Commonweal News - Summer 2019

COMMONWEAL J U N E 2 0 19

Can the Universe Story Bring Us Together? p.05 | Sharyle Patton Honored by Fire Department p.06 Loving Connection Is Healing p.08 | How Then Shall We Live? Meditations on Resilience p.10 Building Projects at Commonweal p.12 | Changing Integrative Cancer Care p.13

COMMONWEAL

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Health & Healing

for news and current updates on what’s happening at our site and in our programs.

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Beyond Conventional Cancer Therapies (see p.13)

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Commonweal Cancer Help Program

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Foundation for Embodied Medicine

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Healing Circles

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Global

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Houston, Texas

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Langley, Washington

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Healing Kitchens Institute

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Healing Yoga Foundation

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Natura Institute | Commonweal Garden (see p.08)

@CommonwealBolinas @CommonwealCA

Education & the Arts ■■

Center for Creative Community

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Ecology of Awakening

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Power of Hope Youth Camp

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Taproot Gathering

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Gift of Compassion

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Integrative Law Institute

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The New School at Commonweal (see p.05)

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Regenerative Design Institute

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Visual Thinking Strategies

Environment & Justice ■■

Biomonitoring Resource Center (see p.06)

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Collaborative on Health and the Environment (CHE)

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Commonweal Juvenile Justice Program

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Health and Environment Action Research Team

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Healthy Environment and Endocrine Disruption Strategies (HEEDS)

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The Resilience Project (see p.10)

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SafetyNEST Science

CO N TAC T U S Comments? Reactions?

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DEAR COMMONWEAL FRIENDS Welcome to the Spring edition of Commonweal News.

The world around us seems to be going increasingly insane. I know it’s always been insane. Herodotus once said, “And did you not know, my son, with how little wisdom the world is governed?” Even so, the world seems crazier and crazier. The assumptions grounding the American Republic for 243 years are under attack. The result, all else aside, is a sense of disorientation. How do we live though this period of time?

It helps me to turn off the news and listen to classical music or my favorite musician, the jazz pianist Keith Jarrett. It helps me to meditate for an hour each day. It helps me to walk in nature for an hour each day. And it helps to come to work at a place where people like and respect each other and are eminently sane. Commonweal is a refuge from the storm. I’m sure you have your ways of dealing with the craziness. It’s intense and real, and we have to live through it, one way or another.

Why is the world so insane right now? We can tell different stories. My story is that several dozen different global stressors have created a perfect storm that is wreaking havoc with human and natural ecosystems. That storm includes environmental stressors, social stressors, technological stressors, financial system stressors, and much more. As the storm intensifies, people are naturally frightened. In their fear they often turn to those who offer simple, and often authoritarian, solutions, which place the blame on the Other, whomever that may be.

Our mission, healing ourselves and healing the earth, involves work of many kinds. One meta-strategy for that work is resilience. I write more about the new Commonweal Resilience Project later in this issue.

But, in truth, virtually all of our work is resilience work of one kind or another. Healing work, educational work, environmental work, and justice work are all about resilience. And our work in all four areas in Commonweal’s 44th year is as strong as it has ever been.

It is fascinating, at 75, to continue to watch Commonweal grow. Our leadership team includes Executive Director Oren Slozberg, Managing Director Arlene Allsman, Chief Financial Officer Vanessa Marcotte, and myself. We work seamlessly together. Our program directors, coordinators, and support staff have amazing mutual appreciation.

Many Commonweal staff dedicate much of their careers to Commonweal. That speaks volumes for what working here is like.

My health is still good. My mind is still clear. My tremor continues to progress. Eating with others would be embarrassing if I were inclined toward embarrassment.

I simply ask for help. I’ve spent 33 years in the Commonweal Cancer Help Program living with brave people whose health challenges are far greater than mine.

My memory is, shall we say, more selective than it used to be. Names and dates are a challenge, but they have always been a challenge. Ideas remain as crystal clear as ever for me. So does a crystal-clear sense of our mission and of the Great Work of which we are a part.

Our friends Ram Dass and Mirabai Bush have a great line that is with me these days. “All we are doing is walking each other home.” Their conversation, Walking Each Other Home, includes these lines: We all sit on the edge of a mystery. We have only known this life, so dying scares us—and we are all dying. But what if dying were perfectly safe? What would it look like if you could approach dying with curiosity and love, in service of other beings? What if dying were the ultimate spiritual practice?

That’s what I am trying to do with those I work with, my friends, and those I love. Walk each other home.

Michael Lerner Commonweal President

C O M M O N W E A L June 2019 3

F R O M O U R E X E C U T I V E D I R E C TO R When I arrived at Commonweal a little more than five years ago, I discovered a new world. I learned about environmental health, permaculture, and integrative medicine. I learned new ways of naming familiar things, such as soul work, generous listening, and healing circles.

I experienced a new way of making meaning of the world around me.

Commonweal way.” This last item—the Commonweal way—is code for the unique quality that turns these retreats from didactic experiences to soul work. I met with CCHP staff to examine the different ingredients in this precious recipe. We identified best practices, instructional goals, and time frame. It was an amazingly productive process. We were on a roll.

Three months after I arrived, I attended the February 2014 Commonweal Cancer Help Program (CCHP).

The week was transformative. There are not many times in life when you can point to a specific week and know that’s when life’s course shifted direction.

But it happened for me. That CCHP week gave me a deep understanding of why Commonweal is what it is. An organization can have a soul, and, at its core, Commonweal’s soul is kindness, generosity, and commitment. In some emergent way, that soul permeates into Commonweal’s work with teens, nature, healing, justice, and the environment.

Then we turned to the Commonweal way. What is this intangible, ineffable thing, this Commonweal way? You can’t teach it. You can’t put it in a list of best practices.

But you can make way for it. You can allow it to arise of its own accord. It has to do with holding sacred space, keeping judgment at bay, respecting silence, allowing the ego to make room for humility. Even though I can’t exactly define the Commonweal way, to quote Justice Stewart, I know it when I see it.

My first desire was to bring the CCHP experience to more than the 48 people who are blessed with a CCHP experience each year. Since I came to Commonweal from an educational organization, I used the organizational tools that I had at my fingertips. I explored best practices of each area of CCHP’s work—nutrition, exercise, relaxation, group support, integrative medicine, and “the

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We are in a moment in which healing is critical for our survival—not only healing the political world, but also the many vectors that threaten our existence on this planet. This is the immense work ahead of us. We have the tools. We have the Commonweal way, whose gentle impact ripples outward. Never doubt that when we heal locally, we inspire globally.

Oren Slozberg Commonweal Executive Director

The New School at Commonweal

Can the Universe Story Bring Us Together?

A New Biography of Thomas Berry “The universe,” Thomas Berry wrote in his prescient Dream of the Earth, “is a single, gorgeous, celebratory event.”

Mary Evelyn Tucker, John Grim, and Andrew Angyal recently published Thomas Berry—A Biography. It is the definitive biography of one of the most revolutionary thinkers of our time. Thomas Berry was a cultural historian who later called himself a “geologian.” I spoke with Mary Evelyn about this biography in an incandescent New School conversation (our third, including a wonderful spiritual biography).

Mary Evelyn is co-founder of the Forum on Religion and Ecology at Yale with her husband, John Grim.

They both worked intimately with Thomas Berry for more than 30 years.

Thomas Berry’s central premise is (1) all religions have cosmological stories, (2) modern science shows us a comprehensive cosmological story for the first time, (3) this story is filled with beauty and wonder, (4) it has the power to bring humanity together, and (5) it is ultimately a cosmology of love.

“The universe is a communion of subjects, not a collection of objects,” Thomas Berry wrote. “The human is neither an addendum nor an intrusion into the universe. We are quintessentially integral with the universe.”

The question I explored with Mary Evelyn is whether Thomas Berry’s premise is true. Does the Universe Story have the power to bring humanity together? If so, Thomas Berry is as great a figure as Saint Paul in Christianity, Maimonides in Judaism, or Ibn Arabi in Islam.

He wrote:

Thomas Swimme, and Mary Evelyn, and in part on the anthropic principle.

We are not lacking in the dynamic forces needed to create the future.

We live immersed in a sea of energy beyond all comprehension. But this energy, in an ultimate sense, is ours not by domination but by invocation.

I incline toward the strong anthropic principle. The weak version drove the development of the theory of the multiverse. Physicists could not abide the implications (from the only universe we know exists) that the universe appears designed to accommodate consciousness. If the universe is designed to accommodate the evolution of consciousness, it is surely designed to trace the evolution of love. I do not assert this is a necessary conclusion. I simply align myself with Teilhard, Berry, and many of the greatest spiritual traditions. “If free will exists,” William James said, “my first choice is to believe in free will.” If the universe story is our cosmological story, and if this story may trace the evolution of love, as Teilhard and Thomas Berry believed, my first choice is to embrace this deepest of all intuitions.

When we exile the scientific telling of the story from the humanities... we do not allow them to be an integral expression of the great story.

[Quotes from Mary Evelyn and John’s website: www.thomasberry.org]

After our conversation, Mary Evelyn emailed me: This quote from Teilhard in particular resonates with what you said about love at the heart of the universe: “The most telling and profound way of describing the evolution of the universe would undoubtedly be to trace the evolution of love.”

My choice to believe (I phrase that carefully) that love is at the heart of the universe is based in part on intuition and sacred texts, in part on Teilhard, Thomas Berry, Brian

The anthropic principle is a philosophical consideration that observations of the universe must be compatible with the conscious and sapient life that observes it.

[Excerpted from Wikipedia]

Thomas Berry understood the evolution of conscious life as the evolution of the ability of the universe to look back on itself.

Humanity is thus an expression of the evolution of cosmological C O M M O N W E A L June 2019 5

continued

love. Science and technology are a necessary part of the ability of the universe to become selfreflective. But only if we understand the universe as “a communion of subjects” do we unlock “the sea of energy beyond all comprehension.”

Only thus will we arrive at a loving and living future.

Mary Evelyn and John have worked closely with Brian Thomas Swimme in launching a beautiful multimedia project, The Journey of the Universe.

When Thomas Berry met Brian, he joyfully announced, “I have found my Plato.” During our conversation, I asked Mary Evelyn, “if Brian

Mary Evelyn Tucker spoke with Michael at The New School in March. Find the video and podcast on our website: tns.commonweal.org.

Thomas Swimme was Thomas Berry’s Plato, who are you?” I said I saw her as Thomas Berry’s lineage holder.

Mary Evelyn said she saw herself

as a midwife helping to birth the story of the journey of the universe.

Her response reflects her personal modesty. But as I reflected further, Mary Evelyn’s vision of herself as a midwife to the greatest of all stories is deeply apt. It is also an affirmation of the intuition that love, cosmos, and creation are one—and a celebration of the infinite beauty and power of the feminine principle.

Michael Lerner Commonweal President, The New School Director

Biomonitoring Resource Center

Sharyle Patton Receives Coveted White Helmet Award from San Francisco Fire Department When my wife Sharyle was five years old, living with her family in Buena Vista, Colorado, she and her older brother Jake set their house on fire. Jake thought it would be fun to scare their friends by putting a lit candle in a paper mache jack o’lantern and placing it in the clothes closet. They forgot about it until Sharyle suggested they go back and take a look. That’s when they discovered the closet was on fire! Jake called the fire department and got buckets of water. Sharyle checked on the cats and then ran to collect her dolls. About half the house burned down. Fortunately, Sharyle’s parents ran the local lumberyard and hardware store. Friends gave them a place to stay while they rebuilt.

Many years later, Sharyle and I were married and living in a house at the entrance to the Commonweal Garden. One day, while we were out 6 C O M M O N W E A L June 2019

of Bolinas, a car’s catalytic converter ignited a grass fire a mile away. It rapidly spread through the dry grass and came very close to burning

down our house and threatening the Commonweal Garden. The Bolinas Volunteer Fire Department stopped the fire just across the road from our house, saving it and the Garden. We both have a deep appreciation for the extraordinary commitment of firefighters.

On March 23, Sharyle was one of five people honored for giving back to the firefighter community.

For her invaluable work on behalf of firefighters’ health and safety, she received a cherished white helmet from the San Francisco Fire Department Cancer Prevention

Foundation at a gathering of 600 firefighters and their family and friends.

The helmet was presented by Tony Stefani, founder of the Foundation, in a moving ceremony featuring a Scottish kilted bagpipe and drum marching band and an honor guard carrying the American and California flags. There was scarcely a dry eye in the house. In a letter to Sharyle and the other awardees, Tony wrote, “The white helmet in the firefighting profession signifies the highest level of achievement. Without your level of commitment and dedication we would not have made the progress to create the level of awareness that currently exists throughout the entire firefighting profession.”

Science, Policy and Management at University of California, Berkeley. Sharyle and Rachel co-founded the Women Firefighters Biomonitoring Collaborative with United Fire Service Women; Silent Spring Institute; University of California, San Francisco; Breast Cancer Prevention Partners; and Commonweal. For the past two years, Sharyle has focused on firefighter exposures from the major Northern California wildland/urban interface fires. She has also focused on toxic chemicals in firefighter gear and firefighter foam. For six years, Sharyle has also conducted dust analyses of fire stations across the United States and Canada in collaboration with the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF).

Sharyle directs the Commonweal Biomonitoring Resource Center.

She was honored for her work protecting firefighters from toxic chemical exposures. Also honored was her research partner Rachel Morello Frosch, professor in the Department of Environmental

It was a deeply moving event.

Sharyle was completely blown away.

I was pretty blown away myself. After the ceremony, dozens of firefighters, past and present, came up to Sharyle to thank her for her work and to congratulate her. It honestly felt like an initiation ceremony—welcoming

Sharyle into the brotherhood and sisterhood of the most diverse fire department in the country.

Firefighters are among the most respected professionals in the United States. Their voices have deep impact in state capitals and in Washington, DC. They lose more members to cancer than to any other cause. Their rates for many cancers are significantly higher than those of the general public, which was a great surprise to researchers, because firefighters’ general fitness and lifestyle are better than the norm.

Sharyle, a citizen scientist, has become the go-to resource not only for the San Francisco Fire Department but also for the IAFF, where she works closely with the IAFF Department of Health and Safety. She has played a central role in proposing, designing, and implementing ten studies with the San Francisco Fire Department and the IAFF. Many Commonweal staff and program directors do not seek credit for their work. Few have been more assiduous at deflecting credit to others than Sharyle. I don’t write much about Sharyle because, as her husband of 35 years, I might be suspected of a certain bias. But this time, I had to write this acknowledgement.

I asked her last night if I could call her “Chief.”

PHOTO: DAVID BRIGGS

“Maybe once in a while,” she said.

Hail to the Chief.

Michael Lerner Commonweal President C O M M O N W E A L June 2019 7

Natura Institute for Ecology and Medicine

Loving Connection Is Healing Loving connection is healing.

This core belief is the underpinning of Natura Institute for Ecology and Medicine’s mission.

Natura has been at home in the Commonweal Garden since July of 2018, when Regenerative Design Institute moved northward to Whidbey Island. Grounded in ecological principles of interrelatedness, Natura weaves this ethic into transformative healing programs, community integrative medicine circles, herbal medicine and nature connection programs, retreats for physicians, and permaculture programs.

As a practicing physician, I am acutely aware of the poignant limitations to guiding people

to health in today’s healthcare system. In this era of distracted overconsumption, rates of chronic illness and ecological collapse are escalating. At a time when healing is needed on so many levels, our current system focuses on downstream fixes to symptoms caused by upstream (behavioral, societal, ecological) forces. Depth of inquiry is sacrificed in favor of rushed “productivity.” Rates of burnout and suicide among physicians continue to rise. Healing is not served.

As a Bravewell Fellow in Integrative Medicine, I am inspired to create change within medicine and to animate the Medicine that is needed at this planetary moment. How can we engage in loving reciprocity with the natural world? How can we

weave closer connections within our human family? How do we relate to our plant allies? How can physicians be supported, nourished, and inspired to create healing ecologies within their practice, and infuse ecological consciousness into their art?

The Commonweal Garden is a graciously supportive space in which to engage in healing inquiry.

Medicinal foods and herbs, wild and cultivated, abound. Lovingly tended land generously holds people in meditation, in deep reflective conversation, or in exuberant exploration. I find that listening to the land and opening myself to what arises allows me—and those with whom I work—to find our own sentience, to consider how we may become lights in our lives, in our communities, and in this world.

Other collaborative projects are evolving: With Abriendo Caminos, we are holding a series of healing retreats for Latina women. In collaboration with Black Mountain Circle, we hold Full Moon Fire Circles each full moon. We are developing nourishing retreats for caregivers, so that they can explore what it is to be a healer at this time on our planet.

Natura Institute has been at home in the Commonweal Garden since last year, offering transformative healing programs, community integrative medicine circles, herbal medicine, nature connection programs, retreats for physicians, and permaculture programs for children and adults.

Natura offers many opportunities to experience the medicine cultivated in these gardens.

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The Art of Vitality program, which I teach with James Stark, is a rich synthesis of integrative medicine and spiritual psychology, nourishing food and supportive connections, deep nature connection and beauty, movement and stillness.

Community Medicine Circles, a collaborative effort with the Coastal Health Alliance, are an innovative response to the constraints of the health care system. This monthly series teaches people how to care for their bodies, emphasizes ecological and integrative medicine perspectives throughout, and

leverages social connection toward behavior change. The circles are followed by potluck lunches and cooking demonstrations sourced from the Garden, relevant to the topic of the month.

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The Four Seasons Permaculture Design Course and concurrent Permaculture for Kids program grounds participants in design principles, from landscapes to human systems, which yield a positive, regenerative effect.

It is my prayer that all beings, from humans to rhizobia, are honored and seen here in the Garden, and that we may all be agents of healing in our lives and in the world.

For more information on these programs and others, or to come to a volunteer tending day or a Garden Tour, visit our website at naturainstitute.org.

We extend deep gratitude to our generous supporters, without whom this work would not be possible.

Our Afterschool Nature Program, in collaboration with our local Bolinas-Stinson Beach School District, fosters a connection with the natural world and guides children in the ethics of land tending and stewarding.

Anna O’Malley, MD Natura Institute for Ecology and Medicine

PHOTOS: NATURA INSTITUTE

Permaculture is a way of designing, from landscapes to human systems, in a way that has a positive, regenerative effect on the natural world. These practical and conceptual skills are broadly applicable. They open us to attunement to the natural world and how to ally ourselves with it.

C O M M O N W E A L June 2019 9

The Resilience Project

How Then Shall We Live?

Meditations on Resilience Few projects that I have been involved with at Commonweal have the appeal of the Resilience Project.

We’re naming something many people are thinking about.

create different conditions in different parts of the world.

The specific forms effective resilience takes will likely differ.

It looks like things will get worse in the years ahead.

People are losing faith in the myth of progress—the myth that the global industrial-technological system will turn things around.

It’s easy to think the rich will do well and the poor badly, but great crises can be great equalizers. When money doesn’t work, energy grids fail, and the search for food, shelter, safety, and the rest becomes desperate, skills honed living on the edge may be lifesavers.

The need for resilience against the madness of the machine seems clear. The question becomes, what can we do to build resilience? Then things get complicated.

Anyone who expects the next decades to be what we would like them to be may qualify as delusional. Too much climate change is baked in. Two dozen other global stressors are also headed in the wrong directions.

We can’t expect people to agree on what resilience should look like. But we do know human beings have ten basic needs for long-term survival: air, water, food, clothing, shelter, medicine, safety, community, meaning, and love.

We do know that the interacting global stressors will

The advantage that urban populations hold in better times often reverses in favor of rural communities that are more self-sufficient and learned in providing the essentials of life.

Climate change means equatorial countries will become unlivable. The massive exoduses from Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and Central America will only increase. The compassionate response is to welcome all these refugees. Would that we had a plan to meet this challenge. I can imagine, for example, a planned global intention to create new communities for these desperate billions of people in rural lands in the far north and far south of the globe where they could build sustainable eco-communities.

It’s not just climate change. I’ve written about the list of global stressors many times. Here is one version on our Resilienceproject.ngo website:

Social Stressors

Biosphere Stressors ■■

Climate change, sea-level rise, and changing weather

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Biodiversity loss at 10,000 times the normal level

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Toxification of all life, insect armageddon

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Ocean acidification, dead zones, plastics, and fish and plankton depletion

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Declining and polluted fresh water sources

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Depleted topsoils

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Vanishing forests and many more

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Poverty, racism, and injustice

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Unsustainable economic growth and global debt

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Vulnerable financial systems, supply chains, and power grids

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Population overshoot, refugee migrations, and resource competition

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Uncontrolled technologies, including artificial intelligence, biotech, nanotech, robotics, and cyber threats

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Dysfunctional geopolitics, failing states, and outdated institutions

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War, terrorism, and nuclear threats with excess military expenditures needed to address the global challenge.

It is the unpredictable interaction of all these global stressors that makes it so difficult to know what the best course of action is for any of us—for ourselves and our families, for our communities, for our states and countries, and for the world.

TOP PHOTO: DEVIN O’DEA; MIDDLE IMAGE KYRA EPSTEIN; BOTTOM PHOTO: MICHAEL LERNER

This won’t be a theoretical debate. This global future will likely unfold in deeply unpredictable ways. Different people in different places will respond in different ways.

We know this from the California fires. People in the fire zones have changed the way they live. They carry essentials in their cars. They have go-bags at home and know just what they will grab if they have 10 minutes to get out. And, if they move, they will definitely take into account the fire threat, which will only get worse, in the places to which they choose to move.

The change is palpable in the numbers of people living in cardboard boxes, tents, cars, vans, and RVs. Drive through Berkeley, Oakland, and San Francisco and you’ll see tent communities everywhere—under bridges and on little strips of grass or concrete.

There’s a kind of hierarchy—people who only have cardboard boxes, people who have tents, and then the big jump up to cars, vans, and (the ultimate) RVs. But in certain crises, the new nomads will do better than the homeowners.

I’ve long had a vision of creating campgrounds or RV parks where the new nomads could find not only the essentials of life but also community and purpose. It would be a step toward the kind of planned eco-communities in the far north Top: flowers in the Commonweal Chapel.

Middle: sign by the Bolinas honor system farm stand. Bottom: newspaper stand in New York City.

I’ve described above. I envision campgrounds and RV parks that are within an hour of a metropolitan area, have public transport to get to the city, offer plots for people to grow food, ponds for acquaculture, pens for small livestock, community solar power, a general store and gas station for whatever can still be bought, and big sheds where people can work on repairing their rigs or building portable small houses. I may not get to it in this lifetime but I hope someone does.

I have a deep sense of resonance with the new nomads.

Many once had homes and jobs and families. I’d love to see them have safe access to life’s essentials. I’d love the same for the migrant families camped in Tijuana and for the African families risking their lives at sea to reach Europe. The tent and vehicle dwellers face new restrictions on where they can camp or park. And the refugees from the Global South face walls going up everywhere. It’s all on a continuum.

What will we do as the tens of thousands of refugees become millions—and then billions? One way or another, our collective answer will transform what it means to be human. As we collectively prepare for the brave new world we have already entered, we face this most profound personal, practical, ethical, and even spiritual question. I don’t pretend to have an answer. I just know what the deepest question is.

How then shall we live?

The Resilience Project thanks an anonymous donor for ongoing support.

Michael Lerner Commonweal President C O M M O N W E A L June 2019 11

Building Projects at Commonweal

Pacific House Renewed This year, our beloved Pacific House—the main residential building in our Retreat Center— received much-needed renovations. With new, hypoallergenic wood floors in the bedrooms and dining space, new carpets and furniture upholstery, and a fresh coat of paint, the Pacific House is more beautiful and better equipped to serve those who come to Commonweal for retreats—like participants in the Commonweal Cancer Help Program and many others. As the Commonweal buildings age, your specific support for capital projects helps us maintain the infrastructure.

This renovation was made possible by the generosity of Commonweal friend Josie Merck, and by a legacy gift from Carolyn Morris, a 2016 alumna of our Cancer Help Program. Jenepher Stowell, Retreat Center Director, shepherded this project from vision to completion.

A NEW COMMONWEAL YURT Our next dream is to add additional group space for our Cancer Help Program and Power of Hope camp. A 30-foot yurt near the Pacific House will host yoga and tai chi classes for our cancer programs, and a sacred circle space for Power of Hope, Bay Area Young Survivors, and Healing Circles programs. Please consider a special gift to help us build the yurt.

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Beyond Conventional Cancer Therapies

Changing Integrative Cancer Care We may or may not be able to change the course of a disease. But we can profoundly affect the human experience of the illness. We may or may not be able to change pain. But we can profoundly affect the human experience of suffering. And since what we experience is not the disease but the illness, and not the pain but the suffering, it actually makes a difference to become conversant with the deep healing arts.

Beyond Conventional Cancer Therapies (BCCT), our new integrative cancer care website, launched October 1, 2018. We have more than 80 therapy summaries. We have in-depth reports on breast and prostate cancer, about 40 pages each, referenced to the original journal articles. We are working on similar reports on ovarian, colon, lung, and brain cancer. We hope to have all of those up by our first anniversary.

We are attracting thousands of viewers from across the Englishspeaking world, including Great Britain, Canada, and Ireland. There is nothing like BCCT on the web.

No other integrative cancer site

is as intensely researched. And no other site makes as deep an effort to balance conventional and complementary therapies.

One of the deep lessons of this work is this: getting conventional therapies right is at least as important as getting complementary therapies right to achieve true integrative cancer care. And it is at least as difficult. Even the very best major cancer centers are, essentially, great medical machines—or bureaucracies—that try hard to give patients the best care they are able to give. They are constrained by many different pressures—reimbursement systems, the interests of physicians and other healthcare providers, the pharmaceutical industry, government regulations, and many others.

These vast medical machines cannot focus entirely on the best interests of the patient. And they surely cannot provide the kind of integrative care that patients and practitioners would like to see. To achieve anything like that, the patient is essentially on her own, with any wisdom that friends and counselors can contribute.

BCCT has set out with the modest goal of making a contribution to true integrative cancer care.

The therapy summaries are as objective as we know how to make them. So are the reports on breast and prostate cancer, with more to come. BCCT is not (yet) as user friendly as we would like. That’s because we started with a different goal—to provide the best resources on integrative cancer therapies we could provide. We follow the best science, clinical wisdom, and patient experiences we can find. To do that is inevitably to present the truth in all its complexity.

BCCT is not for everyone. It is for people who really want to understand the choices they face or the choices their patients face. We have no axe to grind for or against any therapy, conventional or complementary. No one pays us or influences the analyses and perspectives we have arrived at. I am astonished at what we have learned in the three years we have worked on BCCT. Lucy Waletzky, Laura Pole, Nancy Hepp, and Ruth Hennig are my partners in BCCT. Join us. We welcome your insights and your contributions.

BCCT thanks Lucy Waletzky and Vicki and Roger Sant for their generous support.

Michael Lerner Commonweal President C O M M O N W E A L June 2019 13

Why We Need Your Support

Commonweal works with some of the toughest human and global problems. Cancer. The environment.

Education for at-risk kids. Keeping kids out of juvenile halls and youth prisons. And much more.

But we also explore some of the most beautiful aspects of human experience. The New School at Commonweal explores nature, culture, and the inner life. The Commonweal Garden is a place of extraordinary peace and beauty.

Choices to support our work are made by people like you—one person at a time. We know it can be difficult to choose between the many organizations doing important work. Please know that your support is absolutely critical to our work—and your choice is absolutely appreciated.

Donate online at Commonweal.org, or return the remit envelope in this newsletter to pay by check or credit card.

Recurring contributions are especially welcome.

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: A & A Fund ● Alberta S. Kimball – Mary L. Anhaltzer Foundation ● The Altman 2011 Charitable Lead Annuity Trust ● AmazonSmile Foundation American Endowment Foundation ● Annie E. Casey Foundation ● Applied Materials Foundation ● Bank of America Charitable Foundation The Barinaga Goodman Fund of West Marin Fund ● Bay Area Young Survivors ● Big Mesa Farm ● Bolinas-Stinson Beach School Foundation Burt Liss Charitable Fund of The Jewish Community Foundation of the East Bay ● The California Endowment ● The California Wellness Foundation The Commonwealth Fund ● Communitas Health ● Community Foundation of Snohomish County ● David Foster Wallace Literary Trust Distracted Globe Foundation ● Doune Fund of Community Foundation of Eastern Connecticut ● Fetzer Institute ● Fidelity Charitable Firehouse Fund: Cultivating Sparks ● Frank X. and Carol M. Gruen Fund ● The Frey Family Foundation ● The Germanacos Foundation Good Earth Natural Foods ● Gospel Flat Farm ● The Hand in Hand Partners Fund ● Healing Kitchens Institute ● Hull Family Foundation Institute for Spirituality and Health ● Janet Sollod Revocable Trust ● Jenepher Altman Foundation ● Jerry J Baldwin Residual Trust Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angles ● The John Merck Fund ● Kenneth Rainin Foundation ● Lagunitas Brewing Company Law Offices of James S. Muller ● Llyod Symington Foundation ● Lone Lake Physical Therapy ● Marin Community Foundation ● Maverick Llyod Foundation Morning Glory Family Foundation ● Mount Zion Health Fund ● Muriel Murch Full Circle Endowment Fund ● Music for the Eyes The Nathan Cummings Foundation ● The New York Community Trust ● North Sound Medical ● Oak Fund of Triangle Community Foundation Panta Rhea Foundation ● Passport Foundation ● RBC Wealth Management ● Rockefeller Brothers Fund ● Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors San Francisco Firefighters Cancer Prevention Foundation ● The San Francisco Foundation ● Schwab Charitable ● Silicon Valley Community Foundation Spaw Family Fund of the Greater Houston Community Foundation ● Stinson/Bolinas Community Fund ● Stupski Foundation Sunshine Polka-dot Foundation ● Sylvan C. Coleman Trust ● Sylvan H. Kline Family Foundation ● The Temkin Family Foundation Trust Tides Foundation ● The U’ilani Fund ● Vanguard Charitable ● Virginia Wellington Cabot Foundation ● Walnut Fund Wells Fargo Community Support Campaign ● West Marin Fund ● Whidbey Island Vineyard & Winery

14 C O M M O N W E A L June 2019

PAINTING BY: ADAM WOLPERT

Commonweal friends, we need your support. Did you know that more than half our annual budget comes from contributions? Grants, of course, play an absolutely critical role in our programs. But contributions from people who believe in our work are the principal reason we are still here after almost 44 years.

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.” David Adams Judith Adams Kathryn Adams Kitty Adams Robert Agoglia Mary Edith Alexander Randi Allen Susan Amussen Coyla Anderson Meredith Anderson Thomas Anderson Molly Armour Shannon Arndt Betty Azar and Larry Harris Robert and Carol Baird William Baird Deborah Baker Robert Baldassano Alex Bates Jeannie Battagin Corrine Bayley Katie Beacock Carl Belline Arlene Bernstein Deborah Binder Birnbaum Family Garth Bixler Diane Blacker Ann Blake Daniel Blodgett Dianna Blom Lela and Jack Bogardus Terry and Penelope Bourk Bill Braasch Patricia Bradford Fadhilla Bradley Clayton Wayne Breckon Adrea Brier Sandra Brod Tracy Brown Susanne Bruggemann Diana Bublitz Stanley Burford Steve Burr Judith Burton Penny and Robert Cabot Ezra Callahan Mary Callender Margarethe Cammermeyer Jim and Page Campe Alison Carlson Andrew Carman Sylvie Carnot Nicole Chase

Luci-Ellen Chun Wen-Wei Chung Donald Clark Shelby Clark Hilary Cohen David Collier Neil Collier Terrence Collins Andrew Condey Mary Anne and Rob Cook Mary Elizabeth Cooney Joseph and Anastasia Corbett Tracy Cornelius Barbara Cunningham Dale Dallas Paul Debeer Ann and Robert Debusk Gun Denhart Karin DeSantis Nischala Devi and Bhaskar Deva Pat Dickens Sandy Dierks James Dreyfous Catherine Dussault Richard Eagan and Elizabeth Ostrow Edith Eddy Catherine Edgett Dawn Fairbanks Susanne Fest Carolyn Fine Friedman Nick Fowler Indra Frank Dimitrios Frantzis Donna Froese Katherine Fulton and Katharine Kunst Sharon Galicia Deborah Koons Garcia Howard Gardner Gale “Gigi” Gartner Kathy Geritz Julia Getzelman Steven Gilbert Sarri Gilman and Ken Kortlever William Glenn Marilyn Goldberg Peter Goldmark Bing Gong and Eleanore Despina John Good and Janet Arnesty Sally Goodwin

Paula Gordon Robert Gould Lindy Rose Graham Bess Granby Richard and Gretchen Grant Terence Grant William Grant Karen Green Sadja Greenwood John Grim Karen Grossman Wendy Hawkins Elia Haworth Meri Hayos Sharen Heath Gwen Heistand Linda Henderson Robert Hendren Ruth Hennig Susan Hester Khalaf Hirmina Ellen Holmes Katherine Hood Evelyn McDonald Howard Diane Huerta John Hunting Eileen Jackson Carol Jacobson Jeri Jacobson Gian Jagai Anne Jenkins Mark Jensen Michele Jirek Georgia Johnson Kristin Johnson Tracy Johnston Jonathan Joseph Miki Kashtan Jeffrey Katz Dana Kelly Gary Kelson Kathy Kerdus Carol Kerley Cecily Kihn Joanna King Debra Kirchhauser Jane Klassen Benjamin Kleine Deborah Koff-Chapin Gary Konkol Ronda and David Kotelchuck Kathleen Kraemer Maxine Kraemer Margaret Kral

Marty Krasney Kronenberg Family Hal and Leslie Kruth Alex Kushner Larry Kwarsick and Carol McNeil Ellen Labelle Alyse Laemmle Philip Landrigan Greg Laughlin Noreen Leahey Eun Sook Lee Caroline Leibman Mary Lenox Susan Lessin Matthew Levett Diana and Kelly Lindsay Ann Linnea Toni Littlejohn Jennifer Livingston Don Lloyd Haven Logan Hal Luft Carole MacClennan Alexander MacInnis Eulalia Mack Gene Marchi Vanessa Marcotte Susan Collin Marks Grant Martin Petra Martin John Mason Terri Mason Georgia Lee May Nancy Mayo-Smith Elaine McCarthy Lindsay McDonell Susan McIntosh William Mentzer Elise Miller Jerry Millhon Mimi Mindel Ingrid Mittermaier Kenneth and Kristen Moore Gwendolyn Morgan Kimberly Morgan Betsy Morgenthaler Peter and Anna Marie Morton Monica Mosseri Fitzhugh Mullan Tessa Namuth Lorene Neff Deane Neubauer Jane Norling

Shanti Norris Sheila North Michael Northrop and Kathleen Regan Robin Obata Julie Ohnemus Rosemary Oloughlin April Paletsas Anne-Marie and Birju Pandya Julie Pearson Sandra Pelletier Ruth Penn Lon Peterman Barbara Peterson Diane Pick Cheri Pies Ayn Plant Gary and Jean Pokorny Julie Portelli Kay Quinn Janet Ramusack Levine Susan Rappaport Erica Rayner-Horn Sharon Malm Read Robert Rebitzer Paul Remer Crystal Reul-Chen Wendy Ring Mem Rippey Elizabeth Muir Robinson Alice Rose Fernne Rosenblatt Norizah Rossi Diana Rothman Belinda Ryder Roger Sant Lorna Sass Lee Scheidler Pamela Schell Ted Schettler Patty Schmidt Claire Schneeberger Gretchen Schodde Gertraud Schubert Kate Sculti Patricia Seth-Tuttle Judith Shaw Paula Sheridan Meg Simonds and Mark Butler Jennifer Sivertson Donald Smith Frances Solomon Jim Spady

David Spaw Christopher Spencer Catharine Steffens Mary Stephens and Chuck Smith Kathryn Stevens James and Elizabeth Steyer Christa and Detmar Straub Sara Stuart Toby Symington Carolyn Tague Lois Talkovsky Gregory Tarsy Mary Ann Tebbe Barbara Terao Charles Terry Claire Theobald John Thompson Eveline Tom Barbara Marie Towle Cynthia Trenshaw Cari Tuna John Tydlaska Jennifer Ulrich Maria Valenti Mark Valentine Paula Barber Vanderwoude Vivienne Verdon-Roe Visra Vichit-Vadakan George Viramontes Frank Von Hippel Christine Wade Murry Waldman Lucy Waletzky Claudia Walker Fong and Caroline Wang Karl Wang Nora Webb Marion Weber Sharon Weil Francis Weller Canon Western Mary White Ruth White Catherine and Peter Whitehouse Barbara Wiener Lynn Willeford Serita Winthrop Michael Witte and Barbara Kavanaugh Tom Yarish and several anonymous donors

G O PA P E R L E S S !

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C O M M O N W E A L June 2019 15

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Your Support Matters!

Please donate to our summer giving campaign.

Rebecca Katz As Above, So Below August 1, 2019 – October 30, 2019 Reception: August 10, 3-5pm

G A L L E RY C O M M O N W E A L