Commonweal News - Summer 2017

H E A LT H A N D H E A L I N G

JUNE 2017

Dear Commonweal Friends, Commonweal began when I looked out at the Commonweal site more than 40 years ago. I had a vision of a center for healing ourselves and healing the earth. We are faithful to that vision.

Today we face unprecedented assault on our core values.

The attack on preventing climate change. The disdain for clean air, pure water, safe foods, and safe products.

The attack on Internet privacy. The efforts to dismantle national parks and public lands. The amping up of Middle East wars and the erasing of protections for civilians. The attack on immigrants. The effort to gut PBS and the arts.

And much more.

If there is a bright light, it is the astonishing wave of public resistance to the new regime. That resistance is like rolling thunder sweeping across the country.

Commonweal is not partisan. But these are not partisan matters. Sometimes I think of the Commonweal community as a company of ambulance drivers on the battlefield of life.

We tend the wounded. We seek to end the hostilities. We work to build a world where our children can grow up free and strong.

We must discover how best to live through this dark time.

We can align our work with the needs of this time. And we can contribute to building a better world.

At Commonweal, our work in healing, education, the arts, the environment, and justice is stronger than it has ever been.

This edition of Commonweal News focuses on our work in health and healing. Our healing work includes our week-long Commonweal Cancer Help Program, our three-day retreats for Bay Area young cancer survivors, our international Healing Circles work, our Healing Kitchens Institute, and our Healing Yoga Foundation.

We now have three additions to our healing work. The first is a new project called Beyond Conventional Cancer Therapies. The second is the Foundation for Embodied Medicine, directed by Deb Cohan, MD. And the third is BJ Miller’s new project, the Center for Dying and Living. You will read more about each inside.

In other new projects, we are deeply delighted that Jerry Heindel, PhD, has brought his Program in Endocrine Disruption Strategies (PEDS) to Commonweal. Jerry founded PEDS to foster science, education, outreach, and policy development around endocrine disruptors, which negatively affect health in humans and the environment.

Other Commonweal projects connect deeply with our healing work, including the Collaborative on Health and the Environment, our Power of Hope summer camps, Visual Thinking Strategies, the Commonweal Garden and Regenerative Design Institute, and our work with Breast Cancer Prevention Partners on a state plan for breast cancer prevention. We’ll save those for next time (or you can find out more on our website at commonweal.org any time).

Let’s find courage together. We need it for these times.

With Gratitude, Michael Lerner, President

The Sustained Organic Growth of Our Cancer Work— and Going Beyond Cancer

by Michael Lerner, President

The Commonweal Cancer Help Program has now offered 194 week-long retreats over 31 years. With three vibrant Bay Area alumni groups and an alumni support network that reaches around the world, the Cancer Help Program remains at the heart of Commonweal.

Our three-day Bay Area Young Survivors (BAYS) retreats for younger women with breast cancer are guided by Arlene Allsman, who also coordinates the Cancer Help Program. We offer three BAYS retreats each year for ten young women at a time.

A new addition to our cancer work is the Beyond Conventional Cancer Therapies project. We are developing a website to help people with cancer go beyond conventional cancer therapies in a prudent and informed way. My co-founder, Lucy Waletzky, MD, is deeply committed to the project. Laura Pole, RN, MSN, is our oncology nurse researcher, and Shelia Opperman coordinates the program.

Healing Circles was founded four years ago as a learning community devoted to high quality support for people with cancer and others seeking to heal, learn, and grow. Healing Circles started in partnership with three other centers that have done work based on our Cancer Help Program for 20 years: Callanish in Vancouver, British Columbia; Harmony Hill in Union, Washington; and Smith Center for Healing and the Arts in 2

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Washington, DC. Current Healing Circles include the following: ■■

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Healing Circles Langley, on Whidbey Island north of Seattle, was started

by Diana and Kelly Lindsay. Diana is a 10-year survivor of metastatic lung cancer who was given less than a year to live at diagnosis. Two years after they initiated Healing Circles Langley, their beautiful center, overlooking the Saratoga Passage, has 600 client visits a month and 16 separate healing circles. Diana and Kelly distinguish among three kinds of circles—Healing Circles for people with the same disease, Learning Circles for people who want to learn something together, and Discovery Circles for people seeking experiential growth opportunities. We group them all under the Healing Circles rubric.

Healing Circles Houston was initiated

by David Spaw, his wife Kimberly Hickson, and his longtime colleague Susan Rafte. David is partnering with churches and other major organizations in Houston as a Healing Circles model for major urban centers. David also found a beautiful old house as a base for Healing Circles Houston.

The three Commonweal Cancer Help Program alumni groups lead our Healing Circles work in the Bay Area.

We are starting Healing Circles in

Oakland with the Women’s Cancer Resource Center, which serves primarily low-income women of color.

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Khris Ford has started a Healing Circles project in Raleigh, North Carolina. Joy Davies has initiated a three-day Cancer Help Program north of Toronto. Liora Amichay has initiated a Healing Circles program in Jerusalem. Other similar seed Healing Circles programs are sprouting up.

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Our partners Eric Blegen and Gretchen Schodde, and their staff at Harmony Hill, have a vigorous Healing Circles initiative underway in partnership with Washington cancer treatment centers, and they are developing a parallel program for their alumni. And our partners Janie Brown and her staff at Callanish are partnering with the British Columbia Cancer Agency to develop Healing Circles in Vancouver.

Healing Circles has the feel of a Commonweal-initiated project that will continue to grow organically and extend its reach across the United States, Canada, and slowly around the world. My intuition is that Healing Circles will remain central to my life work—as the necessary extension of 30 years of the Commonweal Cancer Help Program.

Find out more on our website: commonweal.org/program/healing-circles.

Center for Dying and Living Begins Its Work at Commonweal

by Michael Lerner, President

In January, BJ Miller, MD, was the subject of a New York Times Magazine essay, “One Man’s Quest to Change the Way We Die: How B.J. Miller, a doctor and triple amputee, used his own experience to pioneer a new model of palliative care at a small, quirky hospice in San Francisco.”

In 1990, while an undergraduate at Princeton, BJ climbed on top of a parked commuter train after drinking with friends and was electrocuted by an 11,000 volt power line.

He lost both legs and one arm. When he comes to see us at Commonweal, he drives a specially modified racing motorcycle, too fast, on the perilous windy Route 1 over Mount Tamalpais.

BJ is well known for his tenure as executive director at San Francisco’s Zen Hospice. His March 2015 TED talk has been watched more than five million times. In that talk, BJ says that Zen Hospice taught him what matters most to people close to death: comfort, feeling unburdened, and unburdening to those they love, existential peace, and a sense of wonderment and spirituality. BJ recently stepped down from his position at Zen Hospice to found his own organization: the Center for Dying and Living. Commonweal is honored to serve as the Center for Dying and Living’s start-up incubator.

BJ has become a charismatic spokesperson for the cultural movement to reinvent how we think about death.

The Times writes: Miller spent years repulsed by the “chopped meat” where his arm ended and crushed with shame when he noticed people wince or look away. But he slowly became more confident and playful. He replaced the sock-like covering many amputees wear over their armstumps with an actual sock: first a plain sock, then stripes and argyles.

Then, one day he forgot to put on any sock and—just like that—“I was done with it. I was no longer ashamed of my arm.” He became fascinated by architects like Louis Sullivan, who stripped the veneer off their buildings and let the strength of their construction shine through.

And suddenly, the standard-issue foam covers he’d been

wearing over his prosthetics seemed like a clunky charade— Potemkin legs.

BJ Miller, founder of the Center for Dying The exquisitely and Living, giving his 2015 TED talk. engineered artificial limbs they hid were actually pretty interesting, even sexy, made of the same carbon fiber used as a finish on expensive sports cars. “Why not tear that stuff off and delight in what actually is?” Miller recalled thinking.

So he did.

Sonya Dolan works with BJ at the Center for Dying and Living. She writes: We are creating a small, nimble organization that will scour and harvest available information about how humans currently respond, or have responded in the past, to mortality.

We can be described as something of a “skunkworks”—we will take advantage of the Center’s independence to engage difficult or controversial projects that would otherwise fall outside normal funding and political streams.

The Center will start as a virtual, web-based offering.

Over time, it is our goal to build physical resource centers where the public can find information as well as receive services. We hope to bring novel architecture to bear as part of a therapeutic response to the subject of mortality.

We are very excited to be partnering with Commonweal, not only for practical purposes, but also for soulful purposes, knowing that we share the same spirit of inclusion and creativity before the world’s problems.

When BJ first described his vision of the center to me, I asked if he had raised any funds yet. He said no. I pulled a $100 bill out of my wallet and said I wanted to be the first donor. Oren Slozberg, Commonweal’s Chief Strategies Officer, is on BJ’s Board of Directors. We’re honored by their trust. We share their vision.

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Culinary Medicine: Revitalizing our Food Culture

by Stefania Patinella, Executive Director, Healing Kitchens Institute The mission of Commonweal’s Healing Kitchens Institute (HKI) is to educate individuals and communities about “culinary medicine.” Culinary medicine is a relatively new term that describes an idea as old as the hills—that our food and culinary traditions carry within them not only the ability to please our taste buds, but also to nourish, build, and heal our bodies.

Although every traditional culture around the world holds this idea as evident, Americans have veered dangerously far from it. Instead of serving as our primary source of wellness, our diets are the single greatest cause of premature death. What we eat (and don’t eat) is also a leading cause of the chronic diseases from which more than 50% of Americans suffer, including heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, poor bone health, and cancer.

It stands to reason, then, that improving our diets provides our best opportunity to change this situation. At HKI, we believe that we can reverse the downward trends in our national health by revitalizing our food culture and reviving healthy, home cooking.

In recent years, HKI has worked to bring the message of culinary medicine to physicians and other healthcare practitioners. While physicians are hungry to learn about food and nutrition,

the subject gets little to no attention in medical school, leaving many feeling lost about how to counsel patients. This is where CHE comes in. We have partnered with leading healthcare institutions, including Stanford Medical Center, Johns Hopkins University, and Kaiser Permanente, to provide trainings for their providers.

Two years ago, to deepen our work, we launched our Cook on Every Corner program, a six-week course for healthcare providers in Santa Rosa, California. We gathered in the kitchen with providers to teach them how to translate nutrition concepts into delicious meals, how to navigate the grocery store and cook on a Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) budget, how to get kids to try vegetables, and much more. The results were phenomenal. Evaluations show that participants increased their knowledge, skills, and confidence by two-thirds. This reflects a monumental change in physicians’ understanding of preventive health. The ripple effect has been equally significant, as practitioners have used their new knowledge and skills to educate others in their communities.

In the most recent example, two providers led a cooking workshop for high school students from underserved

Healthcare providers presented a cooking workshop for high school students from under-served communities as part of the Cooks on Every Corner program.

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communities as a way to encourage them to pursue health-related careers, thus re-linking healthcare and healthy food for the next generation. Healthy tacos with all the fixings were on the menu!

With this “proof of concept” in hand, we are poised for expansion, and we are taking a step back to plan our growth wisely. Our strategic planning has lead us to vibrant conversations with leaders in the healthcare field, conversations that have yielded far-reaching questions about how to position ourselves to make the greatest impact. This is clear: the scope of our health problems demands that we think big. It is also clear that the path forward is through partnerships, both with community institutions that are working on the frontlines of public health, and with forward-thinking health systems that want to improve patient outcomes.

Our website has more information on our program at HealingKitchensInstitute.org.

The Healing Kitchens Institute was founded

by Rebecca Katz and is directed by Stefania Patinella. HKI is profoundly grateful to the Bellwether Foundation and the Morris Schapiro and Family Foundation for their generous support of our work.

The New School at Commonweal: Ten Years of Community Conversations

by Michael Lerner, President, and Kyra Epstein, TNS Coordinator On February 5, 2007, Michael Lerner sat down for a phone interview with Ted Schettler, MD. They talked about Ted’s work on an ecological model of health.

The next day, Michael hosted a call with spiritual teacher and author Ram Dass and Institute for the Study of Health and Illness Director Rachel Naomi Remen, MD—a free-ranging conversation about healing, aging, and dying. That year, the seed of The New School at Commonweal (TNS) was planted.

In the decade since those early recorded calls and small audiences in the Commonweal Library, TNS has grown in every way. Michael has been joined by other TNS hosts, including Susan Braun, Jaune Evans, Steve Heilig, Eric Karpeles, and Irwin Keller. Conversations have expanded in many directions, including the end of life, archetypal psychology, and the teachings of Sufi mystic Ibn ‘Arabi. Michael has explored the spiritual biographies of Angeles Arrien, Brother David Steindl-Rast, Orland Bishop, and others. Eric Karpeles has interviewed the poet W.S. Merwin and led powerful community readings of Walt Whitman and Henry David Thoreau. Steve Heilig has explored 60s culture and talked with local heroes. Irwin Keller has hosted conversations at a new TNS venue in Sonoma County, bringing a new diversity of people to the New School with guests like Holly Near and Sumbul Ali-Karamali.

Our four regular hosts now offer about 30

events a year with audiences occasionally as large as 300 people.

You have taken the journey with us.

We have 4,000 TNS newsletter subscribers around the world. Many thousands more tune into our more than 250 podcasts and almost 100 videos.

TNS has proven to be an inspired learning community that brought thousands of people into the global Commonweal circle that we did not know before. On a personal level, many of you have told us that these conversations have inspired you—and sometimes they have been a true lifeline for you.

This tenth anniversary of The New School is a time to reflect on where we have been and consider where we will go.

Throughout this year, we’ll be looking back at conversations we love—and we hope you’ll let us know what your favorites are, too.

Most of all, this tenth anniversary is a time to thank you for being part of The New School. We couldn’t have done it without your support, your participation in our events, and your interest in our podcasts and videos.

We like to think that The New School offers a way of learning together that is very old and yet absolutely fresh for our time.

The Greeks believed that truth emerged through dialogue. We believe that is still true. The New School is free—the way we believe education should be—and therefore completely dependent on your support and contributions. If your life has been touched by The New School, we hope you will consider a special tenth anniversary contribution at our website. Or, if you want to discuss a special contribution, please contact TNS Coordinator Kyra Epstein or Michael Lerner—we’d love to discuss legacy gifts or other special contributions with you.

For more information, go to our website at tns.commonweal.org.

TNS would not be possible without the support of Bet Lev Foundation, Kalliopeia Foundation, West Marin Fund, The Whitman Institute, and individual contributions from TNS supporters.

Thank you.

Listener Favorites Donald Abrams, MD Integrative Cancer Care Training (2014) Angeles Arrien Nothing Special, the Mystery of Everyday Life (2013) Orland Bishop Spiritual Biography (2011) Jacob Needleman Gurdjieff: A Life in the Work (2016) Francis Weller Beauty, Imagination, Life of the Soul (2013)

Top Left: Michael Lerner.

Top: TNS Host Steve Heilig.

Middle: TNS Host Eric Karpeles, with other readers, at the public reading from Thoreau’s Journal (2016).

Bottom: TNS-Sonoma Host Irwin Keller, with guest Sumbul Ali-Karamali (2016).

PHOTOS ON THIS PAGE COURTESY OF KYRA EPSTEIN, PIRO PATTON AND BILL BRAASCH.

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The Art of Vitality: A Loving Reciprocity with the Earth

by Anna O’Malley, Director, Art of Vitality, a Program of the Regenerative Design Institute What would our lives be like if we were our healthiest, most vital selves? Under what conditions do transformative breakthroughs lead to vital wholeness? How could reconnecting ourselves to the natural world facilitate our healing journeys?

These questions, and dissatisfaction with the limiting nature of the medical system in which I practice, opened a dialogue with James Stark, co-director of the Regenerative Design Institute in the Commonweal Garden, and myself, an integrative family and community medicine physician in West Marin.

Out of a shared vision for a new model

PHOTOS ON THIS PAGE COURTESY OF GINNY FELCH.

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grounded in nature connection, loving support, and wisdom cultivation, the Art of Vitality program was born.

Each season in this year-long program, we come together for a three-day weekend in the beautiful, healing Commonweal Garden. We attune ourselves to nature, experience practices supportive of optimal health, engage in dialogue around health principles, and delight in the depth of inter-connectedness. Sitting in a meadow opens us to awe and wonder. Chef demonstrations sourced from the garden or the wild nature around us inspire medicinal culinary engagement. The cozy container of the yurt holds us as we focus intentions for transformation and dive into depths, like conscious death and dying.

Our peers support us in taking action moving toward health and vitality, and the cultivation of a “buddy” relationship within and between weekends deepens the experience of social support. Our collective community built around well-being and transformation inspires us to ever deepening vitality and resilience.

The experience of being held in supportive, loving community is, in and of itself, medicine. Reflections from participants on this journey speak to this potent elemental healing force: tapping into the power of love within the village we’ve created empowers us in our healing work for ourselves and our communities.

The “buddy” relationship brings strength in navigating vulnerable challenges in a

self-generous and compassionate way, and resolve in dedication to self-care. Being held in a loving, gratitude-cultivating circle drops us straight into our hearts, allowing us to be with our moving emotions and to step into our whole selves. Self-love and selfnurturing behaviors follow.

We are delighted to include this program with the health and healing programs offered by Commonweal.

Commonweal’s beautiful leadership in honoring the ecological and interpersonal elements of healing provides the deep container into which this work is woven.

The Commonweal Garden, so lovingly stewarded by Penny Livingston-Stark and James Stark over the past 13 years, is the embodiment of the benevolent abundance found in nature. Healing foods and medicine growing out of the Earth, generous trees witnessing our reflection and deepening our connections, wondrous beauty inspiring the most healing energies of awe and wonder are all given freely to those who are receptive and open to a loving reciprocity. It is with deep and humbled gratitude to those who have cultivated this healing garden that this program is offered up.

We begin the journey anew in September. We invite you to join us.

Find out more about the Art of Vitality, a program of Commonweal’s Regenerative Design Institute, at: regenerativedesign.org/ programs/art-vitality.

The Regenerative Design Institute is grateful for the support of the Jenifer Altman Foundation, Muriel Murch Full Circle Endowment Fund of Marin Community Foundation, and many individual donors.

The Body is the Cure

Deborah Cohan, MD, MPH, Director, Foundation for Embodied Medicine

Imagine young women with breast cancer finding calm and joy and sense of community through a collective experience of dance. Imagine a group of Obstetrics residents walking very slowly in the hospital, cultivating body awareness and patience. Imagine newborn babies teaching medical students how to dance and touch empathically.

Imagine doctors doing a one-minute meditation after rounds—focusing on the sensations in their own bodies before examining their patients.

Imagine caregivers learning how to synchronize their breathing with loved ones in pain. Imagine a surgical team and a patient dancing together moments before surgery. This is Embodied Medicine.

Founded in 2014, the Foundation of Embodied Medicine brings the healing power of body awareness, conscious dance, and embodied presence to patients, caregivers, and medical providers. Through movement and other exercises in body awareness, Embodied Medicine taps into the wisdom of the body to help participants explore, express, and transform their inner landscape. The Embodied Medicine philosophy recognizes the multidimensional nature of healing for patients, caregivers, and medical providers. This healing includes not only the physical, which dominates the current biomedical paradigm, but also the psycho-emotional and spiritual growth that is possible when one feels safe and adequately resourced to explore opportunities for deep transformation and liberation from suffering.

There is a great need for people to reconnect with their bodies and with each other. Those with health challenges like cancer may believe their body has betrayed them. Patients may feel isolated and disconnected from community, an experience often amplified during illness.

Many medical providers are overworked, unengaged with their patients, and suffering from burnout. With rushed visits, providers lack opportunities for empathic connection with patients. Medical providers typically have spent much of their lives in a cognitive realm, susceptible to unlearning the wisdom of the body.

Embodied Medicine provides a framework

for exploring one’s inner world and for connecting with others with empathy, joy, and presence.

Embodied Medicine incorporates mindfulness, creative self-expression, and physical activity in a safe, focused, and often playful environment. In traditional Buddhist teachings, body awareness is considered the initial gateway to mindfulness. Established somatic mindfulness practices include body scan meditation, yoga, Tai Chi, and Qigong.

Inspired and informed by these traditional practices, conscious dance has been defined as movement with an intention towards greater awareness. Conscious dance brings heightened connection to one’s body, the subconscious, the communal field, and the mystery that lies beyond words. Conscious dance provides a vehicle for self-expression and is a readily accessible form of exercise, promoting the many well-documented benefits of physical activity.

Bringing one’s inner life into awareness can

bolster patient-provider connection and communication and can open the door for truly transformative healing. Bringing these practices of transformative healing specifically into biomedical settings invites providers to more fully embrace their role as healers and, in doing so, work to heal the healthcare system itself.

Embodied Medicine teachings encourage primary sensory experiences in the body to start shedding unconscious narratives that inhibit connection with one’s soul and with others. These gently guided experiences can set the stage for imprinting new narratives of the past, bringing attention to the present and, ultimately, nourishing an integrated body-mind-heart-spirit.

Embodied Medicine facilitates a process of transforming the body from being a source of suffering into a source of freedom.

Imagine healthcare as a soulful healing experience in which patients and caregivers are empowered to explore and creatively express their needs, and medical providers bring embodied presence to healing encounters. This is Embodied Medicine.

Find out more on the Foundation for Embodied Medicine’s website: embodiedmedicine.org.

The Foundation for Embodied Medicine thanks the Lloyd Symington Foundation and the NIKE Foundation for their generous support.

Above: Deborah Cohen.

Courtesy Hillary Goidell (hillarygoidell.com).

Right: Deborah dancing in the operating room prior to her surgery, 2013. The YouTube video has been watched more than 8 million times.

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Building Resilience with a Diverse, Intergenerational Community

by Dia Penning, Coordinator, Resiliency Is Our Community

Commonweal has always been a place of convening. The land and place is special, with a quality that brings a sense of grounding and healing. The Commonweal Center for Creative Community (CCC) brings this special quality to many diverse groups through its programming, using a combination of creativity (singing, acting, art) and the Commonweal healing circles model (experiential discovery).

In April 2016, CCC hosted an intergenerational group to explore how millennials could connect to groups of other ages and to the earth.

After the elections in November, the need for connection became more urgent. This group, now called Resiliency Is Our Community, meets quarterly, exploring ways to bring resiliency into our communities and our world.

Individually and as a group, we explore questions of purpose, identifying key moments that shine a light on that purpose. We examine how collective work and collaboration impact our communities and what role we each play.

These questions are complex and take time to explore. By working together we create a safe space in which we can dig

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deep. Our internal examination helps us understand what to look for externally.

As we highlight our individual needs for transformation, we also illuminate our external reality. We begin to see connections more clearly.

Over the next year, we will work to create a collaborative framework. In each session, we will further refine our

collective purpose in order to support each individual’s path. Through shared leadership and intergenerational voices, we will ask questions to move us into a new reality. We will challenge one another to be brave, to deeply examine those places that we have left dormant for a long time. We will look at the external reality of our community, at the inequities that have moved these questions forward in a deeper way. The collaborative framework will support us in examining ideas of self-care and deep work around equity and liberation, service, and purpose.

We are so excited about our community.

We look forward to sharing this work with you and invite you to join us in our explorations.

For more information, contact Dia Penning at dia@commonweal.org.

This program is part of Commonweal’s Center for Creative Community, supported by the Germanacos Foundation and individual donors.

Passing the Reins: Welcoming a New Director to Commonweal’s Collaborative for Health and the Environment From Michael Lerner, President On April 1, Elise Miller, director of the Collaborative for Health and the Environment (CHE) stepped down, and we welcomed Karen Wang as CHE’s new director. Elise was present at the conception of CHE. We worked together on environmental health and justice issues for 24 years—first when Elise became the founding executive director of the Jenifer Altman Foundation, then when she became a co-founder of CHE, and finally during the fruitful years when Elise took over leadership of CHE. She advanced CHE far beyond where our global community was when she became director.

Elise has stepped down with a deep inner sense that there are new paths of service that she feels called to pursue.

We aren’t saying goodbye to Elise—she will be part of the Commonweal community for as long we are all on this earth. And we are deeply delighted to welcome Karen Wang, who will guide CHE in our next phase of work.

From Karen Wang, Director, CHE When I first spoke to Michael about the opportunity to direct CHE, Steve Job’s 2005 commencement speech at Stanford University immediately jumped to my mind. “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.” CHE connects dots from my past in ways that I could not have predicted or planned. I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to integrate my experiences in international development, academic interest in health care, and personal interest in health and well-being.

As a student at Stanford (BA ’04 MSc ’05), I studied the ways in which poverty, the world food economy, and the environment are interwoven. This led to a job leading monitoring and evaluation with the United Nations Millennium Villages Project in ten countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. During my time there, I developed an interest in how organizations succeed. I returned to the West Coast to complete a PhD in Strategic Management at the Foster School of Business at the University of Washington. My research focused on physician-hospital relationships in the United States healthcare system.

Simultaneously, my own health challenges and the birth of my daughter led me to explore functional medicine

and the impact of environmental hazards on health.

Within the environmental health movement and CHE specifically, I feel lucky to have found meaningful work that not only connects the dots of my past but also opens up countless possibilities. As a data and statistics expert, I immediately felt at home with CHE’s focus on evidencebased science. As someone who values deep understanding of the complexity and nuances of all issues, I welcome the diversity of the CHE community and respect the systems model of health.

And I continue to be impressed by the knowledge and resources CHE has amassed and CHE’s history of accomplishments.

I am excited to build on the work CHE has done in the environmental health community and educate a broader audience about the numerous connections between the environment and our bodies. With public health and environmental protections being eroded, it is more important than ever that CHE creates a new coalition of voices for evidence-based science. To meet the challenge, CHE is planning on launching new programs and campaigns to bring Millennials and youth into the environmental health conversation. We are going to expand our use of social media and other digital technologies to reach a younger audience. We will continue our efforts to be a premier resource for the latest environmental health science by modernizing our

communication platforms. And we will refocus our efforts on connecting scientists and researchers in environmental health with these new audiences.

Through education, CHE’s goal is to empower people to take action on multiple levels. We hope people will make changes in their personal lives to reduce toxic exposures. At the same time, we want to equip people to demand change from policy makers at local, state, and national levels.

We are still working on the details of the programmatic changes. If you have any suggestions or ideas, I would love to hear from you. Please reach out to me directly at karen@healthandenvironment.org.

Find out more about CHE at healthandenvironment.org.

CHE is grateful to Boston University/ NIEHS-funded Superfund Research Program, Wallace Genetic Foundation, and foundations who prefer to remain anonymous, for their generous support of our work.

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Dear Commonweal Friends, Once again I come to you to ask your support for our work.

Dear friend, you make this work possible. Your support is at the heart of our work. You are our necessary partners in our work. We cannot do this work without you.

This is a tragic time. The darkness is deep. The suffering of the earth and the people of the earth rends our hearts.

I’m 73 years old. I’ve worked at Commonweal for over four decades. God willing, I will serve this community until I draw my last breath.

Yet when the darkness is deepest— and the suffering is greatest—we are most needed.

What sustains me is the sense that we all hold each other—that we lift each other up. We aren’t perfect, any of us. But together we repair the world.

So please, give from your heart for this work of the heart. Whatever you can contribute matters. Consider Commonweal in your estate planning.

In the heart of darkness we find the light. In the depth of suffering we find the courage to continue. This is an ancient teaching.

If you would like to explore a special contribution, please contact me or Oren Slozberg—we thrive on creative gifts.

Our work in healing, in learning, in earth care, and in justice touches people and places around the world.

Thank you for being part of the Commonweal Community.

Let’s live in courage together.

Michael

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

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Alan & Nancy Baer Foundation

The Altman 2011 Charitable Lead Annuity Trust Applied Materials Foundation

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As You Sow

Benevity Community Impact Fund The California Endowment

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Barbara Smith Fund

Bet Lev Foundation

Elkind Family Foundation

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Kalliopeia Foundation

Lawyers Mutual Insurance Company Maverick Lloyd Foundation

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Battery Powered

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Distracted Globe Foundation

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Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund ●

The Hale Fund

Kellogg Family Trust ●

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The San Francisco Foundation

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Service Space

University of California

Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation

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Bothin Foundation

Chang Family 1999 Trust

Electromagnetic Safety Alliance

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Law Offices of James S. Muller

Marin Community Foundation Mental Insight Foundation

Morris Schapiro and Family Foundation

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Nathan Cummings Foundation

Panta Rhea Foundation

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RSF Social Finance

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T & M Frankel Foundation

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The Passport Foundation

Samuel H. Kress Foundation ●

Theobald Foundation

Virginia Wellington Cabot Foundation

Wallace Genetic Foundation

The Whitman Institute

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The Germanacos Foundation

Kitchen Table Foundation

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Pacific Union Marin Community Fund

Schwab Charitable

Tinyblue Foundation

Bellwether Foundation

The Frey Family Foundation

Lone Lake Physical Therapy

Reflection Fund of RSF Social Finance ●

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The Jacob and Valeria Langeloth Foundation

Muriel Murch Full Circle Endowment Fund of the Marin Community Foundation

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George T. Cameron Education Foundation

Morning Glory Family Foundation

Oak Fund of Triangle Community Foundation

Tides Foundation

Annie E. Casey Foundation

The McCarthy Family Foundation of Ayco Charitable Foundation

MMG Foundation

Peaceful World Foundation

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Bay Area Young Survivors

The Canary Fund of RSF Social Finance

Lloyd Symington Foundation

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Alberta S. Kimball—Mary L. Anhaltzer Foundation

The Clyde Theatre

The Gun and Tom Denhart Family Fund

Jenifer Altman Foundation

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AmazonSmile Foundation

Boston University/NIEHS-funded Superfund Research Project

EMF Safety Network

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The Fulton-Kunst Fund of RSF Social Finance ●

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The California Wellness Foundation

Clarence B. and Joan F. Coleman Charitable Foundation

Globe Foundation

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W.K. Kellogg Foundation

Wells Fargo Community Support Campaign

The Wright Gardner

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The Wyss Foundation

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 4/1/17 will be acknowledged in the next newsletter.)

Nabeel Abraham Gerald Abrams David Adams Eliza Adams Judith Adams Kathryn Adams Tim Adams Robert Agoglia Michelle Ahnn Randi Allen Arlene Allsman Donna Ambrogi Anne M. Andrews Edward Atkinson Alan Baer Robert and Carol Baird Deborah Baker Robert and Patricia Baldassano Susan Baldwin Arlene Banks and Douglas Lipinski Carol Banquer, MD Mary and William Barror David Becker Phyllis Belkin Carl Belline Laura io Berg Michael Berk Anne and Arthur Berndt Deborah Binder Garth Bixler Diane Blacker Ann Blake Penny and Keith Block Katie Borcz Penelope Bourk Christine Boyd William Braasch Patricia Bradford Frish Brandt Paula Braveman and John Levine Clayton Breckon Jasanna Poodiack Britton Janie Brown Diana Bublitz Steve and Marjorie Burr Bonnie Burt Maggi Butterfield-Brown Mary and Steve Callender Chris Camarata James Campe Jerry Carle Alison Carlson Sylvie Carnot Lyman H. Casey

Marie Chan Charlene Chang Robert Cheatham Deborah Ching Luci-Ellen Chun Margaret Clarke Tricia Claudy Brad Coley David Collier Neil and Judy Collier Terrence Collins Philip J. Collora Paul M. Connolly Mary Anne and Rob Cook Nance Crosby Kathleen DeBeer Mike Dentinger Jennifer Desmond Mary C. DeVany Catherine Dodd Paul and Maureen Draper Linda Dunham Edith Eddy Catherine Edgett Barry Elson, MD Kyra Epstein Nancy Evans Dawn Fairbanks Nancy Feagin Richard Fenske Robert Feraru Susanne Fest Carolyn Fine Friedman Richard Finnell Kristina Flanagan Laura Fletcher, MD Khris Ford Marilee Ford Jeffrey Fraenkel Tom and Myrna Frankel David Frey Donna Froese Patricia Garber Deborah Garcia Howard Gardner Matthew Gardner Neil Gendel Kathleen Geritz Kathy Gerwig Lynn Getz Margaret Glaser William D. Glenn Michael Goldstein Cristine Gondak Bing Gong and Eleanore Despina

John Good Barbara Goodman Sally Goodwin Paula Gordon John Gouldthorpe Sally and Gil Gradinger Cynthia Graham Gail Graham Lindy Rose Graham Bess Granby William Grant Rhonda Greene Joan and David Grubin Thordis and Gary Gulden Carol Gunby Steven Hadland Judy Hammond Cecelia Hard Kimberly Harney Martha O. Hart Judy Hartlieb Wendy Hawkins Meri Hayos Lynn Hays Judy Heike Gwen Heistand Robert L. Hendren Nancy Hepp Laurel Hillerson-Spear Khalaf Hirmina Meg and Gary Hirshberg Allan Hogle Ann Hogle Rose Hom Catherine Howard Patrick Hubbard Diane Huerta Richard Jackson Gian Jagai Toril Jelter Mark Jensen Michele Jirek Stephanie Johnes Georgia Johnson Stuart Johnson Gerald Jones Philip Kalfas Amy Kalkbrenner Miki Kashtan Michael Katz Barbara Katz Ramesh and Lakshmi Kaza G. Berk Kellogg Dana and Doug Kelly Gary Kelson

Kathy Kerdus Cecily Kihn Jayne Kim Debra Kirchhauser David Kirkpatrick Brooks and Stephanie Kirkwood Heidi Klauser Theresa Koetters Deborah Koff-Chapin Arlene Kohn Gilbert Gary Konkol Harriet Kossman Annastasia Kovscek Marty Krasney Kaitlyn Krieger Patricia and Larry Kubal Alex Kushner Ellen Labelle Beth Lamb Philip Landrigan Mary Lawson Eun Sook Lee Philip Lee Mel Lefer Michael Lerner Susan Lessin Janet and Philip Levine Kristine Lienhart Kelly Lindsay Judith Gail Lipton Hanmin Liu and Jennifer Mei Matthew London and Sylvia Wen Richard Ludeman Harold S. Luft Jana Luft Betty Lupton Eleanor Lyman Nicholas Lynch Jeff Mace Betsy MacGregor Sarah Manchester Jerry Mander Nell Manning Vanessa Marcotte Marsha Maslan Nancy Mayo-Smith William Mayo-Smith Elaine McCarthy Stacy Mccarthy Nancy McFadden Susan McIntosh Channaorah Meir Betty Mekdeci William Mentzer

Doris Meyer Pamela Meyer Meris Michaels Jerry Milhon Elise Miller Marilyn Mindel Lynn Miyamoto Harry Moody Jill Moore Ken and Kristen Moore Gwendolyn Morgan Elizabeth Morgenthaler Carolyn Morris Deborah Morrison Harriet Moss Fitzhugh Mullan Aggie Murch Barbara Musser Pete Myers Judith Nagelberg Jo-Anna Nakata Tessa Namuth Lynn Nelsen Lewis Nerenberg, MD Mark and Lorry Newhouse Susan Newstead Elizabeth Nichols Nancy Nordhoff Jane Norling Shanti Norris Zora Norris Sheila North Robin Obata Heather Ogilvy Julie Ohnemus Mia Okinaga Rosemary Oloughlin Jo O’Malley Shelia Opperman Elizabeth Ostrow and Richard Eagan Richard Paine April Paletsas Sharon Parks Margaret Partlow Maryanthy Pastore David Paul Martin Payne Ruth C. Penn Frederica Perera Sue Phelan Diane Pick Ayn and Charles Plant Jean and Gary Pokorny Susan Poliwka Paul Pollay

Julie Portelli Rachelle and Adam Portner Clarissa Potter James and Caren Quay Randall Ramusack Daniel Raskin Robert Rebitzer Catherine Regan Joshua Regier Marie Reynolds Steven Richardson Carole Riggin Rosie Riordan Jeanne Rizzo Elizabeth Muir Robinson Susan Robinson Fernne Rosenblatt Diana Rothman Robert Rufsvold, MD Mary Russin Maxwell Ryan Belinda Ryder Rahmin Sarabi Anthony Sarmiento John Sasko Barbara Schaetti Sarah Schafer John Scheels Pamela Schell Lisa Schenkel Ted Schettler Patty Schmidt Claire Schneeberger Joyce and Jim Schnobrich Gretchen Schodde Elisa Schwartz Eric Schwartz Donna Selig Patricia Seth-Tuttle Judith Shaw Marie Shieh Joel Shrut Peter Sierck Jill Silliphant Maura Singer Jennifer Sivertson Donald Smith Kelly Snowden Richard Neil Snyder Shelley Sorenson Jim Spady Richard Spaw Christopher Spencer Deborah Steele Mary Stephens Smith

Gary Stewart James Steyer Muriel Strand Jeanne Strong Sara Stuart Anne Sundberg James Sundberg Patrice Sutton Nancy Sweet Toby Symington Lois Talkovsky Wesley Tanaka Gregory Tarsy Peggy Taylor and Rick Ingrasci Barbara Terao Claire Theobald Eveline Tom Barbara Marie Towle Joanna Townsend John Tran Mary Evelyn Tucker Maria Valenti Debora Valis and Steve Shapiro Wendy vanden Heuvel Paula Barber Vanderwoude Manisha Vaze George Viramontes Janet Visick Alexander Von Hafften Tuan Vu Murry Waldman Lucy Waletzky Robert Walker Caroline Wang Debra Waterman Libby Weathers Julia Weaver, Sandy Scull and Xander Sharon Weil Aviva Weiner Nonnie Welch Patricia and George Wellde Peter and Maria Wenner Canon Western Michael Whalen Catherine Whitehouse Ann Wiener Lawrence Wilkinson Lynn Willeford Serita Winthrop Pat Wolfe Amanda Wolfson Marti Wolfson Roger Wu Elizabeth Zarlengo Sharon Ziegler

COMMONWEAL COMMONWEAL

P. O. B o x 3 1 6 , B o l i n a s , CA 9 4 9 2 4 ■ P H O N E : 4 1 5 . 8 6 8 . 0 9 7 0 ■ FA X : 4 1 5 . 8 6 8 . 2 2 3 0 ■ w w w. c o m m o n w e a l . o r g ■ c o m m o n w e a l @ c o m m o n w e a l . o r g ■ w w w. c o m m o n w e a l . o r g ■ c o m m o n w e a l @ c o m m o n w e a l . o r g P. O. BEditors: o x 3 1 Diane 6 , B oBlacker l i n a s , and CA Kyra 9 4 9Epstein 2 4 ■ P■HNewsletter O N E : 4 1Design: 5 . 8 6 8 .Winking 0 9 7 0 ■Fish FA■X :Printed 4 1 5 .on 8 6100% 8 . 2 2post 3 0 consumer Newsletter waste recycled and 100% chlorine-free processed paper with soy-based inks.

Newsletter Editors: Kyra Epstein and Diane Blacker ■ 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

Coming to Gallery Commonweal

Inside Out

(New Paintings & Monotypes) ROB SETRAKIAN August 1 – September 27, 2017 Reception: August 12

Between Memory and Desire CHRISTINA L. DESSER at the Gallery Commonweal

April 03, 2017 – June 28, 2017 Open Monday through Friday, 10 am – 4 pm, or by appointment.