Thursday, March 27th
This double session (holding space for both a community conversation and a healing circle until 6pm) will provide a brave, safe and respectful space for those who are deeply troubled/impacted by the ongoing crimes against humanity being inflicted on the Palestinian people. We will gather to: share our feelings; process our emotions; engage in deep listening, guided meditation and silent reflection; and practice somatic healing techniques. Our facilitators will be: Ashira Darwish, creator of Active Meditation, a modality focusing on trauma therapy and integration that draws upon her own personal journey of healing from full-body paralysis with a severed spinal cord in 2012; and David Shaw, a founder of Santa Cruz Permaculture, deeply experienced in hosting community conversations on conflict resolution. The session will conclude with a “spoken-word harvest” by Jahan Khalighi.
(Note: this is a double session from 3:00-6:00pm)
March 27th | 3:00 pm to 6:00 pm | Ashby Room, Residence Inn
Panelists
Welcome to The Chrysalis Project, an immersive workshop designed to ignite personal transformation and foster leadership through dynamic, collaborative artmaking. We’ll dive into wire-sculpting and reflective writing in which we weave our unique stories into a collaborative art piece. This workshop isn’t just about learning a craft, it’s about embracing our roles as leaders and change-makers in our communities. As we twist and shape wire, we’ll also weave connections with other young visionaries, collaboratively crafting art and a collective vision. Come discover how the act of making can shift us from passive onlookers to active creators of our futures. No artistic experience necessary. With Chrysalis creator Carrie Ziegler.
NOTE: This workshop will initiate the art project, which will continue with drop-in sessions on Friday & Saturday for youth to continue working on the collaborative project throughout the conference weekend.
March 27th | 3:00 pm to 4:15 pm | Kinzie Room, Brower Center
Panelists
Discover the profound ability of music and movement to inspire resilience, healing, and transformation in this soulful workshop led by Rising Appalachia. Drawing from their acclaimed Folk Choir master class, sisters Leah and Chloe Smith invite you into an immersive exploration of how art and sound can hold space for beauty, hardship and disaster alike. This workshop weaves together community singing, storytelling, and embodied practices to tap into the universal language of music as a means of connection and catharsis. Learn how to use your voice as a tool for personal and collective empowerment, exploring melodies, harmonies, and movement rooted in folk traditions and global rhythms. Together, we will explore how music can be a balm in times of struggle, and a celebration in moments of Joy.
March 27th | 3:00 pm to 4:15 pm | Lotus Cafe, Dharma College
Panelists
Come join us in a circle to explore how surviving and thriving in these difficult times requires expanding our ability to pause our busy lives and be present with grief. In naming our losses and mourning together we will get to experience grief’s potential for solace, regeneration and transformation. Through basic breathing practice, intimate sharing, guided group conversation, and a simple ritual with elements from nature, we will touch into the gifts of connection and healing available when we take time to honor our losses and tend to our grief in community. Facilitated by death/grief educators and community gatherers, Anneke Campbell, Asha Kohli and Nisha Arcadia Shah.
We invite you to bring a sacred item to place on our collective altar—a token that holds meaning for you. This altar will hold us as we tend to our grief, weaving our individual stories into a shared tapestry of honoring and healing.
March 27th | 3:00 pm to 4:15 pm | Insight Room, Dharma College
Panelists
Youth justice is experiencing a pendulum swing back to “tough-on-crime” narratives, reinstating a system of rigid responses destructive to young people and communities. Louisiana stands out as a stark example, having become the first state to reinstate archaic laws that punish all 17-year-olds as adults. Biomimicry reminds us that in dark moments, we can thrive by repeating successful strategies, integrating the unexpected, reshuffling information, and letting go of what no longer works; and Restorative Justice has been shown to be an effective strategy for recognizing our interconnectedness and building our capacity for emergence. In this workshop, we will use a restorative justice lens to explore the ways ecological teachings can be applied to youth justice. With: Kristen A. Rome (Executive Director, Louisiana Center for Children’s Rights); Cymone Fuller (Senior Director, Restorative Justice, Equal Justice USA) and Ghani Songster, Transformative Healing & Restorative Justice Manager for the Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth (CFSY).
March 27th | 3:00 pm to 4:15 pm | Skillful Means Center, Dharma College
Panelists
ReParentive® Therapy, a somatic, experiential, non-hierarchical and non-pathologizing therapeutic modality that has roots in approaches to mental wellbeing that prioritize embodiment, mindfulness, liberation, and social justice, views the body as an ecosystem that reflects what’s happening in the larger society and in which resulting negative patterns can get encoded. ReParentive® concepts and approaches can be valuably applied to systems, leadership styles, activism and personal/spiritual growth, providing tools that permit us to heal at a deep level and shift those deeply encoded cellular and neurological patterns, allowing us to “spiral out” from an authentic, embodied place with radically increased efficacy. Come discover how ReParentive Therapy techniques and perspectives can enhance your life and work. With therapist, teacher and group leader, Pamela Rosin, MFT.
March 27th | 4:45 pm to 6:00 pm | Lotus Cafe, Dharma College
Panelists
This session invites participants to explore the concept of “Cultural Currency,” a framework for exchanging value that centers creativity, care, and collaboration over monetary returns. Through storytelling, group discussion and reflective prompts participants will identify ways their personal and professional practices can contribute to building a culture of reciprocity and shared humanity. Participants will leave with actionable ideas for fostering transformative relationships and projects that honor cultural and artistic sovereignty. Facilitated by Sol Guy, founder of Quiet.
March 27th | 4:45 pm to 6:00 pm | Skillful Means Center, Dharma College
Panelists
Friday, March 28th
Join Chrysalis creator Carrie Ziegler and fellow Bioneers youth for a session of collaborative wire-sculpture artmaking. This relaxed, hands-on session is a perfect way to unwind, connect with peers, and engage in a creative, collective experience. Dive in at any stage and help bring our community project to completion by the conference’s end. No prior workshop attendance or experience required.
March 28th | 3:00 pm to 4:15 pm | Terrace outside Tamalpais Room, Brower Center
Panelists
Come join us in a circle to explore how surviving and thriving in these difficult times requires expanding our ability to pause our busy lives and be present with grief. In naming our losses and mourning together we will get to experience grief’s potential for solace, regeneration and transformation. Through basic breathing practice, intimate sharing, guided group conversation, and a simple ritual with elements from nature, we will touch into the gifts of connection and healing available when we take time to honor our losses and tend to our grief in community. Facilitated by death/grief educators and community gatherers, Anneke Campbell, Asha Kohli and Nisha Arcadia Shah.
We invite you to bring a sacred item to place on our collective altar—a token that holds meaning for you. This altar will hold us as we tend to our grief, weaving our individual stories into a shared tapestry of honoring and healing.
March 28th | 3:00 pm to 4:15 pm | Insight Room, Dharma College
Panelists
Bioneers brings together a very diverse, discerning, engaged and reflective community, and the curated conversations around crucial topics we have been hosting recently (“Conversation Cafes”) have proven highly popular and stimulating. Each session begins with a very brief presentation by one of the conference presenters as a “conversation starter” to frame the topic, followed by structured group discussion. At the end of each session, a “harvester” who has carefully witnessed and “absorbed” what has transpired, offers us a poetic synopsis/recapitulation of the highlights of our time together.
Growing in Southeast Louisiana near a corridor callously but accurately dubbed Cancer Alley means growing up with the ecological grief and anxiety that accompanies knowing your home and ecosystem are harming you and your community’s health. When your connection to home and family binds you to a place riddled with toxic pollution and politics, what is the antidote? Leave and find a safe community, or stay and take up the work of your ancestors to resist these toxic industries? For those living in and around Cancer Alley, these choices can be a daily battle, but the best elixir for ecological grief is action.
This youth-led community conversation is for anyone living on the frontlines of endemic pollution or climate catastrophe who has wrestled with the choice of staying and fighting or leaving to find a better place to call home—and for anyone who wants to learn from and support them. With: Lael Kylin Judson from Rural Roots Louisiana; and Skye Williams. Facilitated by David Shaw, Santa Cruz Permaculture and UCSC Right Livelihood Center; and Tenika Blue, an advocate for anti-violence initiatives, social justice reform, and community healing. “Harvester:” Jason Bayani, author, theater performer, Artistic Director, Kearny Street Workshop.
March 28th | 3:00 pm to 4:15 pm | Ashby Room, Residence Inn
Panelists
In a time when people too often run from grief and struggle in order to seek joy, this session will delve into how coming into a more active, balanced relationship with joy and grief is essential to nurturing our sense of wholeness. Join us for a cross-generational conversation between panelists and among attendees, as we collectively explore how these twin pillars can frame essential practices for not just surviving, but thriving in a time of deep uncertainty. Facilitated by Akaya Windwood, Liz Ogbu, Benja Mertz.
March 28th | 3:00 pm to 4:15 pm | Skillful Means Center, Dharma College
Panelists
4:45 pm: Interactive Session – Catalyst for Change—Building Personal Roadmaps for Civic Participation
Hosted by Civic (Re)Solve
This session is meant to serve as a catalyst for change—to challenge and encourage leaders and engaged citizens to envision their personal role in public service. In this interactive workshop, we will seek to transform inspiration into action, as all of us will be invited to create personal roadmaps to public service. All of us will be welcomed to connect with the panelists, to gain valuable insight into their programs and to explore diverse ways to actively get involved in civic leadership. With: Anathea Chino, Advance Native Political Leadership; Chloe Maxmin, Dirtroad Organizing; Elizabeth Rosen, Future Caucus; and Caitlin Lewis, Work For America.
March 28th | 4:45 pm to 6:00 pm | Skillful Means Center, Dharma College
Panelists
Do you love the concept of Biomimicry but because you’re not a biologist or engineer, don’t think it holds any practical applications in your field? Well, if your work is more about leading people, shifting culture, or transforming organizations, there is definitely a place for you in the Biomimicry movement! Come join Biomimicry for Social Innovation’s founder, Toby Herzlich and Gina LaMotte, Managing Director of Biomimicry for Social Innovation, for an interactive session in which we’ll explore nature’s lessons on collaboration, trust-building, and leading resilient change.
March 28th | 4:45 pm to 6:00 pm | Ashby Room, Residence Inn
Panelists
Saturday, March 29th
Join Chrysalis creator Carrie Ziegler and fellow Bioneers youth for a session of collaborative wire-sculpture artmaking. This relaxed, hands-on session is a perfect way to unwind, connect with peers, and engage in a creative, collective experience. Dive in at any stage and help bring our community project to completion by the conference’s end. No prior workshop attendance or experience required.
March 29th | 3:00 pm to 4:15 pm | Terrace outside Tamalpais Room, Brower Center
Panelists
Bioneers brings together a very diverse, discerning, engaged and reflective community, and the curated conversations around crucial topics we have been hosting recently (“Conversation Cafes”) have proven highly popular and stimulating. Each session begins with a very brief presentation by one of the conference presenters as a “conversation starter” to frame the topic, followed by structured group discussion. At the end of each session, a “harvester” who has carefully witnessed and “absorbed” what has transpired, offers us a poetic synopsis/recapitulation of the highlights of our time together.
The fervor of our ecological and social movements, while well-intentioned, can often shut people down, sometimes even turning them into opponents, but to achieve genuine transformation, we will need just about everyone. In this session, we will explore how to tap into our compassion, flexibility, curiosity, listening, engagement, and service to widen the possibilities for wellness for all sentient beings. The central question we will contemplate will be: How can we show up in ways that welcome everyone into change? Participants should be prepared to listen and interact in mindful, respectful conversations with open minds and hearts.
The conversation starter for this session will be Jeanine M. Canty, author and professor of Transformative Studies at the California Institute of Integral Studies. Facilitated by David Shaw, Santa Cruz Permaculture and UCSC Right Livelihood Center. “Harvester:” Jason Bayani, author, theater performer, Artistic Director, Kearny Street Workshop.
March 29th | 3:00 pm to 4:15 pm | Ashby Room, Residence Inn
Panelists
Come join us in a circle to explore how surviving and thriving in these difficult times requires expanding our ability to pause our busy lives and be present with grief. In naming our losses and mourning together we will get to experience grief’s potential for solace, regeneration and transformation. Through basic breathing practice, intimate sharing, guided group conversation, and a simple ritual with elements from nature, we will touch into the gifts of connection and healing available when we take time to honor our losses and tend to our grief in community. Facilitated by death/grief educators and community gatherers, Anneke Campbell, Asha Kohli and Nisha Arcadia Shah.
We invite you to bring a sacred item to place on our collective altar—a token that holds meaning for you. This altar will hold us as we tend to our grief, weaving our individual stories into a shared tapestry of honoring and healing.
March 29th | 3:00 pm to 4:15 pm | Insight Room, Dharma College
Panelists
Modernity has stripped many of us of our ancestral lifeways. In this interactive session with Maija West and Hilary Giovale, we will explore the reclamation of matriarchal principles, practices, and ways of knowing. Calling on our supportive ancestors, we will create small circles within our larger circle, to sense this reclamation in our bodies, imagine it in our hearts, and begin speaking it into being. How can people of all genders come together and respectfully embody the ancestral teachings that connect us to land, water, and each other?
March 29th | 3:00 pm to 4:15 pm | Lotus Cafe, Dharma College
Panelists
Our “personal ecology” is the dynamic relationship between all the interconnected inner and outer elements that shape our life—our mind, body and spirit and also our community and the environment that surrounds us. Exploring our personal ecology can be of great help in radically improving how we live, how we connect, and the balance we create between all the elements in our lives. Come discover ways to cultivate better balance, awareness, and harmony, so you can be better equipped to care for and nurture yourself, your family, your friends, your community, and the larger world. With Brandi Mack, who has a long track record in community engagement, “trauma-informed” design, facilitating transformative experiences and blending nature-based solutions with mindful practices to foster connection, reflection, and growth.
March 29th | 3:00 pm to 4:15 pm | Skillful Means Center, Dharma College
Panelists
These times call on all of us to become more resilient as individuals and communities. In this engaging, highly interactive “playshop,” we will explore a dozen or so simple practices to help us calm our nervous systems, energize our bodies, and open to new possibilities. The practices span breath, movement, expression, connection and self-discovery. We’ll leave with a toolkit to create our own personalized resiliency routines, as well as practices we can share with our families, friends and communities. With: transformational coach, advisor, and eco-artist, Laura Loescher.
March 29th | 4:45 pm to 6:00 pm | Lotus Cafe, Dharma College
Panelists
4:45 pm: Interactive Session – Moving Towards Belonging: A Dance/Theater Experience
Co-Sponsored with The Belonging Resident Company
Come explore the radical idea of “belonging without othering,” as espoused by the Othering and Belonging Institute’s Director, john a. powell, through simple movement and theater techniques, and guided conversation. This workshop offers participants a chance to explore personal and collective experiences of belonging, and to dream a world in which everyone belongs in the circle of human concern. Instructors: Sarah Crowell and Sangita Kumar, Co-Directors of The Belonging Resident Company, an ensemble of artists and facilitators dedicated to making the revolution of belonging irresistible.
March 29th | 4:45 pm to 6:00 pm | Skillful Means Center, Dharma College