Commonweal News - Summer 2016

40TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION

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Dear Commonweal Friends, Forty years ago, Carolyn Brown, Burr Heneman, and I took an astonishing risk. We set out to build a center for healing ourselves and healing the earth on an old RCA transmitter station sitting on 1,000 acres of land at the edge of the Pacific.

Forty years later, Commonweal is vibrant. We are stronger than ever. We have more than a dozen major programs in health and healing, education and the arts, and the environment and justice.

Our work in health and healing includes the Commonweal Cancer Help Program, Healing Circles, the Healing Kitchens Institute, and the Healing Yoga Foundation.

Our work in education and the arts includes The New School at Commonweal, Visual Thinking Strategies, and our EDGE programs, including the Power of Hope summer camp.

Our work in the environment and justice includes the Collaborative on Health and the Environment, the Commonweal Juvenile Justice Program, the Commonweal Biomonitoring Resource Center, and the Cancer Prevention Initiative.

We’ve learned a lot about how to do our work. We do best with gifted program directors who find their own funding. They have creative freedom to do their work.

We are de-centralized and flexible. We can take on any great program that serves life and fits with our mission.

Programs can be located anywhere in the country. They could be anywhere in the world.

We don’t seek credit. We let the work speak for itself.

When a great program comes to an end, we don’t try to continue it. We look for the next visionary program leader.

Much of our best work is done in learning communities.

Commonweal is a learning organization that supports learning communities. Learning organizations do not punish error. They embrace error in order to learn from it.

We consciously prepare for the radical discontinuities that will take place in the decades ahead. The causes will be many: climate change, environmental degradation, war and terrorism, financial and technological disaster, and much more. The networks of centers we collaborate with across the country and around the world give us resilience.

We value kindness of heart, wisdom of mind, and dedication to service.

Our real lineage is not an organizational form. It is the endless lineage of people who discover that their purpose in life is to be of service. Our joy is that this lineage is endlessly self-replenishing. It will endure as long as there are humans on earth.

Finally, the Commonweal community is in no way limited to those who work at Commonweal. Far from it. Those who work here simply serve the real Commonweal community. The real Commonweal community is each and all of you.

For you are the ones who make our work possible. You are partners in our dozen learning communities that extend across the country and around the world. And you give of your substance to support our work.

For that we are forever grateful. We ask that you continue to support the Great Work to which we are all dedicated—healing ourselves and healing the earth.

Michael Lerner, President

Chapel at Commonweal (photo: Kyra Epstein)

Left: Michael Lerner, featured in a Pacific Sun article in 1984.

Middle: the “Marconi Hotel”—now the Pacific House at Commonweal.

Right: Marion Saltman with Michael Lerner at the sand tray—which Marion brought to Commonweal in 1985.

The Early Years of Commonweal

by Mary Callender, Commonweal Historian On a crisp fall morning in 1975, Michael Lerner was walking along a dirt road in Bolinas when he gazed at an old white building nestled on a high bluff by the ocean’s edge. A shaft of light broke through the mist and lit upon the building. “In a powerful vision that seemed to come from beyond me,” Michael recalls, “I saw this abandoned RCA radio transmitter site transformed into a healing center dedicated to healing ourselves and healing the earth. I was astonished by the clarity and power of the vision.”

Michael walked back to his friend Carolyn Brown’s house to tell her about his vision.

In the preceding three years, Carolyn, a child psychologist, and Michael had built Full Circle, a school for troubled children on the outskirts of Bolinas. They decided to start a health and environmental healing center on the 1,000 acres of land surrounding an old RCA transmitter facility at the southern edge of the Point Reyes National Seashore. “Our intention was to continue working with at-risk children, while expanding our healing work to include adults. Aware of the deep connection between human health and the health of the earth, we wanted to create a center where human and environmental health were seen as fundamentally linked.

That has been our intention ever since.”

Carolyn and Michael invited Burr Heneman, a Yale-trained journalist and 2

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television producer, to join them in co-founding Commonweal. A leading environmentalist, Burr was well respected in Bolinas as an effective community strategist who was committed to saving the small town from unwanted development. Burr thought, “What Carolyn and Michael were proposing was crazy—buying the 1,000-acre RCA property to create a center for model approaches to health and healing, earth stewardship, and agriculture. But the reality is that Carolyn and Michael cast their spell and made the whole crazy dream seem perfectly reasonable. I don’t know anyone who ever said no after being double-teamed by them.”

They all knew that they faced tremendous challenges in getting the site.

After two years of complex negotiations, Commonweal signed an agreement with

the Point Reyes National Seashore for a 50-year lease on 60 acres of land that included several buildings, a 20-year lease on the garden site, and a 10-year lease on all the remaining acreage. In late 1977, they moved into the dilapidated main building, with ambitious plans to open a healing center that encompassed a health clinic, a research institute, an organic farm, and a therapeutic community. They had desks, telephones, and old manual typewriters—no copiers, fax machines, or computers in those days. By then, Commonweal had been incorporated as an official 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, with Carolyn serving as chairman of the board, Michael as executive director, and Burr as the director of operations. For Michael, it was a mildly terrifying prospect. “We faced the staggering task of turning an old RCA antenna farm with half a dozen derelict, gutted buildings into a center for personal and planetary healing.”

The Clinic Dr. Brian Bouch, a young physician trained at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, was hired as the medical director to open two clinics—one in

downtown Bolinas for local residents and another at Commonweal for children with neurological disorders and adults with chronic illness. Dr. Bouch was intrigued by the opportunity to explore the burgeoning interest in holistic alternative medicine that was thousands of years old and just being rediscovered in the United States during the 1970s.

In late 1977, Dr. Bouch and his wife Anita opened the Family Clinic in downtown Bolinas. Six months later, after extensive renovations to the main building, the Mesa Clinic at Commonweal officially opened for business. With a group of physicians providing traditional medical care, as well as alternative practitioners who specialized in allergy testing, nutritional and vitamin therapy, acupuncture, biofeedback, massage, meditation, guided imagery, and Chinese herbal medicine, the Mesa Clinic offered a comprehensive spectrum of integrative care for children with learning and behavior disorders and adults with chronic illness. In an effort to treat the “whole person,” not just the symptoms, patients were encouraged to take responsibility for their own health through diet, stress reduction, relaxation techniques, exercise, and the exploration of spirituality in their lives.

The Research Institute Steve Lerner, Michael’s younger brother, signed on as director of the Research Institute in 1977. “We had lofty goals in creating the Research Institute,” Steve remembers. “We were young, idealistic, and ambitious. We thought that we could play a role in shaping a new public health policy in the United States. We intended to document our work at Full Circle and the Mesa Clinic to show the effect of nutrition and environmental stresses on children with behavioral disorders and adults with chronic illness.

We suspected that as a society we were just beginning to experience the onset of stress-related illnesses, particularly among young people. We wondered if the increase in chronic and degenerative diseases was related to the pollution of our environment and the contamination of our food supply.”

An experienced journalist, Steve began collecting articles written by people around the country who were looking at

the impact of the environment on human health. He published Working Papers, a hand-typed, monthly research report that evolved into a quarterly printed newspaper called Common Knowledge. “We were educating ourselves,” Steve explains, “as we collected information about environmental threats to health, as well as new technologies in health care and disease prevention. Our primary concern was to find out if what man was doing to the environment would affect the survival of humans and other species.”

Commonweal Garden William Cambier and Avis Rappaport moved to Bolinas in the spring of 1976 to create an organic garden in a beautiful canyon on the north side of Mesa Road. For the prior two years, they had studied with Alan Chadwick, an English master gardener who was a leading innovator of organic farming techniques and an influential educator in the field of biodynamic/French intensive gardening. As the years went by, William and Avis planted one and a half acres of intensive beds and four acres of field crops. They created an heirloom fruit orchard, filled with apple, pear, peach, and plum saplings, and planted hundreds of Monterey pine and cypress trees as windbreaks to protect crops from wind and increase productivity. They laid more than 6,000 feet of irrigation pipe running from the reservoir through the garden and adjacent fields, and installed a windmill to pump water uphill from the reservoir to the holding tank—a towering 20,000-gallon redwood barrel.

Avis recalls, “We built the garden infrastructure with recycled materials and the help of hundreds of volunteers and farm apprentices. We taught them how to grow crops organically, using techniques that minimized reliance on off-site resources and maximized garden outputs.”

The Retreat Center From the beginning, the Commonweal master plan included a Resident Community where patients with chronic illness could heal in a peaceful, nurturing environment. But first, the decrepit buildings on site needed extensive work, and renovation took longer than anticipated. Bothin House, a rustic, 70-year old cottage with a red tile roof nestled in a large grove of Monterey pine and cypress trees, was finally finished in 1981. The Retreat Center offered a peaceful respite for those seeking uninterrupted silence and a quietly dramatic immersion in the magnificent wilderness of the Point Reyes National Seashore.

Soon after Bothin House was renovated, Michael wrote to the Commonweal board and other supporters to reflect on the progress they had made over the past six years as a fledgling non-profit organization. He told them, “A prolific biodynamic garden has taken root on the site. We have planted almost 1,000 young trees to reforest the denuded land. We have rested the land, long overgrazed by too many cattle. We have put community people to work educating themselves and others in a new kind of research institute. We have opened two clinics—one to serve our rural community and one that has already made a great difference in the lives of some children, and may touch the lives of many more in the years to come.

“In this strange landscape of antiquated radio transmitters, on the site of the old Marconi-RCA antenna farm, at the very westernmost edge of the country, a new kind of institution is struggling into existence. You now hear echoes of Commonweal up and down the West Coast and across the country. It is not unreasonable to imagine that Commonweal will be known by its example, its service, and its words in the years to come.”

It is not unreasonable to imagine that Commonweal will be known by its example, its service, and its words in the years to come.

—Michael Lerner (1981 Letter to the Board of Directors)

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Friends of Evolution

by Michael Lerner

When I was five years old, I knew the Flood was coming. I started to build an Ark in the garage of our farmhouse on Long Island.

I built the window for the Ark. In a wooden enclosure I placed turtles from a nearby pond. They would be the first into the Ark. I never got much further.

I returned the turtles to their pond.

I’ve known the Flood was coming all of my life. When I first saw Pacific House at Commonweal, nestled high on a bluff overlooking the Pacific, I almost named it The Ark. In this holocaust of life, the sixth great spasm of extinctions, people are building Arks around the world.

We are saving what we can. We hope that one evening the dove will come back with an olive leaf in her beak.

When our Arks can settle on the mountaintops, we will disembark to rebuild what we can of life on earth.

••• In the Dark Ages, monasteries preserved civilization. They practiced medicine. They were centers of learning. They taught good farming practices so that people could eat. They preserved crafts necessary to communal life. Pilgrimage trails connected the monasteries and served as a web of communion.

Commonweal may be one of the new monasteries of our time.

In the Commonweal Cancer Help Program, Healing Circles, the Healing Yoga Foundation, and the Healing Kitchens Institute, we practice healing. The New School is a center of learning. The Regenerative Design Institute at Commonweal Garden teaches farming practices. Young people are learning the crafts, old and new, necessary for life in hard times. Pilgrimage trails connect Commonweal and like-minded centers.

Like the new Arks, these new monasteries are a natural human response to our Dark Times. They are communities where people of all faiths, colors, and orientations come together. We come together to heal our personal wounds and to grieve the Great Dying that dark ignorance inflicts on the earth. We come together to learn needed new and old crafts. We come together to celebrate joys of body, mind, and spirit.

••• Commonweal is, ultimately, a community dedicated to good work in the service of life.

We are not a utopian community. We are practical people who make hard decisions necessary to sustain the work. We are not a religious or spiritual community. People of all beliefs and hues and orientations are equally welcome.

If you have a great idea, if you have the skills to bring it to fruition, if you value kindness, and if you are deeply dedicated to our shared vision, we welcome a conversation with you.

Rachel Naomi Remen once asked philosopher Gregory Bateson, “And who are you?” Bateson replied, “I am a friend of evolution.”

We are here to befriend life. We are friends of evolution.

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Reflections on the Symington Conference on New Directions in Integrative Cancer Care

by Toby Symington, Executive Director, Lloyd Symington Foundation The Lloyd Symington Foundation was launched in 1986 as a memorial to my father, Lloyd Symington, and was inspired by his living and dying with lung cancer. Our initial mission was to offer innovative, holistic, patient-centered care, which he received during his illness, to other people facing cancer.

Commonweal has played a central role in the life of our foundation. We made our very first grant to the Commonweal Cancer Help Program in the fall of 1986. Then in January 1988, in close collaboration with Commonweal, we held our first invitational conference on “New Directions in Cancer Care,” bringing together leaders in the field from around the globe—not only oncologists and researchers, but also psychotherapists and educators. For almost three decades, our central purpose has been to bring integrative approaches to cancer care into the mainstream of American medicine.

In the early years of the conference, we had many stimulating discussions and some tangible results; at the same time, certain topics were treated with great caution. Any reference to spiritual matters or spirituality was virtually taboo.

It’s important to remember how much more conservative the terrain of cancer care was in those years. Deviation from the consensus view of conventional medicine could have been dangerous.

At our most recent conference, Michael Lerner made a special point of honoring those voices that, over the decades, deviated from the dominant paradigm.

I have vivid memories from the 1996 conference. I remember Rachel Remen making a persuasive case for relationship-based medicine as an antidote to the “medicine of isolation” so widely experienced by both patients and physicians. Relationships, she said, were not just the vehicle of therapy; they were the very essence of therapy.

I recall David Eisenberg, at the time an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, suggesting that compassion was the “true medicine,” neither standard nor alternative. He went on to say that the efficacy of even the most subtle healing techniques could be accurately measured by well-designed studies.

I also recall a couple of rather tart observations from two of our psychotherapists, Barry Flint and Virginia Veach. Health, Barry argued, was too important to leave to the physicians. And Virginia made a distinction between “toxic physicians” (who aggravate pain) and “healing physicians” (who relieve pain).

Our 20th anniversary conference in 2008 was a landmark event, bringing together some of the most progressive and enlightened voices in the field of cancer care. It was gratifying to see how much the field itself had changed and how far the consciousness of participants had advanced, both on personal and on programmatic levels. At the 2008 gathering, we held groundbreaking panels on the healing arts, the transpersonal dimension of cancer care, and the role of intuition in diagnosing and treating cancer. I especially remember Jeremy Geffen, author of the classic text, The Journey Through Cancer, reframing the practice of medicine as “multidimensional healing,” which he saw as the next step in the evolution of American health care.

One of Michael’s intentions early on was to raise the level of discourse in our national discussions of cancer treatment and research. We have, I believe, not only made progress in this regard; we also have been quite successful in bringing awareness of certain innovative healing practices to the wider cancer community.

Our most recent conference, held in January of this year, was the best expression yet of a truly integrative philosophy. We struck a nice balance between quantitative,

Above, Dr. BJ Miller speaks about palliative care. Below, Somatic movement pioneer Anna Halprin dances with Toby Symington during a short breakout for conference attendees.

science-based approaches and qualitative, soul-oriented approaches to cancer care. I also liked the way we mixed cognitive and experiential presentations. One of the high points of the gathering was a 90-minute, movement-based, somatic awareness session led by the legendary American dancer Anna Halprin. And I was moved by the spirit of kindness and mutual respect that ran through our proceedings—a palpable current of love. We’ve come a long way toward building a cohesive and convivial community, which can serve as an agent of substantive social change.

For me, personally, it has been a great pleasure collaborating with Commonweal and my dear friend Michael Lerner. As host to these special gatherings, Commonweal has provided a home for people who may feel isolated—even marginalized—because they are challenging the prevailing paradigm of health care. I have been very impressed by the thoughtfulness, care, and consideration that Commonweal provides for our conferees and their often unique requirements. From a larger perspective, Commonweal is that rare organization that can operate with equal skill on both personal and global levels. And, perhaps most important, I have found it to be, again and again, a warm and welcoming community of exceptionally fine human beings.

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COMMONWEAL TODAY HEALING CIRCLES The purpose of Healing Circles is to help people who are not able to attend a Commonweal Cancer Help Program find resources for deep intentional healing in their own communities. Founded in 2014, Healing Circles is a learning community for those seeking to lead healing circles in their homes or organizations. Led by Michael Lerner with Shelia Opperman, Healing Circles provides trainings and a growing curriculum of podcasts and videos in collaboration with The New School at Commonweal.

Circles are taking root in communities across the country, including Healing Circles Langley on Whidbey Island in Washington, directed by Diana and Kelly Lindsay.

COMMONWEAL CANCER HELP PROGRAM Guided by Michael Lerner, Arlene Allsman, and Rachel Naomi Remen, MD, the Commonweal Cancer Help Program seeks to address the unmet needs of people with cancer. This year, the program marks its 30th year and the completion of more than 190 week-long retreats. Elements of the program include yoga, meditation, massage, sandtray, music, a healing circle led by a gifted psychotherapist, and sessions on choices in healing. The Cancer Help Program achieved national recognition in Bill Moyers’ awardwinning PBS series, Healing and the Mind.

THE COLLABORATIVE ON HEALTH AND THE ENVIRONMENT The Collaborative on Health and the Environment (CHE) is an international partnership committed to strengthening scientific and public dialogue on environmental factors linked to human health. Directed by Elise Miller, CHE acts as a catalyst for dialogue among researchers, health professionals, health-affected groups, and advocates. CHE’s working groups address cancer, infertility, autism, learning disabilities, and more than a dozen other topics. CHE’s partners include almost 5,000 individuals and organizations in 87 countries and all 50 states.

THE COMMONWEAL RETREAT CENTER Guided by Retreat Site Director Jenepher Stowell, the Commonweal Retreat Center includes Pacific House (12 bedrooms), Kohler House (three bedrooms) and Bothin House (two bedrooms). The Retreat Center houses Cancer Help Program retreats and many other Commonweal events. It is also available for use by like-minded organizations and individuals for healing, educational, and contemplative programs.

THE NEW SCHOOL AT COMMONWEAL Directed by Michael Lerner with Kyra Epstein, The New School at Commonweal presents conversations, readings, and performances with thought and action leaders of our time. It is a learning community of 3,000 people in the Bay Area and around the world dedicated to learning what matters. The New School presents conversations, book signings, art, and lectures. Most events are free, and so are podcasts and videos of the events—more than 200 on iTunes, Vimeo, and The New School library.

JUVENILE JUSTICE PROGRAM The Commonweal Juvenile Justice Program, directed by attorney David Steinhart, has been a leading advocate for at-risk children and youth in California for 24 years. David supports policymakers, courts, probation attorneys, service providers, advocacy organizations, and others in developing youth crime and violence prevention programs, adopting safe alternatives to youth incarceration, and building an effective national agenda of juvenile justice reform.

HEALING KITCHENS INSTITUTE The Healing Kitchens Institute (HKI) at Commonweal, founded by Rebecca Katz, designs interactive culinary programs that translate nutritional science to the everyday plate to help individuals, communities, and healthcare professionals to recognize the power of food as medicine. HKI believes having healthy connections to food can facilitate nourishment and healing in communities that need it most.

HEALING YOGA FOUNDATION Founded in 2006 by Kate Holcombe, the Healing Yoga Foundation (HYF) is committed to serving all who wish to benefit from yoga by respecting and meeting the needs of the individual regardless of physical capability, health, background, age, experience, or financial means. Kate Holcombe is a leading student of TKV Desikachar, who founded the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram in honor of his father and teacher, the renowned Yoga master, T. Krishnamacharya.

QUICKSTART COMMUNITY-BASED PARTICIPATORY RESEARCH TRAINING PROGRAM Since 2012, Director Heather Sarantis has partnered with the renowned California Breast Cancer Research Program to offer intensive training in community-based participatory research focused on the potential role of environmental exposures and health disparities in increasing breast cancer risk. QuickStart trains community members and scientists to partner effectively in community-based research projects.

VISUAL THINKING STRATEGIES Directed by Amy Chase Gulden, Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) teaches educators the discipline of facilitating open-ended, rigorous, student-centered discussions of works of art that build a culture of listening, critical thinking, respectful debate, and understanding in any setting. These discussions are documented to have cascading positive effects on both teachers and students. VTS is new to Commonweal, but was founded in 1995. The program is now used in schools and museums across the United States and internationally.

EDGE: THE CENTER FOR CREATIVE COMMUNITY Led by Oren Slozberg with Amber Faur, the Center for Creative Community explores the intersection of dialogue, cognition, creativity, and community. Through work in different communities, the Center for Creative Community seeks to deepen our exploration of complex issues in our world—issues that Commonweal programs confront daily. Programs include the Power of Hope Youth Camp, the Ecology of Awakening, the Fall Gathering at Commonweal, and the Creative Facilitation Training Series.

THE REGENERATIVE DESIGN INSTITUTE AT COMMONWEAL GARDEN Commonweal Garden is a beautiful 17-acre site on Commonweal land—a largescale living permaculture classroom and demonstration center for regenerative design. In 2003, Penny Livingston-Stark and James Stark became the caretakers of the Commonweal Garden land, and founded the Regenerative Design Institute (RDI). More than 1,000 students, young and old, from around the world, have been drawn to the garden to live, contribute to the permaculture community, and take courses in permaculture design, the Ecology of Leadership, tracking and nature connection, herbal studies, and the Art of Vitality.

BIOMONITORING RESOURCE CENTER The Commonweal Biomonitoring Resource Center (CBRC) promotes individual and community resilience by testing for the hundreds of environmental chemicals that people all over the world carry in their bodies. Directed by Sharyle Patton, CBRC researches the effects of environmental chemicals and communicates this information to individuals and decision makers.

THE CANCER PREVENTION INITIATIVE Directed by Michael Lerner, the Cancer Prevention Initiative partners with the Environmental Working Group, the Collaborative on Health and the Environment, and the Commonweal Biomonitoring Resource Center to focus awareness on the role of carcinogenic chemicals as contributing factors in the development of some cancers. Interest include the emerging role of endocrine disrupting chemicals and partial carcinogens in cancer.

Health & Healing

Healing Circles

Healing Yoga Institute Healing Kitchens Institute

Cancer Prevention Initiative

Cancer Help Program

The New School

COMMONWEAL

QuickStart

Collaborative on Health & the Environment

EDGE: Center for Creative Community

Visual Thinking Strategies Regenerative Design Institute at Commonweal Garden

Juvenile Justice Program Integrative Law Institute

Environment & Justice

Biomonitoring Resource Center

Education & the Arts

The New Youth Movement at Commonweal

by Oren Slozberg, Director, EDGE Program

There is nothing like a round number anniversary to trigger reflections. When Commonweal was founded, Michael Lerner, Burr Heneman, and Carolyn Brown were all in their thirties— young adults with a vision to make a difference in the world.

Now, 40 years later, today’s youth face their own issues: the faltering economy, the change in climate, the tone of politics, and social conflicts. Though the young adults of 2016 face some different issues than the young adults of 1976 did, they seem to share key values with the generation that started Commonweal— and many certainly share a desire to find healing for our planet.

The voices of today’s youth, and their energy and vision, are more important than ever. We are interested in the kind of intergenerational dialogue that can bring new ideas and collaborative thinking to Commonweal and the world.

For more than a decade, the Regenerative Design Institute at Commonweal Garden has been attracting young people with a vision to make the world a better place. From across the globe, these young people have visited or lived in the permaculture community that Penny Livingston-Stark and James Stark built here—contributing to a way of “living in harmony” with the earth, and then bringing ideas back to their own communities. Nature awareness and tracking, herbal studies, ecology-based 10

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leadership programs, and Penny’s worldfamous permaculture design certification courses have drawn the minds and hearts of many young people to Commonweal.

Today, new efforts and programs are bringing even more young people to Commonweal. We are inviting younger generations, from diverse backgrounds, to experience what we have built here, and to share their vision, perspectives, and ideas.

The Power of Hope, our new summer camp program for youth 14 to 18 years old, is led by more than 20 young artists representing a unique pool of talents, stories, and backgrounds. The Power of Hope is based on the Creative Community Model, which was developed

by Commonweal partners Peggy Taylor and Charlie Murphy. Using different art mediums (theatre, dance, poetry, and visual arts), a community emerges, allowing for authentic conversation and an inter-generational exchange around issues central to participants.

Commonweal’s Fall Gathering, an annual invitational event that evolved in collaboration with the seasonal gatherings at Whidbey Institute and Hollyhock, provides both younger and older generations with

a sustained space for conversations across generations, class, gender, and race.

Other new efforts at Commonweal are resonating with younger people in settings across the world: ■

The Gift of Compassion: Attorney and Zen priest, Angela Oh, and her partner, artist Ying Ming Tu, are bringing Zen meditation and art to youth providers in Los Angeles.

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Ecology of Awakening: Kerry Brady is working with groups to “re-story” us back into the living Earth community—to awaken our unique gifts and more fully participate in the extraordinary cultural and planetary transformation of our time.

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Visual Thinking Strategies: This program deepens children’s thinking and group collaboration skills so that they become habitual. Students can then use existing visual and cognitive skills to develop confidence and learn to use what they already know to figure out what they don’t.

Commonweal’s early vision, which brought us the Commonweal we know today, continues to evolve. Now we are collaborators in our teens, twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, and seventies. All of our viewpoints and experiences, directed through the lens of healing ourselves and our planet, will continue to do the work that the world needs—today and into the future.

Sharing the Fruits of Our Labors

by Rick Ingrasci MD, MPH, Co-Founder, Hollyhock I first met Michael Lerner almost 30 years ago at one of Commonweal’s Symington Foundation Conferences on New Directions in Integrative Cancer Care.

As a psychiatrist working with mind/body approaches to healing cancer, I felt a deep resonance with the Commonweal Cancer Help Program. Michael and I have been close friends and colleagues ever since.

Over the years, Michael would join us occasionally at the Hollyhock Summer Gathering on Cortes Island in British Columbia. Hollyhock is a holistic retreat center that I co-founded in 1982 (hollyhock.ca). In 1986, we began to experiment with a new kind of intergenerational leadership gathering based on the idea that “if you want to create a new culture, throw a better party!” This convivial creative spirit turned out to be a very powerful and effective community-building process. In 2016, we will host the 30th anniversary Hollyhock Summer Gathering.

The Gatherings use a playful emergent process that encourages diversity and openness to new ideas. The structure is simple: plenary presentations and small group dynamics in the mornings, self-organizing concurrent sessions in

the afternoons, and joyful arts-based experiences in the evenings (e.g., storytelling, theater improv, open mic, multimedia, and a big dance party).

Surprising, unexpected outcomes always emerge, including new projects and relationships that have major potential impacts on the world.

My wife, Peggy Taylor, and I live on Whidbey Island near Seattle, and when we initiated the Whidbey Winter Gathering six years ago at the Whidbey Institute (whidbeyinstitute.org), Michael became an enthusiastic participant from the beginning. Michael continues to be impressed by the success of our “Better Party” approach to intergenerational gatherings, and he also fell in love with Whidbey Island and our community.

Michael and his wife Sharyle Patton now own a home on Whidbey and are part-time members of our community. And Commonweal also has an amazing project: Healing Circles Langley, based on Whidbey Island (healingcircleslangley.org).

In 2013, Michael suggested that we collaborate in creating a Fall Gathering at Commonweal using the same artsbased principles and techniques that

Fall Gathering photos: above, Orland Bishop with group; bottom, Caroline Casey with participants.

weave the magic at the Summer and Winter gatherings. It worked! While the Commonweal gathering is slightly smaller—60 participants versus 100 at the larger venues—the impact on the diverse group of intergenerational leaders is profound. The invitational Commonweal Fall Gathering, guided by Oren Slozberg, is now an annual event.

Reflecting back on the past forty years, it’s clear that Commonweal, Hollyhock, and the Whidbey Institute have been working toward similar goals: ■

To catalyze the shift toward a more ecological worldview, emphasizing the interconnectedness of all life

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To create safe, supportive learning environments for personal and social transformation

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To develop new stories and visions that empower people to create a more loving, compassionate world.

These three West Coast learning centers—the Whidbey Institute, (founded in 1973), Commonweal (founded in 1976), and Hollyhock (founded in 1982)—have all been independently, and quietly, building communities of people committed to healing and to preserving the earth.

All three are located in awe-inspiring and vibrant places in the Northwest, and all three make use of the potency of their natural environments to bring healing and change. Our shared Gatherings, along with the Power of Hope teen camps and Healing Circles, are signals of the beginning of the powerful synergies that are emerging in this evolving network of centers of light.

Let the good times roll.

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Reflections

by Michael Lerner, President

You can see that the good work continues at Commonweal.

This is the place where I ask you to renew—or begin—your support for our work.

Commonweal has been blessed for decades by an active circle of Commonweal Friends who make our work part of their personal giving.

It is a simple truth that we could not do it without you.

You have many ways to support Commonweal. You can give to a specific program that touches your heart—or to Commonweal as a whole.

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You can give by check or online at www.commonweal.org.

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You can give us valuable non-cash contributions—vehicles, houses, land, boats. We are very open to exploring your ways of giving with you.

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You can include us in your estate planning. Some of the most transformational gifts to Commonweal have been estate gifts.

You know this is Commonweal’s 40th anniversary. This is a wonderful time to support both the present and the future of our work.

If you want to talk about your interest in supporting Commonweal, please feel free to contact me or Oren Slozberg, our Chief Strategies Officer.

We’d be delighted to talk with you.

W I T H

G R AT I T U D E

We express our deep gratitude to the following organizations that have supported Commonweal this year: The A & A Fund ● Alan & Nancy Baer Foundation ● Ann F. and Lawrence A. Wiener Educational Foundation ● Arthur and Charlotte Zitrin Foundation As You Sow ● Baron Chartiable Fund ● Battery Powered—The Battery Foundation ● Bellwether Foundation ● Bet Lev Foundation ● Blair Kirkwood Fund Bothin Foundation ● The Brady Family Fund ● The California Endowment ● The California Wellness Foundation ● Calvert Social Investment Foundation Chang Family 1999 Trust ● Chevron Matching Employee Funds ● Clarence B. and Joan F. Coleman Charitable Foundation ● The Commonwealth Fund David Foster Wallace Literary Trust ● Fetzer Institute ● Fidelity Charitable ● Fireman’s Fund Foundation ● The Frey Family Foundation Fulton-Kunst Fund of RSF Social Finace ● George T. Cameron Education Foundation ● Germanacos Foundation ● Globe Foundation Greater Houston Community Foundation ● The Gun and Tom Denhart Family Fund ● Herbert L. Strauss & Carolyn N. Strauss Trust

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Hilo Foundation

Hoppin Family Fund Jenifer Altman Foundation Jensen Martin Gift Fund Jewish Communal Fund Jewish Community Foundation of the West ●

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Kalliopeia Foundation ● Kat Foundation ● Kellog Family Trust ● Las Baulines Nursery ● Laura Deem Fine Art ● Lion Hare Fund ● Marford Charitable Gift Fund Marin Community Foundation ● Marston Family Fund ● Maverick Lloyd Foundation ● The McCarthy Family Foundation of the Ayco Charitable Foundation Mental Insight Foundation ● MMG Foundation ● Morning Glory Family Foundation ● Morris Schapiro and Family Foundation Muriel Murch Full Circle Endowment Fund of the Marin Community Foundation ● Nathan Cummings Foundation ● The New York Community Trust Oak Fund of Triangle Community Foundation ● Renaissance Charitable Fdn ● Rockefeller Brothers Fund ● Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors Rosenbloom Family Philanthropic Fund ● Samuel H. Kress Foundation ● The San Francisco Foundation ● Schwab Charitable ● Service Space Spaw Family Fund ● Susie Tompkins Buell Fund ● The T & M Frankel Foundation ● Theobald Foundation ● Tides Foundation ● University of California Upstream Fund ● van Loben Sels/RembeRock Foundation ● Vanguard Charitable ● Vineman Inc ● Virginia Wellington Cabot Foundation Visual Understanding in Education ● W.K. Kellogg Foundation ● W.K. Kellogg Fund ● Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation Wallace Genetic Foundation ● Wells Fargo Community Support Campaign ● West Marin Fund ● The Whitman Institute ● The Wyss Foundation and several foundations that prefer anonymity.

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C O M M O N W E A L ■ J U N E 2 0 16

W I T H G R AT I T U D E ( C O N T I N U E D ) We offer special thanks and gratitude to the following Commonweal Friends for their generous contributions of $100 and above during the last six months. A full list of all of our donors can be found on our website under “About Us.” (Donations received after 4/1/16 will be acknowledged in the next newsletter.)

Gerald Abrams Donald I. Abrams Tim Adams Maureen Adams Kathryn Adams Randi Allen Susan Amussen Thomas Anderson Anne Meade Andrews Shannon Arndt Janet E. Arnesty, MD and John C. Good, MD Sara Babin Alan Baer Robert and Carol Baird Nancy Baker Deborah Baker Robert and Patricia Baldassano Carol Banquer, MD Peter F. Barnes Caryl Baron Holly and John Bast Adina Beaumont Carl Belline Carl and Susie Bellone Lea Ann Bernick Michael Bernsohn Clement Bezold Deborah Binder Diane Blacker Keith Block, MD, and Penny B. Block Jean Shinoda Bolen Lawrence Boly, MD Penelope Bourk Ed and Nancy Boyce Christine and Jim Boyd William and Vera Braasch Marion Brackett Fadhilla Bradley Joan Nonie Brady James and Joan Brady Barbara Bramble Frish Brandt Paula Braveman and John Levin Wayne Breckon Lisa Brey

Jasanna Britton Julia Burbank J. Stephen and Marjorie Burr Carolyn Buser Mary and Steve Callender Abigail Caplin and Amnon Goodman Alison Carlson Andrew Carman Sylvie Carnot Victoria Castle Stefany Cesari Arnold Chace, Jr. Charlene Chang Nicole Chase Tricia Claudy Neil and Judy Collier Wendy Richardson Collins Terry Collins Philip Collora Paul Connolly Mary Anne and Rob Cook Mary Cooney Shira Cornfeld Nance Crosby Pamela Culp Christine Cunha Alastair Cunningham Francis Curren Joshua Davidson Kathleen DeBeer Denni Dedomenico Mike Dentinger Karin and Robert DeSantis Catherine Dodd Elizabeth Doerr William Drayton Linda Dunham Richard Eagan and Elizabeth Ostrow Edith Eddy David Elkus Barry Elson, MD Robin English Dawn Fairbanks Nancy Feagin James Feldman Robert Feraru

Marilee Ford Ann Fox Tom and Myrna Frankel Anne French Allison Frey David Frey Randall Fried Gil Friend Donna Froese Daniel Fry Katherine Fulton and Katharine Kunst Howard Gardner Matthew Gardner Ron and Maria Garrigues Louise Gartner Neil Gendel Kathleen Geritz Anne Germanacos Lynn Getz Steven Gilbert Marilyn Goldberg Lisa Goldman Daniel Goleman Sally Goodwin Paula Gordon Robert Gould Sally and Gil Gradinger Cynthia Graham Lindy Rose Graham Bess Granby William Grant James Grant Karen Green Joan and David Grubin Robert Gwyther, MD Joan Hadro Nancy Hale Reuben Hale Judith Hammond Cecelia Hard Mark Hardwick Gloria Harris Martha Hart Alan Heggen Judith Heike Gwen Heistand Thelton Henderson

Barbara Hendrickson Burr Heneman Nancy Hepp Gary Hillerson Khalaf Hirmina Rebecca Hoeschler Nancy Holt Polly Hoppin and Bob Thomas Mary Hurley Janell Israel Richard Jackson MD, MPH Toril Jelter Mark Jensen Stuart Johnson Marcy Jones Laurie Julian Philip Kalfas Richard Kantor Miki Kashtan Rebecca Katz Barbara Katz Drs. Ramesh and Lakshmi Kaza G. Berk Kellogg Gary Kelson Kathy Kerdus Carol Kerley Cecily Kihn David Kirkpatrick Brooks Kirkwood Jane Klassen Theresa Koetters Deborah Koff-Chapin Dr. Sanford Koltonow, MD Gary Konkol Lynda Koolish Ronda Kotelchuck Anna Kovina Maxine Kraemer Kathleen Kraemer Marty Krasney Alex Kushner Patricia and Norman Landsberg Jane Larew Mary Lawson Karen Lazarus Rebecca Lee

Philip Lee Mel Lefer Mary Lenox Michael Lerner Susan Lessin, MD Douglas Lipinski Judith Gail Lipton Mark Liss Toni Littlejohn Hanmin Liu and Jennifer Mei Sara Lovell H. Christopher Luce Richard Ludeman Betty Lupton Betsy MacGregor and Charles Terry Daniel Magraw Janet Mahoney Gene Marchi and Travis Smith Vanessa Marcotte Alexandria Marcus Lauralyn Markle Susan Collin Marks Lynnette Marrero Michael and Alexandra Marston Michael Martin Lori Marx-Rubiner Marsha Maslan Terri Mason Maureen Mavrinac Dr. Georgia Lee May William Mayo-Smith Elaine McCarthy Mary Lee McCune Nancy McFadden Laurie McMillan Channaorah Meir William Mentzer Barbara Meyer Doris Meyer James Stewart Miller Steven Miller Wendy Lynn Miller Elise Miller Charles Mohn Harry Moody

Kenneth and Kristen Moore Jill Moore Gwendolyn Morgan Lynn Murphy Tessa Namuth Bruce Nayowith Lynn Nelsen Lewis Nerenberg, MD Susan Newstead Sylvia Nobbmann Carolyn North Michael Northrop Robin Obata Heather Ogilvy Angela Eunjin Oh Jane Ohnemus Anne Olender Michael O’Mahony

John Sasko Lorna Sass, PhD Barbara Schaetti Sarah Schafer Marcia Schekel Lisa Schenkel Ted Schettler, MD Patty Schmidt Peter Schmidt Claire Schneeberger Mary Schneider Joyce and Jim Schnobrich Francine Schulberg Elisa Schwartz Nancy and Don Sebastiani Carolyn Monka Serota and Richard Feldman Judith Bloom Shaw Glenn Siegel Linda Silvers Jennifer Antes Sivertson Donald Smith Jim Spady David Spaw Richard Spaw Deb Steele Robert Steingut and Eileen Heitzler Mary Stephens Kathryn Stevens Kim Stewart James Steyer Sara Stuart Mary Ellen Stuart Stephanie Sugars Ann Sullivan Toby Symington Lois Talkovsky Gregory Tarsy Margaret Taylor Stephanie and Scott Theirl Claire Theobald Susan Thompson Barbara Tittle, MD Eveline Tom Barbara Towle Peter and Joanna Townsend Barry and Marjorie Traub

Shelia Opperman Carmen Ortiz Claudette Ozoa Richard Paine April Paletsas Patricia Palmerton Diana Parnell, MD Adriana Pavletic Martin Payne Ruth Penn Marcia Peterzell and Linda Silver Diane Pick Robert Pittman Kendra Placek Rachelle and Adam Portner Mary Powell Patricia Price Russ Pugh James and Caren Quay Barbara Recchia Jeanne Rizzo Charles Roppel Ruth Rosen Fernne Rosenblatt Scott “Skip” and Shirley Rosenbloom Diana Rothman Peter Sandmann

Cynthia Trowbridge Mary Evelyn Tucker Robert Tygenhof Maria Valenti Debora Valis Mary Ann and John Valiulis Paula Barber Vanderwoude George Viramontes Alexander Von Hafften Murry and Marilyn Waldman Lucy Waletzky, MD Leslie Walker Fong and Caroline Wang Debra Waterman Libby Weathers Patricia and George Wellde Francis Weller Catherine West, MD Canon Western R. Whitney Ann Wiener Lawrence Wilkinson Lynn Willeford Lauren Williams Serita Winthrop Mardi Wood Carol Wuebker Elizabeth Zarlengo Alison Zuber and several anonymous donors.

COMMONWEAL P. O. B o x 3 1 6 , B o l i n a s , CA 9 4 9 2 4

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Newsletter Editors: Diane Blacker and Kyra Epstein ■ Newsletter Design: Winking Fish ■ Printed on 100% post consumer waste recycled and 100% chlorine-free processed paper with soy-based inks.

P. O . B o x 3 1 6 Bolinas, CA 94924

CELEBRATING

40

YEARS OF SERVICE

Celebration Dinner September 24, 2016

Keep up with all of our events at commonweal.org

JESSICA DUNNE January–May 2016 at Commonweal Gallery