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.

New School Conversations

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

Join us for the next stories and music event in our series with master storyteller Rachel Naomi Remen, MD, and musician/songwriter Karen Drucker. See all of the music and story events with Rachel and Karen on our website, https://tns.commonweal.org , listen on  Soundcloud, YouTube, or find us on Apple podcasts and Spotify.

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.

Karen Drucker
Karen’s message is all about healing and love--whether singing one of her positive message songs or sharing stories that are funny, inspiring, and heart opening. She is a keynote speaker, women’s retreat facilitator, and entertainer who has recorded 22 CDs of her inspirational music. Karen is also the author of the best selling book Let Go of the Shore: Songs & Stories To Set The Spirit Free. Her chants and songs are used around the world and often help people deal with illness and loss, or help them fill the need to feel more centered for the day. Karen’s intention is to make a difference by using her music to open hearts and share a message of hope, acceptance, and love. Find out more about Karen on her website: karendrucker.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.

2023:05.16 - Rachel Naomi Remen & Karen Drucker: Yo Mama! Celebrating Mother’s Day

Join Oren Slozberg, Executive Director of Commonweal, in a spiritual biography conversation with Host Michael Lerner.

Oren Slozberg
Oren is the executive director of Commonweal and the co-director of Healing Circles Global. He has been a senior program developer in the fields of education, youth development, and the arts for more than 30 years. Oren’s program work explores the intersection of dialogue, cognition, creativity, and community. Through work in different communities, he seeks to deepen our exploration of complex issues in our world—issues that Commonweal programs confront daily. Oren has helped to develop new programs at Commonweal including the Power of Hope summer camp for teenagers, the Fall Gathering, Taproot Gathering, and more.

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.

2023:06.14 - Oren Slozberg - A Spiritual Biography

Join us for a celebration of autumn, a time to harvest all the seeds we’ve planted in your life, aging, etc… the next stories and music event in our series with master storyteller Rachel Naomi Remen, MD, and musician/songwriter Karen Drucker. See all of the music and story events with Rachel and Karen on our website, listen on  Soundcloud, watch on YouTube, or find us on Apple podcasts and Spotify.

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.

Karen Drucker
Karen’s message is all about healing and love--whether singing one of her positive message songs or sharing stories that are funny, inspiring, and heart opening. She is a keynote speaker, women’s retreat facilitator, and entertainer who has recorded 22 CDs of her inspirational music. Karen is also the author of the best selling book Let Go of the Shore: Songs & Stories To Set The Spirit Free. Her chants and songs are used around the world and often help people deal with illness and loss, or help them fill the need to feel more centered for the day. Karen’s intention is to make a difference by using her music to open hearts and share a message of hope, acceptance, and love. Find out more about Karen on her website: karendrucker.com

#newschoolcommonweal #commonweal #healingstories #rachelremen #rachelnaomiremen #karendrucker #liberation #livingfree

2023:09.19 Rachel Remen & Karen Drucker: Autumn Celebrating the Time of Harvest with Stories & Song

Join us for another in the Spiritual Biography series, this time with Cynthia Li, MD. Cynthia’s experiences as both doctor and patient through an internal “dark night of the soul” and a medical condition affecting her immune system point to tools for building personal immunity and resilience in the face of crises. She has been deeply involved with Commonweal’s work in environmental health, Healing Circles, and Rachel Remen’s Healer’s Art program at UCSF School of Medicine, which began at Commonweal. Listen to Michael’s past conversations with Cynthia here:

Cynthia Li, MD
Cynthia is a physician and author whose personal healing journey through a disabling autoimmune condition took her from public health in underserved populations, to integrative and functional medicine. For the past 15 years, she has studied and practiced with functional medicine experts, acupuncturists, and qigong masters, weaving together cutting-edge science and the art of intuition. She is the author of Brave New Medicine: A Doctor’s Unconventional Path to Healing Her Autoimmune Illness, as well as a free e-booklet, How to Strengthen Your Inner Shield: Science-Based, Integrative Strategies for a Healthy Immune System During a Pandemic.

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.

2023:10.09 - Cynthia Li, MD: Brave New Medicine: A Spiritual Biography

~ Co-presented with CancerChoices ~ 

Join Host Michael Lerner in virtual conversation with Keith Block, MD--long regarded as the “father” of integrative oncology--about his model for integrative cancer treatment. You can find past recordings of Keith at The New School on our website.

Keith I. Block, MD

Keith combines cutting-edge conventional treatments with personalized and scientifically-based innovative, complementary and nutraceutical therapies. In 1980, he co-founded the Block Center for Integrative Cancer Treatment in Skokie, Illinois, the first such facility in North America. Their model of care continues to set the standard for the practice of a comprehensive, individualized approach to cancer treatment in the United States.

In addition to his clinical practice, Dr. Block is the founding editor-in-chief of the peer-reviewed journal, Integrative Cancer Therapies. He is also the scientific director of the Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and Education, where he has collaborated with colleagues at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, and Bar Ilan University in Israel. In 2005, he was appointed to the National Cancer Institute’s Physician Data Query (PDQ) Cancer CAM Editorial Board, on which he continues to serve today. Dr. Block has more than 150 publications in scientific journals and books relevant to nutritional and integrative oncology. He is also the author of Life Over Cancer, published in April, 2009.

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.

2023:10.19 - Keith Block, MD: Life Over Cancer: A New Model of Integrative Cancer Trea

~Co-presented by The New School and the Racial Healing Initiative at Commonweal’s Retreat Center Collaboration~

Our indigenous communities and leaders hold ancient wisdom that offers profound insights into the challenges facing us today. As we navigate the cultural, climate, and ecosystem shifts happening on our planet now, we need the wisdom of many voices. To truly hear and value these diverse voices, we need to continue to heal the racial divisions and wounds in our cultures and communities.

In part two of this series, join Host Brenda Salgado as she speaks with Sherri Mitchell, a Penobscot activist, author, and Indigenous attorney. Presented in English with a live Spanish-language translator.

Photo: Stefano Girardelli, Unsplash

Sherri Mitchell
Sherri (Weh’na Ha’mu Kwasset) is an Indigenous attorney, activist, and author from the Penobscot Nation. She is an alumna of the American Indian Ambassador Program and the Udall Native American Congressional Internship Program. Sherri is the author of Sacred Instructions; Indigenous Wisdom for Living Spirit-Based Change and a contributor to eleven anthologies, including All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis, and Resetting Our Future: Empowering Climate Action in the United States. Sherri is the executive director of the Land Peace Foundation, serves as a trustee for the American Indian Institute, an Indigenous Advisory Council member for Nia Tero’s Indigenous Land Guardianship Program, and a board member for the Post Carbon Institute.

Host Brenda Salgado
Brenda Salgado is the program director of the Racial Healing Initiative, a program of the Retreat Center Collaboration at Commonweal. She is a spiritual and mindfulness author, speaker, wisdom keeper, healer, ceremonialist, and organizational consultant. She has 25 years of experience in transformative leadership development, nonprofit management, traditional healing and ceremony, mindful leadership training, women’s health, and social justice. Brenda is in the process of establishing the Nepantla Land Trust, and the Nepantla Center for Healing and Renewal. She is author of Real World Mindfulness for Beginners: Navigate Daily Life One Practice at a Time and has received training from elders in traditional medicine and healing ceremony in Purepecha, Xochimilco, Toltec and other indigenous lineages. She holds degrees in biology, developmental psychology, and animal behavior.

#indigenoushealing #racialhealing #retreatcentercollaborative #earthhealing, #indigenouslens #newschoolcommonweal #commonweal #conversationsthatmatter

2023:11.14 - Sherri Mitchell - Restoring the Heart of Our Relationships: Racial and Earth Healing

~Co-presented by The New School and the Racial Healing Initiative at Commonweal’s Retreat Center Collaboration~

¿Qué significaría "volverse nativos" al lugar en el que estamos ahora? ¿Cómo viviríamos si lo fuéramos? Nuestras comunidades y líderes indígenas tienen una sabiduría antigua que ofrece una visión profunda sobre los desafíos a los que nos enfrentamos hoy en día. A medida que navegamos los cambios culturales, climáticos y de ecosistemas que están ocurriendo en nuestro planeta en la actualidad, necesitamos oír la sabiduría y las ideas que descienden de estas tradiciones. Para poder escuchar y verdaderamente valorar estas ideas, necesitamos continuar cicatrizando las heridas de la división racial y dentro de nuestras culturas y comunidades.

En la segunda parte de esta serie, súmate a la presentadora Brenda Salgado en su charla con Sherri Mitchell, activista Penobscot, autora y abogada Indígena. Hablarán sobre historias que se transmiten, historias que nos transmiten, historias que queremos lanzar en este momento y cómo podemos nutrir narrativas para el futuro. Presentada en inglés con interpretación simultánea.

Sherri Mitchell, o Weh'na Ha'mu Kwasset, es abogada Indígena, activista y autora, oriunda de la Nación Penobscot. Es egresada del Programa de Embajadores Indios Americanos y del Programa de Pasantías del Congreso Udall de Nativos Americanos. Sherri es la autora de Sacred Instructions (Instrucciones Sagradas); Indigenous Wisdom for Living Spirit-Based Change (Sabiduría Indígena para el Cambio Radicado en el Espíritu).  Es colaboradora en once antologías, incluyendo All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis (Lo único que se Puede Salvaguardar: La Verdad, La Valentía y Las Soluciones en la Crisis Climatologica), así también como Resetting Our Future: Empowering Climate Action in the United States (Reconfigurar Nuestro Futuro: Potenciar las Medidas en El Campo del Clima).  Sherri es la Directora Ejecutiva de la Fundación para la Paz de la Tierra, se desempeña como Fideicomisaria del Instituto Indígena Americano, miembro del Consejo Asesor Indígena del Programa Tutela de Tierras Indígenas de Nia Tero e integrante de la Junta del Instituto Post Carbono.

Brenda Salgado es la directora del programa Iniciativa para la Cicatrización Racial en el Centro de Colaboración para Retiros de Commonweal.  Ella es autora espiritual y de concientización, oradora, guardiana de la sabiduría, sanadora, cabeza de ceremonial y Consultora sobre Organizaciones. Tiene 25 años de experiencia en desarrollo de Liderazgo Transformador, Gestión sin Fines de Lucro, Curación y Ceremonial Tradicionales, Capacitación en Liderazgo Consciente, Salud de la Mujer y Justicia Social. Brenda está en proceso de establecer el Nepantla Land Trust (El Fideicomiso de Tierra Nepantla) y el Nepantla Center for Healing and Renewal (El Centro Nepantla para la Sanación y Renovación). Es autora de Real World Mindfulness for Beginners: Navigate Daily Life One Practice at a Time (La Concientización en el Mundo Real para Principiantes: Cómo se Practica Paso a Paso).  Recibió instrucción de sabios ancianos sobre medicina tradicional y ceremonial de curación en el linaje Purépecha, Xochimilco, Tolteca y otros linajes indígenas. Tiene títulos universitarios en Biología, Psicología del Desarrollo y Comportamiento Animal.

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.


#indigenoushealing #racialhealing #retreatcentercollaborative #earthhealing, #indigenouslens #newschoolcommonweal #commonweal #conversationsthatmatter

2023:11.14 - Sherri Mitchell - Restaurando el corazón de nuestras relaciones

Host Michael Lerner joins Commonweal board member Katherine Fulton in conversation with Graham Leicester, who has pioneered new ways to navigate and even thrive in this complex era.

Graham Leicester
Graham is the founding Director of International Futures Forum (IFF), an organization based in Edinburgh, Scotland, with a mission to enable people, communities and organizations to flourish in uncertain and powerful times. He is a former diplomat, now a writer, theorist, and practitioner with over twenty years experience supporting people making a difference in the face of all that stands in the way of making a difference.

‌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.

2023:11.02 - Graham Leicester - Rising to the Occasion: Practical Hope in a Global Poly

Enjoy another healing hour of stories and music with master storyteller Rachel Naomi Remen, MD, and musician/songwriter Karen Drucker. This month, they offer stories and songs for the Thanksgiving Holiday.

See all of the music and story events with Rachel and Karen on our on our website, listen on Soundcloud, watch on YouTube, or find us on Apple podcasts and Spotify.

Photo by Alisa Anton_ on _Unsplash

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.

Karen Drucker
Karen’s message is all about healing and love--whether singing one of her positive message songs or sharing stories that are funny, inspiring, and heart opening. She is a keynote speaker, women’s retreat facilitator, and entertainer who has recorded 22 CDs of her inspirational music. Karen is also the author of the best selling book Let Go of the Shore: Songs & Stories To Set The Spirit Free. Her chants and songs are used around the world and often help people deal with illness and loss, or help them fill the need to feel more centered for the day. Karen’s intention is to make a difference by using her music to open hearts and share a message of hope, acceptance, and love. Find out more about Karen on her website: karendrucker.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.

2023:11.21 - Rachel Naomi Remen & Karen Drucker - The Practice of Gratitude: Finding Meaning

~Co-presented by The New School and the Racial Healing Initiative at Commonweal’s Retreat Center Collaboration~

Our indigenous communities and leaders hold ancient wisdom that offers profound insights into the challenges facing us today. As we navigate the cultural, climate, and ecosystem shifts happening on our planet now, we need the wisdom of many voices. To truly hear and value these diverse voices, we need to continue to heal the racial divisions and wounds in our cultures and communities. In part 3 of this series, join Host Brenda Salgado as she speaks with Pat McCabe, a Dine elder and ceremonialist focused on deep social healing. Presented in English with a live Spanish-language translator.

Photo: Stefano Girardelli, Unsplash

Pat McCabe (Dine)
Pat McCabe, or Woman Stands Shining, is a Native American elder whose work explores the meeting point between ceremony and deep social healing. Pat was born into the Dine (Navajo) nation, and has also received a spiritual training with the Lakota tradition. She travels and teaches widely on the indigenous science of Thriving Life. Her work seeks to revivify human knowledge and meaning-making, by restoring the holistic knowledge practices known to indigenous people.  “To be the disembodied intellect and observer rather than passionate participant, and harmonious co-Creator, has led to a great mis-understanding of who we are, where we are, and how it is.”

Host Brenda Salgado
Brenda Salgado is the program director of the Racial Healing Initiative, a program of the Retreat Center Collaboration at Commonweal. She is a spiritual and mindfulness author, speaker, wisdom keeper, healer, ceremonialist, and organizational consultant. She has 25 years of experience in transformative leadership development, nonprofit management, traditional healing and ceremony, mindful leadership training, women’s health, and social justice. Brenda is in the process of establishing the Nepantla Land Trust, and the Nepantla Center for Healing and Renewal. She is author of Real World Mindfulness for Beginners: Navigate Daily Life One Practice at a Time and has received training from elders in traditional medicine and healing ceremony in Purepecha, Xochimilco, Toltec and other indigenous lineages. She holds degrees in biology, developmental psychology, and animal behavior.

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.

#indigenoushealing #racialhealing #retreatcentercollaborative #earthhealing, #indigenouslens #newschoolcommonweal #commonweal #conversationsthatmatter #racialhealinginsitute

2023:12.05 - Pat McCabe - Restoring the Heart of Our Relationships: Racial and Earth Healing

~Co-presented by The New School and the Racial Healing Initiative at Commonweal’s Retreat Center Collaboration~

¿Qué significaría "volverse nativos" al lugar en el que estamos ahora? ¿Cómo viviríamos si lo fuéramos? Nuestras comunidades y líderes indígenas tienen una sabiduría antigua que ofrece una visión profunda sobre los desafíos a los que nos enfrentamos hoy en día. A medida que navegamos los cambios culturales, climáticos y de ecosistemas que están ocurriendo en nuestro planeta en la actualidad, necesitamos oír la sabiduría y las ideas que descienden de estas tradiciones. Para poder escuchar y verdaderamente valorar estas ideas, necesitamos continuar cicatrizando las heridas de la división racial y dentro de nuestras culturas y comunidades.

En la tercera parte de esta serie, únete a la anfitriona Brenda Salgado en su charla con Pat McCabe, figura líder Diné y cabeza de ceremonial. Está enfocada en la cicatrización social profunda. Hablarán sobre la labor ceremonial que realizaron juntas en los recientes eventos de Three Black Men (Tres Hombres Negros) ofrecidos a través del Centro de Sanación y Liberación de Commonweal. También y ampliarán el entendimiento de la conexión entre la cicatrización racial y la curación de la tierra. Presentada en inglés con interpretación simultánea.

Pat McCabe, o Woman Stands Shining (Mujer que Resplandece), es respetada líder nativa americana cuyo trabajo explora el punto de encuentro entre el ceremonial y la sanación social profunda. Pat nació en la nación Diné (Navajo), y también recibió preparación espiritual en la tradición Lakota. Viaja y enseña sobre la ciencia indígena de la Vida Floreciente (Thriving Life). Su labor procura renovar el conocimiento humano y la creación de significado mediante la restauración de las prácticas conocidas por los pueblos indígenas sobre la comprensión integral. "Ser intelecto y observador incorpóreos en lugar de participante apasionado y co-Creador armonioso, nos ha llevado a un gran malentendido sobre quiénes somos, dónde estamos y cómo son las cosas”.

Brenda Salgado es la directora del programa Iniciativa para la Cicatrización Racial en el Centro de Colaboración para Retiros de Commonweal.  Ella es autora espiritual y de concientización, oradora, guardiana de la sabiduría, sanadora, cabeza de ceremonial y Consultora sobre Organizaciones. Tiene 25 años de experiencia en desarrollo de Liderazgo Transformador, Gestión sin Fines de Lucro, Curación y Ceremonial Tradicionales, Capacitación en Liderazgo Consciente, Salud de la Mujer y Justicia Social. Brenda está en proceso de establecer el Nepantla Land Trust (El Fideicomiso de Tierra Nepantla) y el Nepantla Center for Healing and Renewal (El Centro Nepantla para la Sanación y Renovación). Es autora de Real World Mindfulness for Beginners: Navigate Daily Life One Practice at a Time (La Concientización en el Mundo Real para Principiantes: Cómo se Practica Paso a Paso).  Recibió instrucción de sabios ancianos sobre medicina tradicional y ceremonial de curación en el linaje Purépecha, Xochimilco, Tolteca y otros linajes indígenas. Tiene títulos universitarios en Biología, Psicología del Desarrollo y Comportamiento Animal.

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.

#indigenoushealing #racialhealing #retreatcentercollaborative #earthhealing, #indigenouslens #newschoolcommonweal #commonweal #conversationsthatmatter

2023:12.05 - Pat McCabe: Restaurando el corazón de nuestras relaciones

~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

~Co-presented with Commonweal’s Collaborative for Health and the Environment~

We’re now in the dangerous, uncharted territory climate scientists have been warning about for decades. Meanwhile, biologists and toxicologists are sounding the alarm about surpassing the “planetary boundary” for chemical pollution, beyond which both ecosystems and our health are endangered. We know climate change and chemical pollution are related in ways that can accelerate both crises, but does their interlinked nature also offer opportunities? Join Host Kristin Schafer with biologist and systems thinker Dr. Elizabeth Sawin and chemicals expert and clean production advocate Beverley Thorpe as they explore opportunities to prioritize solutions that concurrently address climate change and the global crisis of chemical contamination — while also improving public health, equity and economic vitality. 

Multisolving Institute a think-do tank that helps people implement solutions that protect the climate while improving, equity, health, biodiversity, economic vitality, and well-being. Beth writes and speaks about multisolving, climate change, and leadership in complex systems for both national and international audiences. Her work has been published widely, including in Non-Profit Quarterly, The Stanford Social Innovation Review, U.S. News, The Daily Climate, and System Dynamics Review.  In 2010, Beth co-founded Climate Interactive, which she co-directed until 2021. Since 2014, Beth has participated in the Council on the Uncertain Human Future, a continuing dialogue on issues of climate change and sustainability. She is a biologist with a PhD from MIT who has been analyzing complex systems related to climate change for 25 years. Beth trained in system dynamics and sustainability with Donella Meadows and worked at Sustainability Institute, the research institute founded by Meadows, for 13 years. Beth has two adult daughters and lives in rural Vermont where she and her husband grow as much of their own food as they can manage.

Beverley Thorpe
Beverley is Co-Founder of Clean Production Action, and has researched and promoted clean production strategies to advance a non-toxic economy internationally since 1986. She was the first clean production technical expert for Greenpeace International on chemical and waste issues. Bev’s work on alternatives to PVC, organohalogens and hazardous waste incineration helped drive momentum for safer substitution practices in company practices. As the NGO representative in the first United Nations Environment Programme for Cleaner Production, she promoted the value of public participation in industrial policies. Bev received her degree in Geography from Leicester University, UK and is an annual lecturer at Lund University in Sweden on chemicals policy and corporate practices. She is a past Director of Greenpeace International and a founding board member of the Story of Stuff in the US. She lives in Toronto, Canada.

Host Kristin Shafer
Kristin is director of Commonweal’s Collaborative for Health and the Environment, and three decades of experience in the field of environmental health and justice. After working as a Communications Specialist at EPA and with World Resources Institute in Washington, DC, she moved back to Northern California where she held various roles—including executive director—over her 25-year tenure at Pesticide Action Network (PAN) North America. Kristin holds a Masters in Social Change and Development from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. She lives with her husband in downtown San Jose where she loves to bike ride and garden, and currently serves as board co-chair for the community-building urban farm, Veggielution.

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.

2024:01.25 - Elizabeth Sawin & Beverley Thorpe - Multisolving for Climate, Chemicals & Health

Each year, the gas and oil industry produces billions of tons of waste — much of it toxic and radioactive. The fracking boom has only worsened the problem. Where does this waste go? In this webinar, co-presented with the Collaborative for Health and Environment and the Science and Environmental Health Network (SEHN), Host Kristin Schafer will explore the topic with author Justin Nobel, Dr. Larysa Dyrszka, and James Brugh, a tribal member of Fort Berthold in western North Dakota.

To follow along with Dr. Dyrszka’s presentation you can download the slide deck here: https://www.healthandenvironment.org/assets/images/Larysa%20Dyrszka%20slides.pdf

Justin Nobel writes on science and environment for United States magazines, literary journals, and investigative sites. His investigation into the radioactivity brought to the surface in oil and gas production was published in 2020 with Rolling Stone Magazine, “America’s Radioactive Secret,” and awarded best long-form narrative by the National Association of Science Writers. Justin’s reports on this in his latest book, Petroleum-238: Big Oil’s Dangerous Secret and the Grassroots Fight to Stop It (Simon & Schuster 2024).

Larysa Dyrszka, MD, is a pediatrician and has been a United Nations representative to ECOSOC with the World Federation of Ukrainian Women’s Organizations, where her work was focused on children’s rights, particularly health.

James Brugh is a writer, husband and father, and tribal member of the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in western North Dakota. He lives in the community of Four Bears and has advocated tirelessly for the protection of his family, the environment, and his community against rampant and relentless oil and gas development.

#commonweal #environmentalhealth #newschoolcommonweal #dirtyoil #radioactiveoilfields #toxicoilfield

2024:03.06 - Justin Nobel, Larysa Dyrszka & James Brugh - Petroleum 238

Join TNS Host Michael Lerner for a reading and conversation with poet Jane Hirshfield. A lay-ordained practitioner of Soto Zen and also the founder, in 2017, of Poets for Science, Jane's newest book holds fifty years of her life and work. The conversation will be similarly ranging, touching on the taproots of creative permeability and attention, the alliance between the seeing of poems and that of science, what poems might bring to addressing our current crises of biosphere and community, and the sense of shared fate and of intimacy with all beings central to finding our way to a viable future.

Jane Hirshfield
Writing “some of the most important poetry in the world today” (The New York Times Magazine), Jane Hirshfield has become one of American poetry's central spokespersons for concerns of the biosphere and interconnection. Her ten poetry books include The Asking: New & Selected Poems (Knopf, 2023), holding fifty years of poems, and she is the author also of two now-classic collections of essays on poetry's infrastructure and craft and four books presenting world poets from the deep past. Her honors include fellowships from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundations, the Poetry Center Book Award, and the California Book Award. An interactive traveling installation she founded in 2017, Poets For Science, has appeared across the country at universities, museums, research centers, conferences, and the National Academy of Sciences. A former chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, Hirshfield was elected in 2019 into the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

#commonweal #poetry #newschoolcommonweal #janehirshfield #findingmeaning

TNS: Jane Hirshfield - Living by Poems

Join Michael Lerner in conversation with storyteller and storycatcher Christina Baldwin. Haunted by the question: “What do we leave in the earth for the future to find?” and having already written eight books that are standing the test of time, Christina set out to write a book of historical fiction that explores foundational human values in story.

Our conversation draws on Christina’s lifework and her beautiful forthcoming novel, The Beekeeper's Question. Based on her family’s Montana lineage, the story chronicles life on the Homefront during World War II and the social issues stirred as two Montana families, one white settler, one Blackfeet, make their way through these times.

Christina Baldwin
Christina has devoted her life to fostering the power of story and facilitating the power of community. As a pioneer in personal writing and teacher of creative nonfiction, Christina has companioned thousands of people to claim their life stories. For twenty-five years, with her partner, Ann Linnea, she taught The Circle Way as collaborative practice, to leaders in education, healthcare, business, government, and community activism. She interacts globally through podcasts, videos, and emeritus mentoring in her bodies of work. Her website and blog is: www.christinabaldwin.com.

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).

#commonweal #newschoolcommonweal #powerofstory #nonfiction #lifestories

2024:03.28 - Christina Baldwin - Writing as Legacy

These are wild times to be alive. From the local to the global, we are facing complex, interlocked crises. Yet, around the world people are responding in creative, dynamic, grounded ways to adapt and emerge.

Omega Resilience Awards, a new program of Commonweal, was created to gather a community of people interested in resilient strategies. Collectively, we strengthen generative connections and share narratives of resilience. What will emerge? What will coalesce? We do not know. There are no clear maps, roads, or nautical charts to guide us in these times, but we know we have to move forward and create new narrative byways as we step into the unknown.

Join The New School co-host Michael Lerner in conversation with three of the co-creators of this dynamic global resilience community. In this first conversation, Michael speaks with Nnimmo Bassey from Health of Mother Earth Foundation in Nigeria. Join us for part 2 and part 3 of the series in May and June, when Michael speaks with Manisha Gupta from StartUp! in India, and Anabella Museri and Sofia Nemenmann from Asociación Argentina de Abogados/as Ambientalistas/Colectivo de Acción por la Justicia Ecosocial in Argentina.

Nnimmo Bassey
Nnimmo is the director of the ecological think-tank Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) and member of the steering committee of Oilwatch International. He was chair of Friends of the Earth International (2008-2012) and was named Time magazine’s Hero of the Environment in 2009. He is a co-recipient of the 2010 Right Livelihood Award also known as the “Alternative Nobel Prize.” In 2012, he received the Rafto Human Rights Award and in 2014, Nigeria’s national honour as Member of the Federal Republic (MFR) in recognition of his environmental activism. He received an honorary doctorate from the University of York, United Kingdom in July 2019. Bassey is a Fellow of the Nigerian Institute of Architects and has authored books on the environment, architecture and poetry. His books include We Thought it Was Oil, But It was Blood (Kraft Books, 2002); I will Not Dance to Your Beat (Kraft Books, 2011); To Cook a Continent – Destructive Extraction and the Climate Crisis in Africa (Pambazuka Press, 2012) and Oil Politics – Echoes of Ecological War (Daraja Press, 2016). He is fondly called The Living Ancestor by young activists.

Find out more about The New School at Commonweal on our website: thenewschool@commonweal.org. And like/follow our Soundcloud channel for more great podcasts.

2024:04.24 - Nnimmo Bassey - Welcome, Wild Times: Conversation with Resilience Leaders

The subject tonight is Love
And for tomorrow night as well,
As a matter of fact
I know of no better topic
For us to discuss
Until we all
Die! - Hafiz

Crisis, war, injustice, and violence have a certain logic—and social change processes working to address these challenges carry a similar, reactionary logic. How can love help us to step out of the perceived reality of “what is possible” in building peace during conflict? Turning points in conflicts and crises are often mysterious, require acts of enormous creativity, and a willingness to risk. Social change is an artistic act, mobilizing love and prophetic imagination–and it requires us to step into the mystery of the unknown that lies beyond the far too familiar landscape of violence.

In this series, join Host Serena Bian in speaking with three people who bear witness to the best and worst of humanity, holding a courageous moral imagination. Working and witnessing the front lines of injustice, war, climate change, these peacebuilders, mystics, storytellers hold space for the miraculous to emerge, refusing to be bound by a perceived reality of “what is possible.”

Weds, May 29 10am Pacific Time | Aljosie Aldrich Harding
Tues, June 25, 10am Pacific Time | Kalyanee Mam

Deepa Patel
Deepa is a facilitator with a specialism in interdisciplinary collaboration and a passion for the arts, social justice, conversation, and living a contemplative life. She was born in Kenya to Indian parents and lives in England. This experience has shaped both her professional and personal life. Deepa has worked as a youth worker, in the field of cultural diversity, as a Live Music producer, and in music education with the BBC. Her current work is with The London College of Fashion, UNHCR, and the University of Sheffield in refugee camps in Jordan and Africa and with the Fetzer Institute on two projects, one on creating sacred space in the virtual world and the other on their shared spiritual heritage project. Deepa is a guide and teacher in the Inayatiyya (a Sufi lineage) and co-chair of the Inayatiyya International Board. She is also the chair of the Tamasha Theatre Company, an advisor to the Loss Foundation, a cancer and COVID bereavement support service, and to the Charis Foundation for New Monasticism and Interspirituality on their interfaith dialogue projects.

Serena Bian
Serena is pursuing a life that remains attentive to the tenderness of a snail’s soft body and reverent to the miracle of its spiraled shell. Working with U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy, Serena serves as a Special Advisor and brings a spiritual and systemic understanding to the public health crisis of loneliness and isolation. As a chaplain-in-training, Serena is pursuing questions of how we chaplain the end of extractive systems that isolate communities from themselves and one another. She is involved with multi-generational, multi-spiritual communities like the Nuns and Nones, devoted to courage, peacebuilding, and love. She participates on the Board of Commonweal and CoGenerate.

#newschoolcommonweal #commonweal #interfaith #peacebuilding #peace #

2024:04.29 - Deepa Patel - What Does Love Have To Do With It? Bringing Mystery to Peacebuilding

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 4

Join TNS Host Steve Heilig in conversation with Andreas Weber, a Berlin-based book and magazine writer and independent scholar. Andreas’ work has focused on a re-evaluation of our understanding of the living, and the disconnection between humans and nature, arguably the root cause of most of the environmental catastrophes unravelling around us.

In his recent book, The Biology of Wonder, Andreas proposes a new approach to the biological sciences, a “poetic ecology” which intimately connects our species to everything that surrounds us, showing that subjectivity and imagination are the prerequisites of biological existence.

Dr. Andreas Weber
Dr. Andreas Weber has degrees in Marine Biology and Cultural Studies, and collaborated with theoretical biologist Francisco Varela in Paris. His work has appeared German magazines and journals such as GEO, National Geographic, Die Zeit and Greenpeace Magazine. Weber teaches at Leuphana University and at the University of Fine Arts, Berlin. He has published more than a dozen books, most recently the English editions of Enlivenment: Towards a Fundamental Shift in the Concepts of Nature, Culture and Politics (Heinrich Böll Foundation 2013), and Biology of Wonder: Aliveness, Feeling and the Metamorphosis of Science (New Society Publishers 2015).

Andreas is part of the staff of und.Institute for Art, Culture and Sustainability, Berlin, which is devoted to link the fields of art and culture with the field of sustainability, and to develop exemplary models of productive exchange. Andreas was named as the 2016 Jonathan Rowe Commons Fellow at the Mesa Refuge, a writing residency center in Point Reyes, CA

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

2016.08.17: Andreas Weber - Biology of Wonder: Aliveness, Feeling, and the Metamorphosis of Science

~with Gail Needleman offering an introduction to the Gurdjieff music~

Join TNS Host Michael Lerner for a fourth conversation in a series with philosopher and author Jacob Needleman. They explore his “life-within-life” as both an engaged pupil of the Gurdjieff Work and also as a scholar and teacher confronting the great unanswerable questions of the heart.

2016.11.21: Jacob Needleman - Gurdjieff: A Life in the Work

Join TNS Host Michael Lerner in part two of a two part conversation with Beatrice Chestnut, one of the most accomplished interpreters of the enneagram in our times. Her book, The Complete Enneagram, is widely recognized as one of the best resources for enneagram students. 

To follow along with Beatrice Chestnut's presentation while listening to part one of the podcast, or just for reference, please download the following PDF file at: https://tns.commonweal.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2018/03/Commonweal_Enneagram_talk.pdf

This seminar is primarily designed for people with at least a basic knowledge of enneagram. Reading or a familiarity with Chestnut's book in advance of the event will help prepare you for the conversation.

2018:06.27 - Beatrice Chestnut - The Enneagram (part 1)

Join TNS Host Michael Lerner in a conversation with author, activist, and anti-preneur Alnoor Ladha. Find out more about Alnoor by reading his article in Kosmos Journal:   "Mystical Anarchism: A Journey to the Borderlands of Freedom."

https://www.kosmosjournal.org/article/mystical-anarchism-a-journey-to-the-borderlands-of-freedom/

2019:09.21 - Alnoor Ladha - Mystical Anarchism: A Spiritual Biography

Join TNS Host Michael Lerner in a spiritual biography conversation with Jungian analyst John Beebe.

John Beebe
Born in Washington, DC, in 1939, John Beebe lived in many parts of the United States, as well as two years in China, before his desire to pursue psychiatric education led him to settle in the Bay Area. Since completing his residency at Stanford’s Department of Psychiatry, John has been practicing Jungian psychotherapy in the same San Francisco office since 1971. Guided by such Northern California Jungian pioneers as Thomas Kirsch, Jo and Jane Wheelwright, and Joseph Henderson, John became an analyst member of the C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco in 1978. John gives lectures around the world on various topics, including psychological types, moral integrity, the I Ching, and film. For the past twenty years, he has been part of the training of the first generation of Jungian analysts in China. The many books he has worked on include, under his name as sole author, Integrity in Depth and Energies andPatterns in Psychological Type: The Reservoir of Consciousness.

2019:09.28 - John Beebe - A Life in Jungian Practice: A Spiritual Biography

~Co-presented by KWMR radio~ 
https://kwmr.org

Join us for a concert by three-time Grammy nominees Quartet San Francisco, a non-traditional and eclectic string quartet led by violinist Jeremy Cohen.
https://www.quartetsanfrancisco.com

Quartet San Francisco has toured Italy, China, South Korea, Japan, Turkey, and Guam, performing in Cremona, Foggia, Seoul, Tokyo, Hyogo, Sanda, Istanbul, Hagatna, and throughout central and eastern China. As winners of the Argentine Consulate’s International Tango Competition in New York, they performed tangos for an Argentine audience at the historic Café Tortoni in Buenos Aires. In 2018 they performed the opening concert for the Cremona Music Festival in northern Italy and their CD release, A QSF Journey, reached the #1position in Amazon’s new chamber music releases.

U.S. appearances include New York's Le Poisson Rouge, Yoshi's Jazz Clubs in San Francisco and Oakland, the Brubeck Room in the Wilton Library (at the invitation of Dave Brubeck), the Mendocino Music Festival, in concerts with the Marin Symphony, the Peninsula Symphony, and the Tulsa Symphony, and guest appearances with numerous chamber orchestras.

2020:01.26 - Quartet San Francisco - co-sponsored by KWMR

Join us for this rare “two host” conversation between TNS hosts Michael Lerner and Steve Heilig. Michael will talk with Steve about his work as a public health specialist and expert in epidemiology and medical ethics, specifically with regard to COVID-19.

Steve Heilig
Trained at five University of California campuses in public health, epidemiology, medical ethics, addiction, economics, environmental sciences, and other disciplines, Steve Heilig’s work includes positions at the San Francisco Marin Medical Society, California Pacific Medical Center, UCSF, and as co-editor of the Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics. He has served on many organizational boards and appointed commissions, and is a trained hospice worker. He is a music festival emcee, and widely published essayist and book and music critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, Huffington Post, and many other publications. His undergraduate honors thesis was about the ever-growing threat of pandemics, and thus in these times his interests have come “full circle.”

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.

2020:05.15 - Steve Heilig & Michael Lerner - COVID-19 & Beyond: What Will the New World

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.

2021:01.18 - Rabbi Irwin Keller - An Inquiry into the Nature of the Jewish Faith

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.

Popular tracks by The New School at Commonweal