~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

Join astrologers Richard Tarnas and Rachel Lang with TNS host Michael Lerner as they explore how an understanding of the great archetypal symbols of astrology can influence and illuminate how we live our lives.

Rick's seminal book Cosmos and Psyche will serve as a reference for the conversation.

Richard Tarnas is a professor of psychology and cultural history at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, where he founded the graduate program in Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness. He teaches courses in the history of ideas, archetypal cosmology, depth psychology, and religious evolution. He has frequently lectured on archetypal studies and depth psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara, and was formerly the director of programs and education at Esalen Institute in Big Sur. He is the author of The Passion of the Western Mind, a history of the Western world view from the ancient Greek to the postmodern that is widely used in universities. His second book, Cosmos and Psyche, received the Book of the Year Prize from the Scientific and Medical Network, and is the basis for the ten-part documentary series The Changing of the Gods. He is also the co-editor of Psyche Unbound: Essays in Honor of Stanislav Grof. Richard Tarnas is a past president of the International Transpersonal Association and served for many years on the Board of Governors for the C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco.

Rachel is a professional astrologer, psychic medium, and author of Modern Day Magic: 8 Simple Rules to Realize Your Power and Shape Your Life. Rachel teaches courses like Astrology for Creatives, Working with Magic, and Relationships and Astrology, and she mentors the members of development circles. Her monthly horoscope columns appear in the Omega News and Conscious Living, and she contributes to a variety of publications, including Well+Good and Women’s Health. Rachel is the Outreach Director for the National Council for Geocosmic Research (NCGR), the VP of the Los Angeles NCGR chapter, and a committee member with the International Association of Ethics in Astrology.

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.

2022.05.26 - Richard Tarnas and Rachel Lang - Cosmos and Psyche in an Age of Transforma

Join Host Michael Lerner for a conversation with intuitive animal communicator, Joanna Bornowski. Michael and Joanna talk about consciousness, accessing deeper states of intuition, and the innate human ability to be in conversation with the natural world.

Joanna Bornowski

Joanna is an intuitive guide, teacher and animal communicator specializing in horses. The eldest daughter of two artists from Portland, Oregon, she has spent most of her life either in the art studio or in the saddle. Art has given Joanna the unique perspective of opening her mind to the creative process and allowing inspiration to guide her throughout her life. This guidance has and continues to support a cultivation and interest in deeper states of awareness, connection to the divine and communication with the natural world. Joanna now speaks with over 400 horses a year and is fascinated by how these vibrant animals offer equestrians an opportunity to explore their own consciousness and connectivity to the natural world in a sport that is highly physical, emotional, and surprisingly spiritual.

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).

#newschoolcommonweal #commonweal #animalcommunicator #healingwithhorses

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.

2024:10.02 - Joanna Bornowski - Consciousness, Intuition and Animal Communication

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.

***
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 - 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 part 2 of this series, 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.

***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

Kali's Child  - 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 part 4 of this series, 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, 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

Esalen - Jeffrey Kripal and Host Michael Lerner

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

~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

Widely recognized as one of the most influential and beloved figures in the field of peacebuilding, John Paul Lederach embodies both the rigor of the scholar and sensitivity of the poet. A pioneer of the concept of conflict transformation (as distinct from resolution), his work has redefined peacebuilding as a moral and relational art rooted in empathy, moral imagination, and the human capacity for connection across divides. Join TNS Host Serena Bian for this intergenerational conversation exploring John Paul's enormous body of work in building the fields of conflict transformation and collective trauma healing--as well as his love for poetry and haiku.


John Paul Lederach
Dr. John Paul Lederach is internationally recognized for his groundbreaking work in the fields of peacebuilding and conflict transformation. He is widely known for the development of culturally based approaches to conflict transformation; the design and implementation of integrative, strategic approaches to peacebuilding; and for carving a robust integration of the arts and social change. Over the course of his career, Lederach has garnered extensive experience working with non-governmental organizations, community-based initiatives impacted by cycles of violence, and national peace process design. He has worked extensively as a practitioner in conciliation processes in Latin America, Africa, and Southeast and Central Asia. He is the author or editor of 30 books and manuals (translated into a dozen languages), and numerous academic articles and monographs on peace education, conflict transformation, international peacebuilding, and conciliation training. He currently serves as Senior Fellow for Humanity United and Professor Emeritus of International Peacebuilding at the Joan B. Kroc Institute of International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame.

Host 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. She is a Chinese-American peacebuilder, storyteller, and community weaver devoted to the belief that intergenerational connection is vital for the future of our peace and justice movements. She recently completed six years as a Special Advisor in Design & Innovation to U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, bringing a spiritual and systemic understanding to the public health crisis of loneliness and isolation. She is a Zen chaplain-in-training and serves on the boards of CoGenerate and Commonweal.

#commonweal #commonwealnewschool #peacebuilding #conflict #transformation #virtuouscycle #haiku

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 Art of Peacebuilding: Haiku, Accompaniment, and Courageous Love - John Paul Lederach

In part 6 of this series, Host Michael Lerner talks with author Jeffrey Kripal about his book The Serpent's Gift--Reflections on the Study of Religion. The book is a provocative call for a complete reorientation of religious studies, a reversal of the Adam and Eve story, aimed at a larger understanding of the world, the self, and the divine. He considers Feuerbach’s Gnosticism, the untapped mystical potential of comparative religion, and even the modern mythology of the X-Men. 

***
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

Serpent's Gift - Jeffrey Kripal and Host Michael Lerner

In part 6 of our series with Jeffrey Kripal and Host Michael Lerner, they discuss Jeffrey's Authors of the Impossible: The Paranormal and the Sacred. The history of psychical phenomena, Jeffrey contends, is an untapped source of insight into the sacred. The cultural history of telepathy, teleportation, and UFOs; a ghostly love story; the occult dimensions of science fiction; cold war psychic espionage; galactic colonialism; and the intimate relationship between consciousness and culture all come together in Authors of the Impossible, a dazzling and profound look at how the paranormal bridges the sacred and the scientific.

***
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

Authors of the Impossible - Jeffrey Kripal and Host Michael Lerner

In part 7 of the series, Host Michael Lerner talks with Jeffrey Kripal about his book Mutants and Mystics: Science Fiction, Superhero Comics, and the Paranormal. In the book, Jeffrey shows how creators turned to science fiction to convey the reality of the inexplicable and the paranormal they experienced in their lives. He spins out a hidden history of American culture, rich with mythical themes and shot through with an awareness that there are other realities far beyond our everyday understanding. You can find more information on his website, 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 Soundcloud channel for access to our library of more than 400 great podcasts. tns.commonweal.org

Mutants and Mystics - Jeffrey Kripal and Host Michael Lerner

An estimated 1.1 million people in the U.S. are currently living with Parkinson's disease (PD), and this number is expected to rise to 1.2 million by 2030. Globally, more than 10 million people are estimated to be living with PD, which is now the fastest growing brain disorder in  the world.

Science has long linked certain environmental contaminants to increased risk of PD, and some researchers are now making the case that this fast-growing disease may be largely preventable.

This is the case made by the authors of The Parkinson’s Plan. The recently released book documents three types of environmental exposures that research has linked to increased risk of Parkinson’s disease: certain pesticides, the solvent trichloroethylene, and air pollution. The authors reach the hopeful conclusion that by addressing these pollutants, “it may be possible to create a world where Parkinson’s disease is increasingly rare.”

In this CHE Café conversation we will explore new approaches to Parkinson’s disease prevention. We will hear from Dr. Ray Dorsey, a co-author of The Parkinson’s Plan, and Dr. Ted Schettler, long interested in exploring environmental influences on aging and co-creator of Sam’s Story, the Story of Health ebook on environmental drivers of cognitive decline.

Co-presented with the Collaborative for Health and Environment, and hosted by CHE Director Kristin Schafer.

#parkinson #brainhealth #commonwealnewschool

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.

Why Parkinson’s Disease Is Preventable - Ray Dorsey, Ted Schettler, and Host Kristin Schafer

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

Michelle’s music weaves the sacred and the soulful, drawing from traditions, rhythms, and ancestral memory of the African diaspora. Her love of the music connects her to something much larger than herself—community, history, and spirituality—which allows her to channel that energy into spaces of joy. Expect a powerful, heart-opening experience filled with hope and a deep sense of connection that stays with you long after the final note.

Join us for the next in our series of sacred music celebrations at Commonweal, 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. Come for the music—stay for the food and community.

***

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

An Afternoon of Gospel and Jazz - Michelle Jacques and Matt Berkeley

Many protections from pollution and toxic chemicals have moved from the federal level to the states. This isn’t just a recent phenomenon; it goes back decades, to changes in the structure of agencies that manage environmental health and to a growing partisan divide.

As federal regulation of chemicals faltered, states started taking up the slack. States have always had a role as laboratories of innovation, and model environmental health policies can be found around the country. That is the focus of A Healthy Union: How States Can Lead on Environmental Health, recently published by Island Press.

For example, Texas was one of the first states to mandate that all school districts implement policies and practices to reduce use of hazardous pesticides. Massachusetts requires factories that manufacture, process or use certain toxic chemicals to develop strategies to reduce them. Regional programs are on the rise.

In this CHE Café discussion, we hear from the book’s author, Susan Kaplan, an environmental health lawyer and professor whose experience spans federal and state government and academia and Sarah Doll, longtime leader of the Safer States coalition and veteran state policy advocate. The speakers explore leading state environmental health policies and what other states can learn from them. Even as federal protections recede, the potential for state action offers hope.

***
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.

#CollaborativeForHealthAndEnvironment #CommonwealNewSchool #Commonweal #statepolicy #environmentalhealth #publichealth

How States Can Lead on Environmental Health - Susan Kaplan, Sarah Doll, and Host Kristin Schafer

What's happening in our world—and how do we respond? For the past four years, Commonweal’s Omega Resilience Awards project has been exploring this question with fellows and research teams across Africa, India, and Latin America. Now we're ready to share what we’re learning. Join us for a conversation with three of the researchers, who will share their findings and explore together: How do we respond to these times not just through individual stories, but through the larger work of changing our collective narratives? Join us in person or online for a 1-hour moderated conversation, some time for questions, followed by a reception and viewing of the gallery exhibit (on display through March) [link to gallery show page] featuring stunning illustrations by Jon Marro, bringing the four years of this project to life.
This is part of Commonweal's 50th anniversary year—a time when we're reflecting on five decades of healing ourselves and the Earth and asking how we navigate these times through community, learning, and resilience.

Dr. Urmitapa Dutta (University of Massachusetts Lowell)
Exploring how creative expression, cultural preservation, and artistic activism contribute to community resilience

Dr. Susan James (Pacifica Graduate Institute)
Examining how both traditional and modern technologies—including sacred practices and ritual—support community-based solutions

Susan Grelock Yusem, PhD
leads strategy and innovation at Commonweal, weaving together her experience in strategic communication, community psychology, and regenerative systems. A trained depth psychologist and community psychologist with a doctorate from Pacifica Graduate Institute, Susan brings psychological depth to collaborative leadership, particularly in narrative design, creative development, and building resilient organizations.

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

Narrative, Resilience, and Social Change - Urmitapa Dutta, Susan James, and Host Susan Grelock Yusem

Beyond Survival:  Sustaining Human Agency in Challenging Times | Graham Leicester and Hosts Oren Slozberg and Katherine Fulton

We are living in challenging times. Commonweal has been a trailblazer in recognizing this as a moment of long- and short-term peril and opportunity--a rolling “polycrisis.” It may feel overwhelming, but we have copious capacity to rise to the challenge of these times. What will it take to muster a fully human response to polycrisis? How can we draw on reserves of existential courage to face the reality of the present and mobilize our natural human capacities for growth, learning, wisdom, and hope?

Join Commonweal Board Chair Katherine Fulton and Executive Director Oren Slozberg for a conversation with Graham Leicester,  founder of International Futures Forum, a group established in 2001 precisely to address the challenge of effective agency in “a world we do not understand and cannot control.”

Graham spent two weeks in residence at Commonweal in February as a visiting scholar, musing on these challenges with friends and fellow travelers. This conversation is the final event of the residency.

***
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 channel for access to our library of more than 400 great podcasts.  tns.commonweal.org

#commonwealnewschool #commonweal #thirdhorizon #resilience

Beyond Survival:  Sustaining Human Agency in Challenging Times - Graham Leicester

In part 8 of the series, Michael Lerner talks with author Jeffrey Kripal about some of the key themes that weave through all of his books, especially exploring the nature of consciousness itself.

Jeffrey J. Kripal holds the J. Newton Rayzor Chair in Philosophy and Religious Thought at Rice University. In this series, Jeffrey talks with Host Michael Lerner about his body of work---more than 13 groundbreaking books about the mystical and the erotic, the relationship of mind and matter, and parapsychological phenomena.

Michael has been reading, talking, and meeting with Jeffrey for more than a year now, immersing himself in the consciousness worldview that Jeffrey presents in his books and teaching. Follow Michael's journey through these conversations, and share your thoughts in the comments.

***
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

Some Themes at the Heart of His Oeuvre - Jeffrey Kripal and Host Michael Lerner

In part 9 of the series, Michael Lerner talks with author Jeffrey Kripal about his book, The Flip.

Jeffrey J. Kripal holds the J. Newton Rayzor Chair in Philosophy and Religious Thought at Rice University. In this series, Jeffrey talks with Host Michael Lerner about his body of work---more than 13 groundbreaking books about the mystical and the erotic, the relationship of mind and matter, and parapsychological phenomena.

Michael has been reading, talking, and meeting with Jeffrey for more than a year now, immersing himself in the consciousness worldview that Jeffrey presents in his books and teaching. Follow Michael's journey through these conversations, and share your thoughts in the comments.

***

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 Flip - Jeffrey Kripal and Host Michael Lerner

What is healing, really—below the story or journey, and even beyond any meaning? After Dr. Cynthia Li experienced a radical healing firsthand, she began studying the science of physiological coherence, and deepening in her practice of embodied flow. Since then, she has been supporting others in activating their body's peak healing state: for personal healing, for thriving amid life's inevitable challenges, for collective healing, and to allow healing to happen in a more effortless and playful way.

Host Serena Bian will be in conversation with Cynthia for the first hour (part 1), followed by an hour of experiential play (part 2). To activate healing, flow has to be embodied. So join us in simple methods to activate what Cynthia calls "the golden triad:" mind empty, heart open, and body inhabited. These will include movement, sound, writing, and whatever emerges collectively (surprise is a quality of flow!).

***
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 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 Medicine of Flow: Conversation & Experiential Workshop on Effortless Healing Pt 1 - Cynthia Li

What is healing, really—below the story or journey, and even beyond any meaning? After Dr. Cynthia Li experienced a radical healing firsthand, she began studying the science of physiological coherence, and deepening in her practice of embodied flow. Since then, she has been supporting others in activating their body's peak healing state: for personal healing, for thriving amid life's inevitable challenges, for collective healing, and to allow healing to happen in a more effortless and playful way.

Host Serena Bian will be in conversation with Cynthia for the first hour (part 1), followed by an hour of experiential play (part 2). To activate healing, flow has to be embodied. So join us in simple methods to activate what Cynthia calls "the golden triad:" mind empty, heart open, and body inhabited. These will include movement, sound, writing, and whatever emerges collectively (surprise is a quality of flow!).

***
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 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 Medicine of Flow: Conversation & Experiential Workshop on Effortless Healing Pt 2 - Cynthia Li

Join Michael Lerner in a spiritual biography conversation with Robert Mulhall—Commonweal board member, former president of Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health, and a consultant whose work sits at the intersection of leadership development, organizational health, and human potential.

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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 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

Robert Mullhall - A Spiritual Biography

What becomes possible when we understand social and political harm not only as injustice, but as expressions of collective trauma? In this conversation, Kazu Haga—activist, trainer, and author of Fierce Vulnerability: Healing from Trauma, Emerging Through Collapse—joins host Serena Bian to explore why healing is so essential to radically reimagining the worlds we wish to build in the midst of collapse.

This conversation explores the possibility that the work of social transformation cannot be separated from the work of inner transformation. Rather than reinforcing the familiar patterns of opposition of  “us and them,” “right and wrong," Kazu invites us to consider pathways of change that are rooted in relationship, spiritual practice, and the long arc of healing.

Drawing from decades of work in nonviolence, restorative justice, and Buddhist practice, Kazu reflects on the limitations of movement strategies that mirror the very dynamics they seek to transform. What might it mean to respond to harm in ways that do not escalate division, but instead create the conditions for healing, within ourselves, our communities, and the larger body politic?

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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 listeners world wide and have been doing this since 2007. Please like/follow our SoundCloud channel for access to our library of more than 400 great podcasts.

Healing the Roots, Transforming the Future - Kazu Haga

Co-presented with Pt Reyes Books

Join Host Susan Grelock Yusem in conversation with David George Haskell to talk about his new book, How Flowers Made Our World: The Story of Nature's Revolutionaries (Viking). In this exquisite exploration of the role flowers played in creating the world we know today, David observes, smells, and studies flowers such as magnolias, orchids, and roses, as well as fascinating but less celebrated flowers such as seagrasses and tea. Through radical genetic flexibility, flowers turned past environmental upheavals into opportunities for renewal. This inventiveness allowed them to build and sustain rainforests, savannahs, prairies, and even ocean shores.

Looking to the future, flowers offer us lessons on resilience and creativity in the face of rapid environmental change. We need floral creativity, beauty, and joy more than ever. How Flowers Made Our World combines lyrical writing, sensual exploration, and the latest in scientific research to explore some of the most consequential life forms ever to have evolved, showing how our planet came to be and how it thrives today.

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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 listeners world wide and have been doing this since 2007. Please like/follow our soundcloud channel for access to our library of more than 400 great podcasts. tns.commonweal.org

How Flowers Made Our World - David George Haskell

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

Robert Hass, Eric Karpeles, and Others
Community Reading of Walt Whitman's 'Song of Myself'
In 1855, Whitman published 795 copies of his book Leaves of Grass, paying for publication himself. “Song of Myself,” as it came to be known, was the first experiment in long, free-verse poetry—a poem that former U.S. poet laureate and Whitman scholar Robert Hass calls, “the most unprecedented poem in the English language.” The poem is Whitman’s “song” about democracy and imagination, life and death. With an introduction by Robert Haas, local volunteers read the 52 numbered sections of the 1891 “Deathbed” edition of Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself in its entirety.

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

2011.10.22:  Robert Hass, Eric Karpeles, & Others Community Reading-Walt Whitman's 'Song of Myself'

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

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.

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