Rachel Naomi Remen, MD Rachel Naomi Remen, MD, is the founder and director of the Institute for the Study of Health and Illness at Commonweal. Rachel has served as medical director of the Commonweal Cancer Help Program for the past 29 years. Her New York Times bestselling books of healing stories, Kitchen Table Wisdom and My Grandfather’s Blessings, have been translated into 22 languages. Rachel is also clinical professor of Family and Community Medicine at University of California San Francisco School of Medicine. Find out more about The New School at tns.commonweal.org.

Rachel Naomi Remen, MD Trusting the Process: The Basics of Discovery Model Learning ~A Healing Circles and New School Event~ Please join us for this series with Dr. Rachel Remen. She is joined by Commonweal Founder Michael Lerner as well as Healing Circles-Langley Founders Diana and Kelly Lindsay. In part 1 of this series, Michael Lerner introduces the speakers and Healing Circles community. Diana and Kelly Lindsay give an overview of Healing Circles-Langley and the work being done there. Finally, Michael talks about the theory and process work that has been the heart of the Commonweal Cancer Help Program for decades and is the “curriculum” for the Healing Circles programs developing now. In part 2, Rachel gives an overview (and some experiences) of the discovery model curriculum for medical students, The Healer’s Art, which is presently taught annually at more than 80 medical schools in the United States and in seven other countries. Rachel has developed this experiential model to create a community of inquiry in which mutual healing, clarification of deep meaning and values, and personal transformation become accessible. Her discovery model philosophy and curriculum design is integral to the work of Commonweal’s new program, Healing Circles. In part 3, Michael, Rachel, Diana, and Kelly sit together to explore the important pieces of the day, and bring in audience questions. Rachel Naomi Remen, MD Rachel Naomi Remen, MD, is the founder and director of the Institute for the Study of Health and Illness at Commonweal. Rachel has served as medical director of the Commonweal Cancer Help Program for the past 29 years. Her New York Times bestselling books of healing stories, Kitchen Table Wisdom and My Grandfather’s Blessings, have been translated into 22 languages. Rachel is also clinical professor of Family and Community Medicine at University of California San Francisco School of Medicine. Find out more about The New School at tns.commonweal.org.

Jane Hirshfield Language As Lathe: A Conversation on Poetry and Prose ~Co-presented with Point Reyes Books~ Join TNS Host Eric Karpeles for a conversation with poet Jane Hirshfield. Jane’s poems, described as “radiant and passionate” in The New York Times Book Review, “magnificent and distinctive” by The Irish Times, and “among the pantheon of the modern masters of simplicity” in the Washington Post, have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Times Literary Supplement, The Paris Review, Poetry, Harper’s, The New Republic, The American Poetry Review, and eight editions of The Best American Poetry. Her new book, The Beauty (Knopf, 2015), appears along with a new book of essays, Ten Windows: How Great Poems Transform the World (Knopf, 2015). Jane Hirshfield Jane is the author of eight books of poetry, including The Beauty (Knopf, 2015) and Ten Windows: How Great Poems Transform the World (Knopf, 2015); Come, Thief (Knopf, 2011); After (HarperCollins, 2006), named a best book of the year by The Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, and The Financial Times (UK); and Given Sugar, Given Salt (HarperCollins, 2001), a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her previous collection of essays, Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry (HarperCollins, 1997), is considered a classic. Her many honors include The Poetry Center Book Award, the California Book Award, the Northern California Book Award, the Donald Hall-Jane Kenyon Award in American Poetry, Columbia University’s Translation Center Award, and fellowships from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller foundations, the Academy of American Poets, and the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2012 she was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. Find out more about The New School at tns.commonweal.org.

Caroline Casey Equinoctial Eclipse Persian New Year Comedic Cahoot of Mars and Venus Tour Calling all those willing to be agents of the Compassionate Trickster Redeemer at this time of Dire Beauty Magnetizing the Return of Harmonia via Pragmatic Mysticism, Democratic Animism and Applied Divination (Mars and Venus are now birthing their daughter, Harmonia, awaiting our animation, to bound onto the world stage) astro*mytho*politico*talk*ritual*interview* 30 minute Carolingian talk, followed by conversational interview with Michael Lerner Cultivating the Trickster Arts of Magnetizing Metaphor into Matter, irresistible eloquence, irony, satire, repost, rejoinder, repartee, metaphoric agility, mythological literacy, power of perspicacious precision language magic, cultivating our customized Trickster Redeemer,who guides us to move our emotional default setting to “woof-woof-wanna-play?!” Caroline W. Casey Caroline is the host-creator and weaver of context for The Visionary Activist Show on Pacifica Radio Network Pacifica station KPFA (94.1) in Northern California, replayed on Los Angeles’ KPFK (and can be heard live on the web: www.KPFA.org at 2pm PT on Thursdays, and by pod-cast subscription.) The Show is dedicated to: anything we need to know to have a democracy; critique and solution; and the acknowledgement that we humans cannot solve the innumerable rude crises we’ve imposed on our planetary kin by ourselves—but only by humbly partnering with Nature’s evolutionary Ingenuity, aka Trickster. Her guests are leading contributors to a culture of reverent ingenuity, all teased into pertinence, and has been called “one of the best radio shows in America.” Find out more about The New School at tns.commonweal.org.

"Bode's Law Redux: New Evidence Confirms 18th Century Conjecture on Orbital Harmonies" Part 1 of 3 For nearly 20 years, film-maker and Bolinas resident Walter Murch has been working on rehabilitating Bode’s Law, according to him an unfairly discredited 18th century theory of celestial mechanics that predicted a harmonic spacing of planetary and lunar orbits. Now, research just published in the February MNRAS (Monthly Notices of The Royal Astronomical Society) by Dr. Charles Lineweaver (PhD Astronomy, Berkeley) and Tim Bovaird, seems to confirm the applicability of the Bode relation to other planetary systems in the galaxy. Using data from NASA’s planet-hunting Kepler space telescope, Lineweaver and Bovaird show that: “Based on predictions for the orbital periods, a half-dozen new exoplanets have been found where we predicted they would be using our simplified Bode formula. Our work shows that the Bode relation is definitely not a coincidence. It’s real,” said Lineweaver. Murch’s research also shows a musically harmonic underpinning to Bode’s Law, implying that the ancient dream of a “harmony of the spheres” has an actual basis in reality. You can view the video of this presentation and conversation here: https://vimeo.com/125379787 Join TNS Host Michael Lerner in conversation with Walter about his new research and findings. Michael spoke to Walter at a previous TNS event about his research and theories on Bode’s Law in 2009. Walter Murch: Walter is a film editor, sound designer, director, translator, and amateur astronomer. His 46 years of pioneering sound design and picture editing work on films include THX-1138, The Conversation, The Godfather (I, II, III), Julia, Apocalypse Now, The English Patient, Talented Mr. Ripley, Cold Mountain, and Jarhead, as well as Return to Oz which he wrote and directed. He is author of In the Blink of an Eye, a book about the craft of film editing, and is the subject of The Conversations by Michael Ondaatje, as well as Behind the Seen by Charles Koppelman. His latest film work (2014) is Particle Fever, a feature documentary on the Large Hadron Collider and the search for the Higgs boson, directed by Mark Levinson. Brad Bird’s Tomorrowland, which Murch edited, will be released in May of 2015. Find out more about The New School at tns.commonweal.org.

"Bode's Law Redux: New Evidence Confirms 18th Century Conjecture on Orbital Harmonies" Part 2 of 3 For nearly 20 years, film-maker and Bolinas resident Walter Murch has been working on rehabilitating Bode’s Law, according to him an unfairly discredited 18th century theory of celestial mechanics that predicted a harmonic spacing of planetary and lunar orbits. Now, research just published in the February MNRAS (Monthly Notices of The Royal Astronomical Society) by Dr. Charles Lineweaver (PhD Astronomy, Berkeley) and Tim Bovaird, seems to confirm the applicability of the Bode relation to other planetary systems in the galaxy. Using data from NASA’s planet-hunting Kepler space telescope, Lineweaver and Bovaird show that: “Based on predictions for the orbital periods, a half-dozen new exoplanets have been found where we predicted they would be using our simplified Bode formula. Our work shows that the Bode relation is definitely not a coincidence. It’s real,” said Lineweaver. Murch’s research also shows a musically harmonic underpinning to Bode’s Law, implying that the ancient dream of a “harmony of the spheres” has an actual basis in reality. You can view the video of this presentation and conversation here: vimeo.com/125379787 Join TNS Host Michael Lerner in conversation with Walter about his new research and findings. Michael spoke to Walter at a previous TNS event about his research and theories on Bode’s Law in 2009. Walter Murch: Walter is a film editor, sound designer, director, translator, and amateur astronomer. His 46 years of pioneering sound design and picture editing work on films include THX-1138, The Conversation, The Godfather (I, II, III), Julia, Apocalypse Now, The English Patient, Talented Mr. Ripley, Cold Mountain, and Jarhead, as well as Return to Oz which he wrote and directed. He is author of In the Blink of an Eye, a book about the craft of film editing, and is the subject of The Conversations by Michael Ondaatje, as well as Behind the Seen by Charles Koppelman. His latest film work (2014) is Particle Fever, a feature documentary on the Large Hadron Collider and the search for the Higgs boson, directed by Mark Levinson. Brad Bird’s Tomorrowland, which Murch edited, will be released in May of 2015. Find out more about The New School at tns.commonweal.org.

"Bode's Law Redux: New Evidence Confirms 18th Century Conjecture on Orbital Harmonies" Part 3 of 3 For nearly 20 years, film-maker and Bolinas resident Walter Murch has been working on rehabilitating Bode’s Law, according to him an unfairly discredited 18th century theory of celestial mechanics that predicted a harmonic spacing of planetary and lunar orbits. Now, research just published in the February MNRAS (Monthly Notices of The Royal Astronomical Society) by Dr. Charles Lineweaver (PhD Astronomy, Berkeley) and Tim Bovaird, seems to confirm the applicability of the Bode relation to other planetary systems in the galaxy. Using data from NASA’s planet-hunting Kepler space telescope, Lineweaver and Bovaird show that: “Based on predictions for the orbital periods, a half-dozen new exoplanets have been found where we predicted they would be using our simplified Bode formula. Our work shows that the Bode relation is definitely not a coincidence. It’s real,” said Lineweaver. Murch’s research also shows a musically harmonic underpinning to Bode’s Law, implying that the ancient dream of a “harmony of the spheres” has an actual basis in reality. You can view the video of this presentation and conversation here: vimeo.com/125379787 Join TNS Host Michael Lerner in conversation with Walter about his new research and findings. Michael spoke to Walter at a previous TNS event about his research and theories on Bode’s Law in 2009. Walter Murch: Walter is a film editor, sound designer, director, translator, and amateur astronomer. His 46 years of pioneering sound design and picture editing work on films include THX-1138, The Conversation, The Godfather (I, II, III), Julia, Apocalypse Now, The English Patient, Talented Mr. Ripley, Cold Mountain, and Jarhead, as well as Return to Oz which he wrote and directed. He is author of In the Blink of an Eye, a book about the craft of film editing, and is the subject of The Conversations by Michael Ondaatje, as well as Behind the Seen by Charles Koppelman. His latest film work (2014) is Particle Fever, a feature documentary on the Large Hadron Collider and the search for the Higgs boson, directed by Mark Levinson. Brad Bird’s Tomorrowland, which Murch edited, will be released in May of 2015. Find out more about The New School at tns.commonweal.org.

Norman Fischer Everyday Zen: Changing and Being Changed by the World Join TNS Host Michael Lerner in conversation with Zen Buddhist Priest Norman Fischer. A former Abbot of the San Francisco Zen Center, Norman is the founder and teacher of the Everyday Zen Foundation, a network of spiritual communities and projects. He is also co-founder, with the late Rabbi Alan Lew, of Makor Or, a Jewish meditation center in San Francisco. His newest writings include Experience: Essays on Thinking, Writing, Language and Religion, and What Is Zen: Plain Talk for a Beginner’s Mind. Photo (below): Christine Alicino Norman Fischer A graduate of the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Norman began publishing poetry in the late 1970s as part of a San Francisco Bay Area group of experimental writers. His books include Turn Left In Order To Go Right (O Books, 1989), Precisely The Point Being Made (O Books/Chax Press 1993), Jerusalem Moonlight (Clear Glass Publications, 1995), Success (Singing Horse Press, 2000), Slowly but Dearly (Chax Press, 2004), I Was Blown Back (Singing Horse Press 2005), Questions/Places/Voices/Seasons (Singing Horse 2009), Conflict (Chax 2012), The Strugglers (Singing Horse, 2013), and Escape This Crazy Life of Tears: Japan 2010 (Tinfish Press, 2014). His spiritual writings include Training in Compassion: Zen Teachings on the Practice of Lojong (2013), Taking Our Places: The Buddhist Path to Truly Growing Up (2004), Opening to You: Zen-Inspired Translations of the Psalms (2003), and Sailing Home: Using the Wisdom of Homer’s Odyssey to Navigate Life’s Perils and Pitfalls (2011). He lives in Muir Beach California with his wife Kathie, a biology teacher and expert scuba diver. They have two grown sons who live in Brooklyn. Find out more about The New School at tns.commonweal.org.