Exploring Nature, Culture and Inner Life

Dick Russell Getting to Know James Hillman Join TNS Host Michael Lerner in conversation with Dick Russell, author of the first volume of what promises to be the definitive biography of the psychologist James Hillman (1926-2011), the founder of the field of archetypal psychology. Hillman studied and taught at the Jung Institute in Zurich. He went on to critique Jung while also acknowledging Jung’s critical importance to his thinking. After leaving the Jung Institute, he discovered the Renaissance Florentine Marsilio Ficino (1433-99), who had translated Plato into Latin and whose Florentine academy sought to emulate Plato’s academy. Ficino was among the important influences on Hillman’s archetypal psychology. Hillman’s landmark Re-Visioning Psychology was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1976. This is one of an ongoing series of New School conversations on archetypal psychology and archetypal studies. Dick Russell Dick has published eleven books, ranging from environmental subjects to the genius of African-Americans and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The Life and Ideas of James Hillman, Volume One: The Making of a Psychologist was published in 2013. The authorized biography emerged out of a friendship between Russell and Hillman, who granted many hours of interviews but gave the writer complete freedom to reach and publish his own conclusions. Hillman is not well known in the United States (his book The Soul’s Code was his only best seller). But among those interested in depth psychology, his more than twenty books have been a major contribution. For anyone with a serious interest in Hillman and archetypal psychology, Russell’s biography is required reading. Find out more about The New School at tns.commonweal.org.

Peggy Taylor Unleashing the Creative Potential in Youth--and Adults Join TNS host Michael Lerner for a conversation with Peggy Taylor, a social entrepreneur known for her work integrating creativity into youth development and group facilitation. Peggy provides accessible arts-based methods for adding life and depth to any program—for youth or adults—and she talks about how her organization PYE: Partners for Youth Empowerment is igniting the creative spark in youth in nine countries. Peggy Taylor Peggy is a social entrepreneur and creativity specialist, known for creative approaches to youth development and group facilitation. She is co-founder and director of training at PYE: Partners for Youth Empowerment, and co-founder of Power of Hope and Young Women Empowered — arts/empowerment programs for youth in the Greater Seattle area. Her new book, written with PYE co-founder Charlie Murphy, Catch the Fire: An Art-Full Guide to Unleashing the Creative Power of Youth, Adults, and Communities is available on her website. Find out more about The New School at tns.commonweal.org.

Ted Schettler The Ecology of Breast Cancer Breast-cancer is not one disease, but many. The causes are many as well. Join TNS host Michael Lerner in conversation with Ted Schettler—a leader in the development of the “ecological paradigm of health.” His new book The Ecology of Breast Cancer offers a fresh perspective integrating stress, diet, exercise, toxic chemical exposures, EMFs, and more. Ted Schettler, M.D., M.P.H. Ted is an authority on environmental links to reproductive and developmental disorders, neurotoxicity, and other public health problems. He is the science director of the Science and Environmental Health Network, and science advisor to Health Care Without Harm, an international campaign in support of environmentally responsible health care. His books Generations at Risk: Reproductive Health and the Environment (MIT Press, 1999) and In Harm’s Way: Toxic Threats to Child Development (Greater Boston Physicians for Social Responsibility, 2000) describe what scientists know and suspect about environmental causes for a host of disorders from learning disabilities to cancer. They also describe the great uncertainties and the limits of science in establishing links between cause and effect. Find out more about The New School at tns.commonweal.org.

Lloyd Kahn The Half-Acre Homestead You want to be more self sufficient, but you only have a small piece of land. What can you do and where do you begin? The reality is that you can’t be completely self-sufficient (even with a large acreage), but self-sufficiency, like perfection, is a direction. Join host Michael Lerner for a conversation with Bolinas’ Lloyd Kahn—editor-in-chief of independent California publisher Shelter Publications and author of Tiny Homes: Simple Shelter—about the tools and techniques he’s developed or settled on during 40 years of raising food and animals, foraging, cutting firewood, and other urban homesteading activities. He’ll talk about what works and doesn’t, the tools he’s found most helpful, and why he still has chickens, but no longer goats or bees. Lloyd Kahn Lloyd is an author, photographer, and pioneer of the green building and green architecture movements. With a degree from Stanford University, he began work as a carpenter in the 1960s, eventually building four houses. Influenced by Buckminster Fuller, in 1968 he started building geodesic domes. Kahn next worked for Stewart Brand as Shelter editor for the Whole Earth Catalog. In 1970 Kahn published his first book, Domebook One, followed the next year with Domebook 2, which sold 165,000 copies. In 1971, he bought a half-acre lot in Bolinas, California, and built a shake-covered geodesic dome (later featured in Life magazine). After living in his dome for a year, Kahn decided domes did not work well: he stopped the printing of Domebook 2 and disassembled and sold his dome. He then went in search of other (non-dome) ways to build – across the United States, Ireland, and England, and the book Shelter (1973) was the result. Kahn’s next book, Tiny Homes On The Move: Wheels & Water, is set for publication in May 2014. Find out more about The New School at tns.commonweal.org.

Jaune Evans Creative Spirit: A Life of Art, Service, and Contemplative Practice Join host Michael Lerner in a conversation with Jaune Evans—poet, visual artist, and Zen priest—about life, philanthropy, and public service. Jaune Evans Jaune is a poet and visual artist. Ordained as a Buddhist priest in the Soto Zen tradition in 1983, she is now a sangha member of Everyday Zen under the guidance of Norman Fischer, Roshi. Jaune has worked in philanthropy and public service for twenty-five years. She is now managing director of Tamalpais Trust (San Rafael, California) which supports indigenous-led organizations outside of the United States in the areas of human rights, traditional knowledge and education, indigenous rights, cultural integrity, protection of sacred lands and waters, and gender equity. She previously served as managing director of Tides Foundation, executive director of Lannan Foundation, and executive director of the New Mexico Community Foundation. Find out more about The New School at tns.commonweal.org.

Malcolm Margolin 30 Years of Publishing California Culture Join TNS Host Michael Lerner in this quirky, funny, and poignant conversation with Malcolm Margolin, who is celebrating 30 years of publishing through his small, Berkeley-based indy press, Heyday Books. One of numerous thriving presses in Berkeley, Heyday had its beginnings in the tumult of the 1960s. It has not only survived but become a much lauded publisher of some of the best books on California history and culture. Margolin is also a naturalist and inveterate hiker. Malcolm Margolin Malcolm is the founder of Heyday Books, established in 1974. The mission of Heyday Books is to deepen people’s appreciation and understanding of California’s cultural, natural, historic, literary, and artistic resources. Malcolm’s vision has led the press to be especially active in publishing works by and about the California Indian community. Heyday has published more than thirty books on California Indians and since 1987 has been distributing News from Native California, a quarterly magazine devoted to California Indian culture and history. Many of the existing tribes indigenous to the state of California were nearly wiped out, due to disease, enslavement, and institutionalized genocide. In his role as publisher, Malcolm has supported the revitalization of Native language, dance, basketweaving, storytelling, and religious practice. He is the author of four books, the best known of them being The Ohlone Way: Indian Life in the San Francisco-Monterey Bay Area. Find out more about The New School at tns.commonweal.org.

Artist Tu-2 (Tu Ying-ming) and Angela Oh 108 Portraits of Compassion — The Blue Portrait Series ~Co-presented with the Institute for Art and Healing~ Join Michael Lerner in a second conversation with artist Tu-2 and his wife, attorney and Zen priest Angela Oh, about the opening of Tu-2’s show at the Commonweal Gallery and the inspiration for his work. This show is the first-ever of portraits from Tu-2’s infinite Blue Series, a series of spiritual portraits in silver pencil on blue paper that reveal the interior qualities of their subjects. Creating these portraits is an act of intense meditation, as Tu-2 works exclusively in a focused meditative state – connected to the subject’s essence, free of ego… and drawing only on the exhale. Find out more and see more artwork on Tu-2’s website. See the show at Commonweal Gallery (by appointment) through December 15, 2013. Watch a beautiful slideshow of the making of, and the inhabiting of, the exhibit at Commonweal Gallery. Tu-2 (Tu Ying-Ming) Tu-2 is a Los Angeles-based Taiwanese-born artist who has created an internationally exhibited, acclaimed body of work in fine art, photography, and film. After a decade of robust success from his Mao-ology and Timeless series, both of which garnered critical acclaim from America to Asia and Europe in the 1990s, he took a prolonged sabbatical from painting to search his soul and reset his spiritual compass. A new body of work emerged: a series of spiritual portraits in silver pencil on blue paper that reveal the interior qualities of their subjects. Creating these portraits is an act of intense meditation, as Tu-2 works exclusively in a focused meditative state – connected to the subject’s essence, free of ego… and drawing only on the exhale. The resulting works of conscious art inspire awakening, affinity, and compassion, and when viewed as a group, illustrate the infinite ways in which humanity is connected through space and time. It is a rare gift to be able to view a multimedia installation of such a large collection, due to the usual constraints of space and logistics. Angela Oh Angela is the former executive director of the Western Justice Center Foundation, a nonprofit organization that advances peaceful resolution of conflict. She has worked as an attorney, public lecturer, and teacher of Zen meditation. In 1992, Oh gained national prominence as a spokesperson and mediating force for the Asian American community during the Los Angeles riots. Thereafter, she was appointed by President Bill Clinton as one of seven Advisory Board members to the President’s Initiative on Race, which was charged with engaging the nation in a dialogue on race relations in the United States of America. Oh is also an ordained priest, Zen Buddhist—Rinzai Sect. Find out more about The New School at tns.commonweal.org.

Patrick Holden The Global Food Movement Join TNS Host Michael Lerner in a conversation with Patrick Holden—British biodynamic dairy farmer and advisor to the Prince of Wales. Patrick grew up in London but was deeply influenced by a year he spent in California at the beginning of the seventies. He returned to the UK to study biodynamic agriculture and started a community dairy farm in West Wales in 1973. It is now the longest established organic dairy farm in Wales, with a herd of 75 Ayrshire cows – the milk from which is made into raw milk cheese by his son, Sam. Patrick Holden Patrick is the founding director of the Sustainable Food Trust. Between 1995 and 2010, he was the director of the Soil Association and became a much sought-after speaker and campaigner for organic food and farming. He spearheaded a number of prominent food campaigns around BSE, pesticide residues and GM food. More recently, he was a member of the UK Government’s working group on the Foresight Report into Future of Food and Farming and is advisor to the Prince of Wales International Sustainability Unit. Find out more about The New School at tns.commonweal.org.

Francis Weller Beauty, Imagination, and the Life of the Soul Join Michael Lerner in a second conversation with author and soul activist Francis Weller about his work with people living with grief, and his studies and experience with the grief rituals and ceremonies of indigenous cultures. Carried privately, sorrow lingers in the soul, slowly pulling us below the surface of life and into the terrain of death. Learning to hold sorrow and loss close to our hearts is a deep spiritual practice, a fierce and unflinching acknowledgement of the way of the world. This spiritual practice is a tempering of the soul, a gradual deepening that moves us closer to the earth, into an intimacy with our surroundings where we lean into those we love. In his recent book, Entering the Healing Ground, Francis reveals the hidden vitality in grief, uncovered when the heart welcomes the sorrows of our life and those of the world. Francis Weller, MFT Francis is a psychotherapist, writer and soul activist who has developed a style he calls soul-centered psychotherapy, synthesizing diverse streams of thought from psychology, anthropology, mythology, alchemy, indigenous cultures and poetic traditions. His book Entering the Healing Ground: Grief, Ritual and the Soul of the World discusses creating pathways to reclaiming our indigenous soul, what psychologist Carl Jung called the “unforgotten wisdom” that resides in the heart of the psyche. Recognizing the lack of existing dialogue and the profound need for sacred ritual and grief work in his community and beyond, Weller founded WisdomBridge in Northern CA, an organization that offers educational programs that integrate the wisdom from traditional cultures with the insights and knowledge gathered from western cultures. He is currently completing his second book, A Trail on the Ground: Tracking the Ways of Our Indigenous Soul. Find out more about The New School at tns.commonweal.org.

Lazaro Pedroso Santeria (Way of the Saints) Join TNS Host Michael Lerner in conversation with Lázaro Pedroso, 79, a percussionist and singer from Havana, Cuba. For 50 years, he has been a Santero (priest in the Afro-Cuban Santeria religion). Santeria involves polyrhythms, song, and dance. There are herbal elements, musical elements, magical elements, and prayers, carried over by West African slaves. Lázaro is a professor at two major universities in Havana teaching folkloric tradition, and a sought- after priest who sings ceremonies. He has published Lazo (a translation of 72 songs sung to the spirits of deceased ancestors in the tradition of the Afro-Cuban Santeria religion), Olodumare (an essential encyclopedia of the tradition of the Afro-Cuban Santeria religion), and Patakia (a dictionary of ancient Yoruba words, translated to Spanish and then to English. Lázaro Pedroso Lázaro is a scholar of the song traditions of Yoruba-Lukumí. The Lukumi community in Cuba originated with kidnapped Africans from Oyo, Egbado, and other Yoruba areas in Nigeria and Benin, Africa. Lázaro is a respected batá player, and an elder of the Yoruba-Lukumí tradition, with a half century of experience as a santero (a mediator between people and Olodumare, the Creator) in Havana. Lázaro has been employed as professor of folkloric percussion and professor of the Escuela National de Arte, Instituto Superior de Arte, and senior adviser of the Centro Superior de la Enseñanza Artistica in Havana. He has participated as a musician in festivals of music and dance throughout Cuba. He has also traveled internationally as a leading participant in a folkloric performance tour of France in 1994, a teaching and performance excursion to Mexico in the year 1992, and in 2001 to the United States to give performances, workshops, and classes. Find out more about The New School at tns.commonweal.org.