~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.

New School Conversations

2021:04.02 - Christina Baldwin and Ann Linnea, with Host Diana Lindsay: Calling the Circle

The coming years, decades and perhaps generations, will be faced with the enormous task of walking through utterly unknown territory. We are required to develop another set of skills and ways of seeing as we descend ever further into the collective unknown. Join TNS Host Michael Lerner with Soul Activist and Author Francis Weller for a conversation about the simple things that will enable us to navigate through the Long Dark.

Photo by Amritanshu Sikdar on Unsplash

Francis Weller, MFT
Francis Weller is a psychotherapist, writer, and soul activist. He is a master of synthesizing diverse streams of thought from psychology, anthropology, mythology, alchemy, indigenous cultures and poetic traditions. Author of The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief, and The Threshold Between Loss and Revelation, (with Rashani Réa) he has introduced the healing work of ritual to thousands of people. He founded and directs WisdomBridge, an organization that offers educational programs that seek to integrate the wisdom from indigenous cultures with the insights and knowledge gathered from western poetic, psychological and spiritual traditions. His work was featured in The Sun magazine (October 2015) and the Utne Reader (Fall 2016). Francis is currently on staff at Commonweal Cancer Help Program, co-leading their week-long retreats with Michael Lerner. He is currently completing his third book, A Trail on the Ground: Living a Soulful Life and Why It Matters.

Michael Lerner 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.

2021:11.12 - Francis Weller & Host Michael Lerner - The Long Dark: Tending to the Soul

Join Host Michael Lerner for another series of spiritual biography conversations with social activist and community leader Orland Bishop. Together, they look at his life and work, working from his book, The Seventh Shrine: Meditations on the African Spiritual Journey from the Middle Passage to the Mountaintop. This four-part conversation is a follow up to the 2011 spiritual biography (also four parts) Michael hosted with Orland. And read a news article about the Sacred Hospitality of Orland Bishop on the Commonweal news pages.

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.

2023.02.04 - Orland Bishop - Part 1 - The Seventh Shrine: Spiritual Biography Continued

2023.02.04 - Orland Bishop - Part 2 - The Seventh Shrine: Spiritual Biography Continued

2023.02.04 - Orland Bishop - Part 3 - The Seventh Shrine: Spiritual Biography Continued

~Co-presented with Point Reyes Books and the Mesa Refuge~

Join TNS Host Michael Lerner in person or via webinar for a reading and conversation with writer, educator, conservationist, and activist Terry Tempest Williams. Terry has been with us at The New School twice before, and you can listen to the podcast of those events on our website or on Spotify, Apple podcasts, Soundcloud, or Amazon music.

Terry Tempest Williams
Terry is a writer and educator who focuses on our relationship with the natural world, both ecologically, politically, and spiritually.  She is the author of more than 20 books, including the environmental literature classic, Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place. Her most recent books include Erosion: Essays of Undoing; and The Moon Is Behind Us with Fazal Sheikh. She is currently writer-in-residence at the Harvard Divinity School and the 2023 recipient of the Thoreau Prize in Literature. She is also a member of the American Academy of Arts & Letters and divides her time between Utah and Massachusetts with her husband, Brooke Williams.

Host Michael Lerner
Michael is the president and co-founder of Commonweal. His principal work at Commonweal is with the Cancer Help Program, CancerChoices.org, the Omega Resilience Projects, the Collaborative on Health and the Environment, and The New School at Commonweal. He was the recipient of a MacArthur Prize Fellowship for contributions to public health in 1983 and is author of Choices in Healing: Integrating the Best of Conventional and Complementary Therapies(MIT Press).

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.

TNS: Terry Tempest Williams - Rejoice! Our Times Are Intolerable

John Lennon once described Yoko Ono as the world’s most famous unknown artist. Join us for a conversation with David Sheff—author of this intimate and revelatory biography of Yoko Ono, and the #1 New York Times bestseller, Beautiful Boy. David’s biography delves into her groundbreaking art, music, feminism, and activism. Join us for a conversation about the book, exploring how she coped under the most intense, relentless, and cynical microscope while being falsely vilified for the most heinous cultural crime imaginable: breaking up the greatest rock-and-roll band in history. Hosted by Steve Heilig, who once bowed respectfully and silently to Yoko Ono in New York City’s Central Park, and she bowed back. Co-presented with Point Reyes Books.

David Sheff
In 1980, David Sheff met Yoko and John when Sheff conducted an in-depth interview with them just months before John’s murder. In the aftermath of the killing, he and Yoko became close as she rebuilt her life, survived threats and betrayals, and went on to create groundbreaking art and music while campaigning for peace and other causes. Sheff shows us Yoko’s nine decades—one of the most unlikely and remarkable lives ever lived.

Host Steve Heilig
Steve Heilig is an editor, epidemiologist, ethicist, environmentalist, educator, and ethnomusicologist trained at five University of California campuses. He is co-editor of the Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics and of San Francisco Marin Medicine at the medical society he has long been part of. A former volunteer and director of the Zen Hospice Project, AIDS Foundation, and Planned Parenthood, he has helped improve laws and practices in reproductive and end-of-life care, drug policy, and environmental health. He is a longtime book critic and music journalist and emcee of the Sierra Nevada World Music Festival. He’s been part of Commonweal for 30 years now.

***
The New School at Commonweal is a collaborative learning community offering conversations about nature, culture, and inner life---so that we can all find meaning, meet inspiring people, and explore the beauty and grief of our changing world. 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.

#commonweal #newschoolcommonweal #yokoono #yoko

2025:03.29 - David Sheff - Yoko

Join us for conversation with author and spiritual advisor Yeye Teish and host Cassandra Ferrera, director of Commonweal’s Center for Ethical Land Transition.

Chief Iyanifa Fajembola Fatunmise (Yeye Luisah Teish)
Yeye is an American author of African and African-diaspora spiritual cultures. She also is an affluent ritualist, keynote speaker, and spiritual advisor on a global scale. Primarily known for Jambalaya: The Natural Woman’s Book of Personal Charms and Practical Rituals, a women’s spirituality classic published in 1985 by Harper & Row Publishers. This book has been translated into German, Spanish, and Dutch. She has contributed to 40 anthologies, most notably Spiritual Guidance Across Religions: A Sourcebook for Spiritual Directors and Other Professionals Providing Counsel to People of Differing Faith Traditions. As an Oshun priestess (Yoruba Goddess of Love and Sensuality), Yeye continues to officiate over spiritual retreats, rituals, and workshops that span over 40 years since her introduction into the Ifa spiritual practice.

Host Cassandra Ferrera
Becoming a person of place is Cassandra’s orienting cosmology, and her activist real estate career is informed by this path. She became a real estate agent in 2003 as a single mom needing to support her family, and was compelled to understand how market capitalism prevents so many people from a direct and secure relationship with Earth. She committed early on to learning how to support cooperative living and to find ways to decommodify and deprivatize Land. As someone with mixed European settler ancestry, Cassandra is keenly aware of the paradox of how those with white colonial privilege have often been displaced from land-based culture. Cassandra listened her way forward, guided by the generosity of spirit, mentors, and friends who would help her co-found The Center for Ethical Land Transition. Through the work of ethical land transitions, Cassandra works to transform conventional real estate practice in service to Land, cultural reunion, and reparative justice.

#yeye #oshun #yoruba #ifa #commonweal #newschoolcommonweal

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 Plants Know, but Do We? Healing Ourselves by Healing the Earth with Yeye Luisah Teish

Join us for the culminating event with our spring 2025 visiting scholar Craig Chalquist. We listen to the earth around us, talk about how our dreams reflect events in the world, discuss and practice active imagination, and practice creative writing as a continuation of engaging the imaginal figures who address us.

The New School at Commonweal is a collaborative learning community offering conversations about nature, culture, and inner life---so that we can all find meaning, meet inspiring people, and explore the beauty and grief of our changing world. 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.

Walk, Dream, Write: Writing Workshop with TNS Visiting Scholar Craig Chalquist

In this conversation, Host Michael Lerner talks with author and professor Jeffrey Kripal about his book The Secret Body: Erotic and Esoteric Currents in the History of Religions. Jeffrey considers this unusual autobiographical journey through his work as the key to much of the rest of his 13-volume oeuvre, which will be examined throughout this series of conversations.

Jeffrey J. Kripal
Jeff holds the J. Newton Rayzor Chair in Philosophy and Religious Thought at Rice University. He also co-directs the Center for Theory and Research at Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California. Jeff is the author of numerous books, most recently How to Think Impossibly: About Souls, UFOs, Time, Belief, and Everything Else. His remarkable website jefrreyjkripal.com describes his groundbreaking 13 books and his entire oeuvre. This series of conversations explores all 13 books.

Host Michael Lerner
Michael is founder and board chair emeritus of Commonweal. His principal work at Commonweal is with the Cancer Help Program, CancerChoices.org, the Omega Resilience Projects, the Collaborative on Health and the Environment, and The New School at Commonweal. He was the recipient of a MacArthur Prize Fellowship for contributions to public health in 1983 and is author of Choices in Healing: Integrating the Best of Conventional and Complementary Therapies (MIT Press).

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 Secret Body, Part 1 - Jeffrey Kripal and Host Michael Lerner

Part of the Festival of Sacred Music Series at The New School at Commonweal

Join us for the third in a series of sacred music celebrations at Commonweal, an afternoon duet of sarod and tabla with Manik Khan and Nilan Chaudhuri. 

Part of the Festival of Sacred Music Series

These concerts are presented in collaboration with long-time Commonweal friend Toby Symington, executive director of the Lloyd Symington Foundation and transpersonal astrologer. Held at the solstice and equinox, the concerts—and gatherings afterward—are designed to bring people together in a convivial setting around music which delights, inspires, and elevates the soul. From Toby:

Manik Khan has been steeped in the ancient melodies of North Indian classical music since birth. The youngest son of the legendary Sarod maestro, Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, he grew up listening to his father in countless concerts and attending his classes at the esteemed Ali Akbar College of Music in San Rafael, California. He initially studied tabla under the guidance of Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri, but the greater call to follow in the footsteps of his family brought Manik, at the age of 13, to formally train on the Sarod with his father. He spent his formative years accompanying his father on stage, touring for the last decade of his father's extensive and iconic performance career. Manik's own solo career has brought him throughout India, South America, and the United States.

Nilan Chaudhuri is a Bay Area based percussionist, educator, and performer. Initiated into the tradition of Indian Classical Music at the age of five by his father, Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri, Nilan has been performing as a tabla soloist and accompanist for nearly two decades. Drawing inspiration from his father’s innovative approach to classical tabla solo,  Nilan was determined from a young age to be a soloist. In addition to maintaining a rigorous performing schedule, Nilan teaches Tabla throughout the Bay Area as a faculty member at the Ali Akbar College of Music, in San Rafael, and as the Director of Percussion at Chitresh Das Institute, in San Mateo. He also serves as an archivist at the Ali Akbar College of Music, where the construction of a musical archive spanning 40 years of his Father’s work, is underway. It’s his lifelong mission to contribute to the preservation and enrichment of Indian Classical percussion. 

***

The New School is Commonweal’s learning community and podcast — we offer conversations, workshops, and other events in areas that Commonweal champions: finding meaning, growing health and resilience, advocating for justice, and stewarding the natural world. We make our conversations into podcasts for many thousands of listeners world wide and have been doing this since 2007.  Please like/follow our YouTube channel for access to our library of more than 400 great podcasts. tns.commonweal.org

#indianmusic #sarod #imamcollective #worldmusic

An Afternoon of Indian Classical Music with Manik Khan and Nilan Chauduri

In this conversation, Host Michael Lerner talks with author and professor Jeffrey Kripal about his book Kali’s Child: The Mystical and the Erotic in the Life and Teachings of Ramakrishna. This was a revised version of his PhD dissertation at the University of Chicago. It was greeted with acclaim in the West and with vitriol by Hindu fundamentalists. It begins Kripal's long study of homoerotic themes in world religions.

Jeffrey J. Kripal
Jeff holds the J. Newton Rayzor Chair in Philosophy and Religious Thought at Rice University. He also co-directs the Center for Theory and Research at Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California. Jeff is the author of numerous books, most recently How to Think Impossibly: About Souls, UFOs, Time, Belief, and Everything Else. His remarkable website jefrreyjkripal.com describes his groundbreaking 13 books and his entire oeuvre. This series of conversations explores all 13 books.

Host Michael Lerner
Michael is founder and board chair emeritus of Commonweal. His principal work at Commonweal is with the Cancer Help Program, CancerChoices.org, the Omega Resilience Projects, the Collaborative on Health and the Environment, and The New School at Commonweal. He was the recipient of a MacArthur Prize Fellowship for contributions to public health in 1983 and is author of Choices in Healing: Integrating the Best of Conventional and Complementary Therapies (MIT Press).

The Secret Body, Part 2  - Jeffrey Kripal and Host Michael Lerner

After years of friendship, Host Rabbi Irwin Keller sits with Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen to explore the influences of her childhood and young life on her lifelong calling as a healer and teacher. Listen closely for the story of her stint as a race car driver. Perhaps you weren’t expecting that.

Rachel Naomi Remen, MD
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, Kitchen Table Wisdom and My Grandfather’s Blessings have sold more than 2 million copies and have been translated into 21 languages. Rachel has had Crohn’s disease for more than 65 years and her work is a unique blend of the wisdom, strength, and viewpoints of both doctor and patient.

Host Rabbi Irwin Keller
Irwin has served as spiritual leader of Congregation Ner Shalom in Sonoma County since 2008, a post he took while still writing and performing with the San Francisco-based Kinsey Sicks, known as America’s Favorite Dragapella Beautyshop Quartet. His legal advocacy work included authoring the City of Chicago’s first comprehensive human rights law, in effect since 1989, and serving as the Executive Director of the AIDS Legal Referral Panel of the San Francisco Bay Area.

***
The New School is Commonweal’s learning community and podcast — we offer conversations, workshops, and other events in areas that Commonweal champions: finding meaning, growing health and resilience, advocating for justice, and stewarding the natural world. We make our conversations into podcasts for many thousands of listeners world wide and have been doing this since 2007. Please like/follow our YouTube channel for access to our library of more than 400 great podcasts. The New School at Commonweal.

Life Wisdom from a Lifelong Healer: Rachel Naomi Remen with Host Irwin Keller

In this conversation, Host Michael Lerner talks with author Jeffrey Kripal about his book Roads of Excess, Palaces of Wisdom: Eroticism and Reflexivity in the Study of Mysticism.  Roads continues and expands Kripal's exploration of homoerotics themes in world religion.  It focuses on the inner lives of five great scholars of religion and their own engagement with the homoerotic themes in the saints and traditions they studied.  Kripal also continues his own autobiographical experience with five "secret talks" interspersed with his five case studies.

Jeffrey J. Kripal
Jeff holds the J. Newton Rayzor Chair in Philosophy and Religious Thought at Rice University. He also co-directs the Center for Theory and Research at Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California. Jeff is the author of numerous books, most recently How to Think Impossibly: About Souls, UFOs, Time, Belief, and Everything Else. His remarkable website jefrreyjkripal.com describes his groundbreaking 13 books and his entire oeuvre. This series of conversations explores all 13 books.

Host Michael Lerner
Michael is founder and board chair emeritus of Commonweal. His principal work at Commonweal is with the Cancer Help Program, CancerChoices.org, the Omega Resilience Projects, the Collaborative on Health and the Environment, and The New School at Commonweal. He was the recipient of a MacArthur Prize Fellowship for contributions to public health in 1983 and is author of Choices in Healing: Integrating the Best of Conventional and Complementary Therapies (MIT Press).

***
The New School is Commonweal’s learning community and podcast — we offer conversations, workshops, and other events in areas that Commonweal champions: finding meaning, growing health and resilience, advocating for justice, and stewarding the natural world. We make our conversations into podcasts for many thousands of listeners world wide and have been doing this since 2007.  Please like/follow our YouTube channel for access to our library of more than 400 great podcasts. tns.commonweal.org

The Secret Body, Part 3 - Jeffrey Kripal and Host Michael Lerner

Co-presented with Healing Circles Global

With Host Elin Stebbins Waldal

Join us for a live conversation with Jerry Millhon---father, life partner, friend, educator, and founder of Thriving Communities---as he reflects on the life-changing impact of a devastating bike accident. In this honest and wide-ranging dialogue with guest host Elin Stebbins Waldal of Commonweal’s Healing Circles program, they’ll explore what it means to navigate unexpected change, claim strength in the face of uncertainty, and hold fast to belief when the road ahead is still being written. Together, they’ll reflecton vulnerability, perseverance, and the daily, courageous work of believing in what’s still possible.

Jerry Millhon
Jerry serves as team member for the Thriving Communities Initiative, which began in 2011 as a program of the Whidbey Institute. He was director from 2010 through 2015, focusing on common people doing uncommon work for the common good. Transformational films, storytelling and bringing people together have produced a powerful network of people over the United States who are making positive impact. Jerry previously served as executive director of the Foundation for Vascular Cures in San Francisco, California; director of the Fossil Rim Wildlife Center in Glen Rose, Texas; and headmaster of several independent schools. In August 2024, Jerry was in a bike accident that left him paralyzed from the waist down. Slowly recovering, the healing process has been an uneven and profound experience.

Host Elin Stebbins Waldal
Elin has a diverse background in sales, team management, and public speaking. She is the author of an award-winning memoir that highlights her journey of healing from domestic violence to advocating for its prevention. She is program director of Healing Circles Langley on Whidbey Island in Washington State, where she’s responsible for developing programming, supporting volunteers, community outreach, and fundraising. Committed to community engagement, she’s passionate about creating impactful programs that bring people together in ways that promote healing, learning, and overall well-being.

***

The New School is Commonweal’s learning community and podcast — we offer conversations, workshops, and other events in areas that Commonweal champions: finding meaning, growing health and resilience, advocating for justice, and stewarding the natural world. We make our conversations into podcasts for many thousands of listeners world wide and have been doing this since 2007. Please like/follow our YouTube channel for access to our library of more than 400 great podcasts. 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.

On a Roll: A Story of Change, Courage, and the Road Still Rising: Jerry Millhon

In part 4, Jeffrey Kripal and Host Michael Lerner explore Jeffrey’s remarkable history of Esalen in Esalen---The American Religion of No Religion. This astonishing cultural history of the famed retreat and conference center in Big Sur provides a panoramic insight of West Coast counter-culture over the past half century.  No one serious about understanding our times should miss it. You can find more information on his website, https://JeffreyJKripal.com.

***
The New School is Commonweal’s learning community and podcast — we offer conversations, workshops, and other events in areas that Commonweal champions: finding meaning, growing health and resilience, advocating for justice, and stewarding the natural world. We make our conversations into podcasts for many thousands of listeners world wide and have been doing this since 2007. Please like/follow our YouTube channel for access to our library of more than 400 great podcasts. tns.commonweal.org

The Secret Body, Part 4 - Jeffrey Kripal and Host Michael Lerner

Inspired by Franciscan spirituality and Joanna Macy’s body of teachings known as the Work That Reconnects, Canticle Farm in Oakland, California,  brings together more than 40 people living into the question of how we heal ourselves and the planet together. In this conversation, host Serena Bian talks with Anne and Terry Symons-Bucher, founders of Canticle Farm, about  the role that trauma healing and conflict transformation plays in building towards beloved community. Through the lived experiences of Terry and Anne, we will dive into the journeys that both have taken to steward communities across cultures in practicing love in the face of difference, conflict, and rupture. Anne served as Joanna Macy’s executive assistant for over two decades, and this conversation will also serve to honor Joanna’s life and work.

Anne and Terry Symons-Bucher are the co-founders of Canticle Farm, located in the Fruitvale District of East Oakland. Inspired by the life of Francis of Assisi, Canticle Farm is a community providing a platform for the Great Turning, one heart, one home, and one block at a time. The Great Turning—the planetary shift from an industrial-growth society to a life-sustaining society—is served by Canticle Farm through local work that fosters forgiveness in the human community and compassion for all beings. Canticle Farm primarily focuses on the poor and marginalized as those who most bear the burden of social and planetary degradation, as well as being those who are first able to perceive the need for the Great Turning. Rooted in spiritual practice, Canticle Farm manifests this commitment by engaging in the Work That Reconnects, integral nonviolence, gift economy, restorative justice practices, urban permaculture, and other disciplines necessary for regenerating community in the 21st Century. Anne and Terry are the parents of five children.


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 Courage to Love - Anne and Terry Symens-Bucher with Host Serena Bian

~ The Japanese dialogue in this English language video podcast has been shortened for timing purposes. ~

The way of the Buddha is more a philosophy than a religion. It is a path, not a faith. Its core precepts describe a practice that leads to an experience.  Arnold Toynbee once said that the coming of the dharma to the West might prove the greatest event of the 20th century.  Shodo Harada Roshi has been described as a teacher's teacher of Zen Buddhism. He is a longtime friend of Commonweal. Come join us for a unique and precious experience of the Buddhist truth, the Buddhist way, and the Buddhist community.

Shodo Harada Roshi
Shodo Harada Roshi is Abbot of Sogen-ji, a 300-year-old Rinzai Zen monastery in Okayama, Japan. He is also Abbot of Tahoma Monastery on Whidbey Island north of Seattle. He founded Enso House, a hospice affiliated with Tahoma, where his students attend the dying. He is a master of Japanese calligraphy, and has conducted demonstrations at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco and the Metropolitan Museum in New York. His translator and colleague, Priscilla Daichi Storandt, is co-abbot at Tahoma and a senior teacher in her own right. Find out more on his website.

Host Michael Lerner
Michael is the president and co-founder of Commonweal. His principal work at Commonweal is with the Cancer Help Program, CancerChoices.org, the Omega Resilience Projects, the Collaborative on Health and the Environment, and The New School at Commonweal. He was the recipient of a MacArthur Prize Fellowship for contributions to public health in 1983 and is author of Choices in Healing: Integrating the Best of Conventional and Complementary Therapies (MIT Press).

***
The New School is Commonweal’s learning community and podcast — we offer conversations, workshops, and other events in areas that Commonweal champions: finding meaning, growing health and resilience, advocating for justice, and stewarding the natural world. We make our conversations into podcasts for many thousands of listeners world wide and have been doing this since 2007.  

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 Way of the Buddha - Shodo Harada Roshi and Host Michael Lerner

Part of the Festival of Sacred Music Series

The harp has been loved all over the world for its healing powers since ancient times and is considered a bridge between Heaven and Earth in many cultures. Join us for a special concert of original sacred music to free your imagination and open your heart to the celestial sounds of the Celtic harp. Christine Tulis will share songs inspired by the poetry of Rumi, other mystical saints, and her personal inner experiences. Her music is deeply devotional and blends traditional Celtic styles with Medieval, Renaissance, and Middle Eastern influences. Join us for the concert, followed by a reception with pre-dinner snacks and drinks.

Christine Tulis
Christine had a life-changing, spiritual experience the first time she heard the Celtic harp live at the age of 22. She discovered the mystical poetry of Rumi shortly thereafter and felt called to combine the sound of the harp with poetic spiritual imagery for healing. Christine has performed widely all over the U.S. as well as at two United Nations events, Chartres Cathedral in France, Grace Cathedral, and Harvard University. She self produced three recordings, including PORTAL which won a spiritual music award from the Moondance International Film Festival in Boulder, Colorado. Christine is also healing arts practitioner and is the founder of Sound Temple Healing Arts in San Rafael, California. https://christinetulis.com

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.

Opening the Gate of the Heart - Christine Tulis

Join us along the wild coast of California, for an afternoon of dialogue, community, and ritual with author and soul activist, Francis Weller, and host of the All There Is podcast and CNN anchor, Anderson Cooper. Attendees gathered on the sacred grounds of Commonweal, a site of healing and cultural renewal for 50 years.* 

The day included a conversation between Francis and Anderson, a time for questions, a simple communal grief ritual, and closing thoughts. The central work of grief, loss, and community in tenuous times was explored. The event was a fundraiser for Commonweal's Cancer Help Program, co-presented with North Atlantic Books and Point Reyes Books.

*This is the traditional lands of the Coast Miwok people

Anderson Cooper
Anderson is a journalist working for CNN and CBS’ 60 Minutes. He also writes, produces, and hosts a podcast “All There Is,” a deeply personal exploration of loss and grief, which will soon be starting its fourth season.

Francis Weller
Francis is a writer and soul activist who has worked as a psychotherapist for 40 years. He’s the author of many books and projects including the beloved grief text, The Wild Edge of Sorrow. Francis is currently on staff at Commonweal Cancer Help Program. His most recent collection, In the Absence of the Ordinary, was released in August.

***
The New School is Commonweal’s learning community and podcast—we offer conversations, workshops, and other events in areas that Commonweal champions: finding meaning, growing health and resilience, advocating for justice, and stewarding the natural world. We make our conversations into podcasts for many thousands of listeners world wide and have been doing this since 2007. Please like/follow our YouTube channel for access to our library of more than 400 great podcasts.

Tending the Soul in Uncertain Times - Francis Weller and Anderson Cooper

Join Professor Arthur Colman in conversation with Host Michael Lerner about his life and work using Jungian depth psychology as a foundation to bridge individual psychological understanding with group dynamics.


Arthur D. Colman, MD
Arthur is a psychiatrist trained at Harvard College and Medical School and U.C. Medical Center, San Francisco where he is Clinical Professor at the Department of Psychiatry. He is a depth analyst trained at the C.G. Jung Institute in San Francisco where he is a member, founder and first editor of Connected Works, and former chair of its review committee. The author of nine books on the human life cycle, healing, and scapegoating, he has contributed to many books, professional journals and popular publications on these and other subjects including ecstatic relationships, group consultation, leadership, the psychology of war, and the psychological aspects of music compositions and musical composers. He is also a coeditor of the influential Group Relations Reader I and II and a past president of the A.K. Rice Institute which publishes and distributes them. He currently divides his time between clinical practice, analysis and consultation to leaders and organizations here and abroad.
 
Host Michael Lerner
Michael is the president and co-founder of Commonweal. His principal work at Commonweal is with the Cancer Help Program, CancerChoices.org, the Omega Resilience Projects, the Collaborative on Health and the Environment, and The New School at Commonweal. He was the recipient of a MacArthur Prize Fellowship for contributions to public health in 1983 and is author of Choices in Healing: Integrating the Best of Conventional and Complementary Therapies (MIT Press).

***
The New School is Commonweal’s learning community and podcast — we offer conversations, workshops, and other events in areas that Commonweal champions: finding meaning, growing health and resilience, advocating for justice, and stewarding the natural world. We make our conversations into podcasts for many thousands of listeners world wide and have been doing this since 2007. Please like/follow our YouTube channel for access to our library of more than 400 great podcasts. tns.commonweal.org

A Life Immersed in the Imaginal | Arthur Colman  and Host Michael Lerner

~ Integrating Self Through Practice~

Jeanine M. Canty, PhD, was Visiting Scholar at The New School at Commonweal in October 2025. She is a visionary scholar whose groundbreaking work illuminates the profound connections between consciousness, thought, and our relationship with the natural world. Her teaching weaves together social justice, ecological wisdom, and transformation. 

Within this introductory talk, her first event at The New School as Visiting Scholar, we dive into the dualities within the western human’s psyche in order to reclaim our ecological and transpersonal identities and to access pathways for healing. 

Jeanine M. Canty, PhD
Jeanine is a professor of transformative studies at CIIS, telecommuting from Boulder, CO. Formerly the chair of environmental studies at Naropa University, she continues to guest teach at Naropa and at Pacifica Graduate Institute. A lover of nature, justice, and contemplative practice, her teaching intersects issues of social and ecological justice, ecopsychology, and the process of worldview expansion and change. She is author of Returning the Self to Nature: Undoing Our Collective Narcissism and Healing Our Planet and her most recent edited book is an expanded, second edition of Ecological and Social Healing: Multicultural Women’s Voices (2025).

Jeanine M. Canty, PhD
Jeanine is a professor of transformative studies at CIIS, telecommuting from Boulder, CO. Formerly the chair of environmental studies at Naropa University, she continues to guest teach at Naropa and at Pacifica Graduate Institute. A lover of nature, justice, and contemplative practice, her teaching intersects issues of social and ecological justice, ecopsychology, and the process of worldview expansion and change. She is author of Returning the Self to Nature: Undoing Our Collective Narcissism and Healing Our Planet and her most recent edited book is an expanded, second edition of Ecological and Social Healing: Multicultural Women’s Voices (2025).

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The New School is Commonweal’s learning community and podcast — we offer conversations, workshops, and other events in areas that Commonweal champions: finding meaning, growing health and resilience, advocating for justice, and stewarding the natural world. We make our conversations into podcasts for many thousands of listeners world wide and have been doing this since 2007. Please like/follow our YouTube channel for access to our library of more than 400 great podcasts. 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.

Reclaiming Wildness |  Jeanine M. Canty

~Ecopsychology, Depth Psychology, and Ecological Healing~

Jeanine M. Canty was Visiting Scholar at The New School at Commonweal in October 2025. She is a visionary scholar whose groundbreaking work illuminates the profound connections between consciousness, thought, and our relationship with the natural world. Her teaching weaves together social justice, ecological wisdom, and transformation. 

During this second event with Jeanine, we will look at our various notions of self—ecological, multicultural, and transpersonal—and engage in some experiences and reflections that embody this. Host Susan Grelock Yusem will be in conversation with Jeanine for the first hour, followed by a half hour of experiential work with Jeanine.

Jeanine M. Canty, PhD
Jeanine is a professor of transformative studies at CIIS, telecommuting from Boulder, CO. Formerly the chair of environmental studies at Naropa University, she continues to guest teach at Naropa and at Pacifica Graduate Institute. A lover of nature, justice, and contemplative practice, her teaching intersects issues of social and ecological justice, ecopsychology, and the process of worldview expansion and change. She is author of Returning the Self to Nature: Undoing Our Collective Narcissism and Healing Our Planet and her most recent edited book is an expanded, second edition of Ecological and Social Healing: Multicultural Women’s Voices (2025).


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.

Bridging Mind and Nature | Jeanine Canty

Peter Kingsley
Finding What Is Real
Join Michael Lerner in conversation with author, researcher, and professor Peter Kingsley about spirituality, culture, and philosophy.


Peter Kingsley
Peter is internationally recognized for his groundbreaking work on the origins of western spirituality, philosophy, and culture. He is the author of the books Ancient Philosophy, Mystery and Magic; Empedocles and Pythagorean Tradition; In the Dark Places of Wisdom; Reality; and A Story Waiting to Pierce You.

Peter emigrated with his wife to the United States in 2002, and teaches and writes in North Georgia. He is currently a Research Associate at Emory University in Atlanta as well as an honorary professor both at the University of New Mexico and at Simon Fraser University in Canada. Find out more about Peter on his website.

Find out more about The New School at tns.commonweal.org.

2007.06.21:  Peter Kingsley with Michael Lerner - Finding What Is Real

Peter Kingsley
The Great Taboo: A Story Waiting to Happen
Michael Lerner talks with Peter Kinsgley, an internationally recognized writer and lecturer, about his groundbreaking work on the origins of western spirituality, philosophy and culture. Through his writings as well as lectures he speaks straight to the heart and has helped to transform many people’s understanding not only of the past, but of who they are.


Peter Kingsley, PhD
Peter is the author of four books which, in the space of only a few years, have exerted the profoundest and most far-reaching influence outside as well as inside academia. His new book, about the forgotten connections between Mongolia, Tibet and the origins of western civilization, became available in November 2010.

After graduating with honors from the University of Lancaster, England, in 1975, Peter Kingsley went on to receive the degree of Master of Letters from King’s College Cambridge before being awarded a PhD by the University of London. He has worked together with many of the most prominent figures in the fields of classics and anthropology, philosophy and religious studies, ancient civilizations and the history of both healing and science.

Find out more about The New School at tns.commonweal.org.

2011.01.21:  Peter Kingsley - The Great Taboo: A Story Waiting to Happen

Orland Bishop
Spiritual Biography
In this remarkable series of four interconnected conversations, we trace Bishop’s spiritual biography from his childhood in Guyana to his teen years in Brooklyn, his college years in California, and the subsequent conscious emergence of his shamanic journey. These conversations with Michael Lerner took place in the presence of a small group of friends at The New School at Commonweal.

Orland Bishop combines an extensive study of medicine, naturopathy, psychology and indigenous cosmologies with a deep dedication to human rights advocacy and cultural renewal. He was a research fellow at the Center for the Study of Violence at Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science in Los Angeles and has consulted for many human development organizations in the United States and internationally.

Orland is co-founder and Executive Director of ShadeTree Multicultural Foundation in Los Angeles, California, a unique organization devoted to the mentoring of young people and the creation of communities to support them. Through ShadeTree, Orland has pioneered approaches to urban truces and working with at-risk youth that combine indigenous wisdom and practices with contemporary methodologies designed to mentor the human potential and create intentional communities. He has developed processes that support people to come into deeper inner and collective agreements in order to heal violence and social exclusion. Orland is currently focusing on understanding the deeper meaning money as a pathway to designing new economic forms that support healthy community life.

Orland Bishop
Orland Bishop is the founder and director of ShadeTree Multicultural Foundation in Los Angeles, where he has pioneered approaches to urban truces and mentors at-risk youth that combine new ideas with traditional ways of knowledge. ShadeTree serves as an intentional community of mentors, elders, teachers, artists, healers, and advocates for the healthy development of children and youth. Orland’s work in healing and human development is framed by an extensive study of medicine, naturopathy, psychology and indigenous cosmologies, primarily those of South and West Africa.

Find out more about The New School at tns.commonweal.org.

2011.08.17:  Orland Bishop - Spiritual Biography Part 1

2011.08.17:  Orland Bishop - Spiritual Biography Part 3

2011.08.17:  Orland Bishop - Spiritual Biography Part 4

Enneagram is an archetypal depth psychology. It has enormous power to deepen our insight into ourselves and others. As a follow-up to our last TNS conversation with author and enneagram expert Beatrice Chestnut, we offered a three-part series of workshops to explore enneagram further in depth. Each workshop features a three- to five-person panel of enneagram “types.”

This part three of the series featured the 5, 6 & 7 types—the Head Center Types. This day was recorded in 5 parts. Find all of the videos on our YouTube site.  https://www.youtube.com/user/NewSchoolCommonweal

2019:02.24 - Type 7 Panel from Day 3 (Types 5, 6 & 7)Enneagram Workshops

Please join TNS Host Steve Heilig for a conversation with physician BJ Miller and writer Shoshana Berger about their new collaboration: A Beginners Guide to the End-–Practical Advice for Living Life and Facing Death.

BJ Miller is a hospice and palliative medicine physician and educator and has worked in all settings of care: hospital, clinic, residential facility, and home.  His career has been dedicated to moving healthcare towards a human-centered approach and he speaks on this topic both nationally and internationally. He is a Mesa Refuge alum, has been featured in the New York Times, and interviewed by Oprah Winfrey, Tim Ferriss, Krista Tippett, and GQ Magazine.

Shoshana Berger
Shoshana Berger is the editorial director at IDEO, where she has worked on projects ranging from the end of life to modern Judaism to school lunch. She was a senior editor at WIRED, and has written for the New York Times, Fast Company, TIME, WIRED, Popular Science, Marie Claire, and Quartz. She cofounded the DIY design magazine, ReadyMade, later turning it into a book, Ready Made: How to Make (Almost) Everything.

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.

2020:02.01 - BJ Miller & Shoshana Berger - A Beginners Guide to the End

Join TNS Host Steve Heilig in this webinar conversation with Marvin Mutch, Ladybird Morgan, and Sandra Fish—co-founders of the Humane Prison Hospice Project, a new program at Commonweal. They will share inspirational, some might say revolutionary, firsthand accounts of prisoners finding great light and healing in the most unlikely of places.

Marvin Mutch
Marvin is spokesperson, liaison with prison officials, and advocate. Marvin’s bio is an extraordinary one. He was released from prison February 17, 2016, after serving 41 years on a wrongful conviction suffered in 1975. In 2008, Marvin was injured and sent to California Medical Facility for treatment, while there he became a fervent supporter of California’s only full-service prison hospice program. Marvin saw the program shepherd no less than ten of his dying brothers while there. The number of programs and advocacy work Marvin created while incarcerated are too numerous to mention here. You can find out much more  KQED documentary, The Trials of Marvin Mutch. Marvin was released through the combined efforts of USC’s Post Conviction Justice Project and The Golden Gate University Innocence Project.

Ladybird Morgan
Ladybird Morgan, RN, MSW, executive director and co-founder of the Humane Prison Hospice Project, has been working in end-of-life care and on the frontlines of sexual violence as a registered nurse, clinical social worker, and educator for 20+ years. She has worked with many organizations including The Zen Hospice Project, Hospice By The Bay, Marin General Hospital and Doctors Without Borders (MSF). At Commonweal, Ladybird supports the work of various projects including the Cancer Help Program and Healing Circles.

Sandra Fish
Also a co-founder of the Humane Prison Hospice Project, Sandra is an actor, writer, and caregiver, with decades of passion for prison reform and end of life support. She taught in Riker’s Island Prison, worked as an employment specialist for newly released prisoners in Manhattan, attended ex-prisoner support groups, sat in on parole hearings, and visited SingSing to observe classrooms there.  Sandra volunteers inside San Quentin assisting with the Brothers Keepers and Compassionate End of Life Training.

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.

2020:06.03 - Marvin Mutch - The Humane Prison Hospice Project: Redemption Songs and Stories

The New School presents conversations, book signings, art, and lectures with thought and action leaders of our time. We are a learning community of 4,000 people in the Bay Area and around the world dedicated to learning what matters. 

TNS focuses on the emergent, seeking out the thought and action leaders who are bringing discussion, beauty, and change to the world. We present events and podcast them in many areas: arts and sciences, health and the environment, and inner life. We follow streams of inquiry, including our End-of-Life Conversations, and series on Resilience, Archetypal Psychology, and Healing Circles.

The New School at Commonweal

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