Introductory Meeting

April 7

Bread and Water: Ensuring The Essentials

Anuradha Mittal, Founder of The Oakland Institute, Author

Ms. Mittal has appeared on television and radio shows around the country. She has published articles in the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Bangkok Post, Economic and Political Weekly, the Nation, Dollars and Sense, and many others. She has also lectured at universities and to community organizations throughout the United States.

Anuradha Mittal is co-editor of America Needs Human Rights (Food First Books, 1999) and edited The Future in the Balance: Essays on Globalization and Resistance (Food First Books, 2001).

Prior coming to the U.S., Anuradha worked with Society for Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA), a major development group in India. There she worked on issues of commons and people's access and control over natural resources.

Michael Tobias, Anthropologist, Film-maker, Author

Michael Tobias is an author whose works have appeared in some eighty countries. He is particularly focused upon issues pertaining to animal rights and biodiversity conservation. Among his current projects are several new books, both fiction and nonfiction, as well as two feature documentaries, “Mad Cowboy,” which speaks of the tragedies of industrial agriculture, and “No Vacancy,” a sequel to his 1994 book and film, World War III: Population and the Biosphere at the End of the Millennium.

“Spiritual seekers such as myself often embody the full paradox of being a person. While we aspire to be ecological, lyrical, and non-violent, devoted to the liberation of biodiversity worldwide, we have probably contributed to nearly every current biological and chemical crisis of our planet. This contradiction, however, could be used to transform our thinking, and activities, fueling hope -practical, spiritual, real-world hope, for positive change, a change that must begin with being honest with ourselves.”

April 14

Peter Russell, Institute of Noetic Science

Peter Russell was appointed to the first research post ever offered in Britain on the psychology of meditation. He also has a post graduate degree in computer science, and conducted some of the early work on 3-dimensional displays, presaging by some twenty years the advent of virtual reality. In the mid-seventies Peter Russell joined forces with Tony Buzan and helped teach "Mind Maps" and learning methods to a variety of international organizations and educational institutions. Since then his corporate programs have focused increasingly on self-development, creativity, stress management, and sustainable environmental practices. Clients have included IBM, Apple, Digital, American Express, Barclays Bank, Swedish Telecom, ICI, Shell Oil and British Petroleum. As one of the more revolutionary futurists Peter Russell has been a keynote speaker at many international conferences, in Europe, Japan and the USA. His multi-image shows and videos, The Global Brain and The White Hole in Time have won praise and prizes from around the world. In 1993 the environmental magazine Buzzworm voted Peter Russell "Eco-Philosopher Extraordinaire" of the year.

His principal interest is the deeper, spiritual significance of the times we are passing through. He has written several books in this area -- The TM Technique, The Upanishads, The Brain Book, The Global Brain Awakens, The Creative Manager, The Consciousness Revolution, Waking Up in Time, and From Science to God.

Starhawk, Author, Professor, Activist

Starhawk is a veteran of progressive movements and deeply committed to bringing the techniques and creative power of spirituality to political activism. Starhawk has been active in social change movements for over thirty years. She has organized, trained protestors, and been on the front lines of antinuclear actions at Diablo Canyon, Livermore Weapons
Lab, Vandenberg Air Force Base, and the Nevada Test Site, among others. She traveled to Nicaragua with Witness for Peace in 1984 and made two trips to El Salvador to give ongoing support for sustainability programs. She continues to be a witness for peace on the front lines of the Palestine/Israel war, working with Palestinian and Israeli peace activists, as well as teaching nonviolence workshops in the region. She is now active in the revived American peace movement. Starhawk works on countless environmental and land use issues.

Ernest Callenbach, Author of Ecotopia

Ernest Callenbach is a writer and editor best known for his visionary novel Ecotopia—an environmental classic that has sold almost a million copies. In Ecotopia, Callenbach offers a detailed, practical vision of a human-scale, self-supporting future society. The book captures the imagination of readers yearning for alternatives to the accepted outlook of exponential growth and degradation of the natural and social environment. He has also written the novels Ecotopia Emerging and Publisher’s Lunch, and a half dozen nonfiction books on ecological issues. From 1955 to 1991 he was on the staff of the University of California Press—as the founder and editor of the internationally known critical journal, Film Quarterly, and as editor of film books and the California Natural History Guides series. He now devotes full time to writing and lecturing. He lives in Berkeley, gardens ardently, has three compost bins, and walks a lot. He lectures on environmental topics all over the globe.

Freda Pagani, Director of Sustainability Studies, University of British Columbia

Dr. Pagani’s Ph.D. work focused on using creativity in the design of more adaptive buildings. She continues this research interest through promoting innovative approaches to planning, designing, and managing the campus. She maintains that universities -- which arguably have played a significant role in bringing humanity to this critical juncture in its development -- must demonstrate the path to sustainability. Dr. Pagani is presently team teaching in an innovative first year integrated Arts program at UBC. She is also involved with other faculties, such as Agricultural Sciences, Applied Science, and Graduate Studies, on an advisory basis. She has taught architecture at Ryerson University, the University of British Columbia and Royal Roads University.

April 28

Satish Kumar, Editor, Resurgence Magazine

Satish Kumar is an experienced global neighbor. Born in India, he is currently the editor of Resurgence, a wonderful publication from England that was started in 1965 with the help of E. F. Schmacher and deals with all kinds of planetary alternatives. Satish is a former Jain monk, who at the instigation of Vinoba Bhave, Gandhi’s chief disciple, walked all over the world to plea for the elimination of nuclear weapons. His latest book is You Are, Therefore I Am, published by Green Books (UK).

“Sometimes I come across a tree which seems like Buddha or Jesus: loving, compassionate, still, unambitious, enlightened, in eternal meditation, giving pleasure to a pilgrim, shade to a cow, berries to a bird, beauty to its surroundings, health to its neighbors, branches for the fire, leaves for the soil, asking nothing in return, in total harmony with the wind and the rain. How much can I learn from a tree? The tree is my church, the tree is my temple, the tree is my mantra, the tree is my poem and my prayer.”

Frances Moore Lappé, Small Planet Institute

Frances Moore Lappé is author or co-author of fourteen books, including the three-million-copy bestseller Diet for a Small Planet. The co-founder of two national organizations that focus on food and the roots of democracy,. her most recent book is You Have the Power: Choosing Courage in a Culture of Fear (Tarcher/Penguin, 2004). Frances Moore Lappé’s books have been used in a broad array of courses in hundreds of colleges and universities and in more than 50 countries. They have been translated into over a dozen languages.

Lappé has received 17 honorary doctorates from distinguished institutions, including the University of Michigan, Kenyon College, Allegheny College, and Lewis and Clark College.

In 1987 in Sweden, Lappé became the fourth American to receive the Right Livelihood Award, sometimes called the “Alternative Nobel,” for her “vision and work healing our planet and uplifting humanity.” In her 30s, Lappé received the annual Mademoiselle magazine award, honoring young American women leaders. In 2000, she was inducted into Natural Health Magazine's Hall of Fame. In 2003 she received the Rachel Carson Award from the National Nutritional Foods Association. Lappé’s book awards include the World Hunger Media Award and the Henry George Award as well as, in 2003, the Nautilus Award for Hope’s Edgein the category of social change from NAPRA, the network of alternative publishers and retailers. She was also chosen in 2003 by artist Robert Shetterly as one of 50 Americans to be part of his traveling portrait exhibition, Americans Who Tell the Truth.

“Some of the 20th century’s most vibrant activist thinkers have been American women – Margaret Mead, Jeanette Rankin, Barbara Ward, Dorothy Day – who took it upon themselves to pump life into basic truths. Frances Moore Lappé is among them.”

—The Washington Post

Mary Evelyn Tucker, Professor of Religion at Bucknell University, Author

Mary Evelyn Tucker is a professor of religion at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, where she teaches courses in world religions, Asian religions, religion and ecology, and religion and nature writers. She received her Ph.D. from Columbia University in the history of religions, specializing in Confucianism in Japan. She has published Moral and Spiritual Cultivation in Japanese Neo-Confucianism (SUNY, 1989). She co-edited Worldviews and Ecology (Orbis, 1994), Buddhism and Ecology (Harvard, 1997), Confucianism and Ecology (Harvard, 1998), and Hinduism and Ecology (Harvard, 2000). She also wrote Worldly Wonder: Religions Enter Their Ecological Phase (Open Court Press, 2003) She is currently co-editing with Tu Weiming two volumes on Confucian Spirituality which will be published by Crossroad in the series on World Spirituality. She and her husband, John Grim, have directed a series of ten conferences on World Religions and Ecology at the Harvard University Center for the Study of World Religions from 1996-1998. They are the series editors for the ten volumes that are being published from the conferences by the Center and Harvard University Press. They are also editors of a book series on Ecology and Justice from Orbis Press. In
addition, they are now coordinating an ongoing Forum on Religion and Ecology (FORE). http://environment.harvard.edu/religion
Mary Evelyn has been a committee member of the Interfaith Partnership for the Environment at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) since 1986 and is Vice President of the American Teilhard Association. She was a member of the International Earth Charter Drafting Committee from 1997-2000.

April 29-May 1
Institute of Reverential Ecology Third Annual Retreat

Creating the Future: Ecology, Ethics and Design
Zaca Lake, 8000 Foxen Canyon Road, Los Olivos, CA 805/688-5699
www.reverentialecology.org

Ianto Evans, Designer and Builder

Ianto Evans, is an applied ecologist, landscape architect, inventor, and teacher with building experience on six continents. He has consulted with US AID, the World Bank, The Peace Corps, and other national governments. Ianto Evans receives his inspiration from extensive work with traditional cultures and from the observation of nature. Ianto is a landscape architect, applied ecologist, inventor, writer and teacher with building
experience on six continents. Ianto encourages and empowers people to take charge of creating their own housing by using healthy, resource-efficient and regionally appropriate
building materials and systems.

Nandini Iyer, Lecturer Emeritus, UC Santa Barbara, Co-Founder of the
Institute of World Culture, Santa Barbara

Nandini Iyer is a life-long student of the world’s mystical traditions and of the teachings of MK Gandhi. She has taught philosophy and religious studies at the University of Oxford, UC Santa Barbara and at Santa Barbara City College. She is one of the founders of the Institute of World Culture in Santa Barbara and has been involved with several schools committed to combating religious intolerance.
“We need to explore whether and how not only ethics, but spiritual and broadly religious ideals, can be meaningfully taught and practiced, without being grounded in narrow, sectarian religious frameworks. Can we allow the state, as we have sometimes allowed religion, to take priority over individual conscience? Can we educate students into being ethical? These are problems, challenges and dilemmas upon which we need to reflect.”

John Knott, Architect, Designer, Philosopher

President and co-founder of the Noisette Company, LLC, John Knott leads the Noisette Project development team, which is collaborating in a public-private partnershipwith the City of North Charleston to restore 3,000 acres of the city’s historic urban core. Knott has 36 years of experience in the urban redevelopment, historic preservation and community rehabilitation fields. Mr. Knott is a third generation builder and developer, with extensive experience in the holistic development of planned communities, sustainable development, Green Buildings, commercial offices, hotels, and renovation and restoration of historic properties and urban revitalization. He also specializes in ecologically sound and efficient energy design, and ranks among the nation’s leading advocates of development that preserves, protects and enhances the natural environment. Recently, John served as CEO and Managing Director of the 1,206-acre Dewees Island, community near Charleston, South Carolina, an oceanfront island retreat dedicated to environmental preservation and recognized as one of the leading eco-friendly residential developments in the world. In 2001, Dewees won the Urban Land Institute’s prestigious Award for Excellence. Recently, Knott served as an advisor for the University of Texas-Houston Health Sciences Center, helping guide the sustainable redevelopment of a three-million-plus square foot campus at that school. In 2004, Knott was named “Environmental Champion for 2004” by Interiors & Sources magazine, joining such high profile names as Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, scientist E.O. Wilson, and Interface, Inc. CEO Ray Anderson.

See April 28, Ecological Ethics

See April 28, Ecological Ethics

Ocean Robbins, Environmental Youth Leader

At 16, Ocean Robbins was founder of Youth for Environmental Sanity (YES!), which he has directed for the better part of the years since. He is also co-author of Choices For Our Future: A Generation Rising For Life On Earth (published by the Book Publishing Company, September, 1994), and speaks widely, spreading a message of hope and inspiration to conferences, companies and organizations. Utne Reader recognized him as one of 30 "Young Visionaries" under 30, and both both Time and Audubon magazines chose him as being among the heroes of the new millennium.

See June 2, Living Systems and Social Thought

Vandana Shiva, Author, Activist, Founder of the Research Foundation for Science,
Technology and Ecology

Vandana Shiva is a world-renowned environmental thinker and activist. A leader in the International Forum on Globalization, Shiva won the Alternative Nobel Peace Prize (The Right Livelihood Award) in 1993. As Director of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Natural Resource Policy, she is the author of many books including Stolen Harvest, Biopiracy and Water Wars. Before becoming an activist, Vandana Shiva was one of India's leading physicists. The Guardian has called her "One of the world's most prominent radical scientists," and The Progressive refers to her as "a burst of creative energy, an intellectual power."

Charlene Spretnak, Professor at California Institute of Integral Studies,
Author of Missing Mary

Her most recent book is The Resurgence of the Real: Body, Nature, and Place in a Postmodern World (1997). She is also the author of States of Grace: The Recovery of Meaning in the Postmodern Age (1991), The Spiritual Dimension of Green Politics (1986), and editor of The Politics of Women's Spirituality (1982). Her pioneering work has contributed to the framing of the women's spirituality, ecofeminist, and Green politics movements. Charlene Spretnak received an M.A. (1981) in English from the University of California, Berkeley.

See April 7, Bread and Water: Ensuring The Essentials

See April 28, Ecological Ethics

Adam Wolpert, Founder of Occidental Arts and Ecology Center, Artist, Activist

Adam Wolpert is a Sowing Circle Community member, painter, and Director of the Arts Program at OAEC. He received his BA in Fine Art at UC Santa Barbara, studied for two years in Florence, Italy, at the classical
atelier, Studio Cecil-Graves, and received his MFA at UC San Diego.
Adam has lectured and led painting workshops at many West Coast venues and currently teaches painting at New College of California, where he is developing a MFA program in Integrated Arts. Adam weaves an artistic element into many of the courses and events offered at OAEC, and he also co-directs our Intentional Communities Program.

May 5

Betsy Taylor, President, Center for a New American Dream

Betsy Taylor is the founder and President of the Center for a New American Dream, a non-profit group that helps Americans resist excessive commercialism and consume wisely to protect the environment, improve quality of life, and enhance social justice. She has a masters degree in public administration from Harvard University and graduated summa cum laude with a BA from Duke University. Since the mid-70s, Ms. Taylor has directed several non-profit environmental and peace organizations and has worked in leadership roles at the local, federal and international level.

Reverend James Lawson, Human Rights Leader

Rev. Lawson relocated to the South to lead workshops on nonviolence in such cities as Little Rock, Arkansas, Jackson, Mississippi, Knoxville, Tennessee, and Greensboro, North Carolina. From 1958-59, as Southern Secretary of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, Rev. Lawson became the principal organizer of the historic Nashville Sit-In Movement. In 1961, he led the first wave of freedom riders into Jackson, Mississippi.

Cited by Reverend Jesse Jackson as the "teacher of the Movement," Rev. Lawson has been credited with influencing a generation of prominent civil rights activists including C.T. Vivian, Diane Nash, Congressman John Lewis, and Bernard Lafayette.

Lawson has lectured nationally and taught at several institutions, including Harvard, UCLA, USC and the Claremont School of Theology and formerly served as the National Chairperson for the Fellowship of Reconciliation. Currently, Rev. Lawson is Pastor Emeritus of the Holman United Methodist Church in Los Angeles, California and continues to work with the working poor, community organizations and interfaith-coalitions for justice and peace.

May 12

Tom Hayden, Professor, Author, Activist

"Tom Hayden changed America," the national correspondent of The Atlantic, Nicholas Lemann, has written. He created the blueprint for the Great Society programs, according to presidential assistant Richard Goodwin. He was "the conscience of the Senate," said Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Walters. According to the Los Angeles Times, when he retired in September 1999 from the state legislature, he received the longest farewell of any legislator in memory. Tom's legislative record includes groundbreaking legislation on behalf of women, African-Americans and Latinos, Holocaust survivors and this generation's immigrants working in sweatshops. While in Sacramento, he was regarded by the Sierra Club as the strongest legislative protector of endangered species in the nation. He was recognized as the legislature's foremost watchdog against special interest waste and abuse of power in cases ranging from the LA subway controversy to the UC Irvine fertility scandal. He led the battles in Sacramento to stop university tuition increases, reform the K-12 system, and clean up fiscal mismanagement at LAUSD. Tom was a leader of the student, civil rights and anti-war movements in the Sixties, and the environmental and anti-nuclear movements in the Seventies. He is currently a professor at Occidental College and social science adviser for Animo public schools: Venice, Inglewood, Lennox, South Central and Boyle Heights, California. He is the author of nine books, including The Lost Gospel of the Earth, The Whole World Was Watching and Irish Hunger. The New York Times cited his 1988 book, Reunion, as one of the best 200 of the year.

Richard Falk, Professor, Human Rights Activist

Richard Falk is Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University and Visiting Distinguished Professor in Global and International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His most recent book, The Great Terror War (2003), considers the American response to September 11, including its relationship to the patriotic duties of American Citizens. In 2001 he served on a three person Human Rights Inquiry Commission for the Palestine Territories that was appointed by the United Nations, and previously, on the Independent International Commission on Kosovo. He is the author or coauthor of numerous books, including Religion and Humane Global Governance; Human Rights Horizons; On Humane Governance: Toward a New Global Politics; Explorations at the Edge of Time; Revolutionaries and Functionaries; The Promise of World Order; Indefensible Weapons; Human Rights and State Sovereignty; A Study of Future Worlds; This Endangered Planet; coeditor of Crimes of War. He serves as Chair of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation's Board of Directors and as honorary vice president of the American Society of International Law. Falk also acted as counsel to Ethiopia and Liberia in the Southwest Africa Case before the International Court of Justice. He received his B.S. from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania; L.L.B. from Yale Law School; and J.S.D. from Harvard University.

Special Event: Wednesday, May 18, 7–9 pm, UCSB Campbell Hall

World Water Consciousness

Masaru Emoto, Director, IHM General Research Institute

Japanese researcher and author, Masaru Emoto, has been studying water since 1988. He was lead to his research by a series of remarkable discoveries pertaining to the nature of water. Emoto describes the phenomenon of HADO as “the intrinsic vibrational pattern at the atomic level in all matter” or “the smallest unit of energy” which is the basis for his work. His findings show the changes that occur in water’s crystalline structure after exposure to various types of hado, including music, pictures, words and prayer. Emoto has come to some startling conclusions that show how water is receptive to various stimuli and water’s crystalline structure can actually be transformed. He has found that crystals formed in frozen water reveal changes when specific, concentrated sounds or thoughts are directed toward them. For example, water from clear springs or water that has been exposed to classical music, loving words or prayer display brilliant, complex, and colorful snowflake patterns upon freezing. On the other hand, polluted water or water exposed to negative music, thoughts or words form incomplete, asymmetrical patterns with dull color.
Emoto’s water crystal photographs are displayed in his Messages from Water book series and his 2004 book The Hidden Messages in Water. The True Power of Water will be the title of Emoto’s upcoming book and U.S. tour. This new publication is due for release in April, 2005. Emoto’s work has been featured in The Journal of Complementary and Alternative Medicine, March 2004 and in the independent film, What the #$BLEEP*! Do We Know? His research is gaining national popularity and generating recognition from scientists, health advocates, and environmentalists.

William Waterway Marks, Author, Activist

William E. (Marks) Waterway has been working with water for most of his life. To experience firsthand the status of America’s waters, he made a meandering 7,000-mile horseback journey from San Diego to Maine. He also studied industrial pollution and historical water management practices in Europe, North Africa, Mexico, Canada, Ireland, and Australia. He was an environmental water analyst briefly for the City of Newark, New Jersey, and for 15 years he operated a water-testing and research laboratory and an environmental consulting firm on Martha’s Vineyard. He is also the founding publisher and editor of Martha’s Vineyard Magazine. William’s book, The Holy Order of Water, has been called "profound ... an inspiration to all of us in the quest for clean water and a healthy life."

Bob Cannard, Restoration Ecologist/Organic Farmer

Bob Cannard is a unique and innovative Sonoma county farmer. Bob has years of experience designing farm fertility systems that use readily available resources and materials, creating a soil that is remarkable in its aroma, nutrient-giving properties and vibrancy. He has been a consultant to organic farmers throughout the world and is well known for his remarkable techniques in transforming and enriching depleted soils.

Chiu-Nan Lai, Director, Lapis Lazuli Light Institute

Dr. Lai promotes total health at the physical, mental and spiritual levels. She emphasizes that a person’s overall good health stems from the good health of the entire planet. She campaigns for the protection of the natural eco-system and the care for our natural resources and strongly advocates organic farming. Combining the essence of Chinese and Western medical knowledge with natural principles of the universe, Dr. Lai teaches people how to deal with sickness. She encourages us to develop a mind of loving-kindness that seeks to help others, and leads us towards a healthy, blissful life. Based on the principle that “Our world is our classroom”, Dr. Lai established the Lapis Lazuli Light organization in 1993. This organization focuses in education and training in America, Taiwan, China, Malaysia and Singapore in the hope of spreading the seeds of total health to the world.

June 2

Elisabet Sahtouris, Living Systems Design Theorist, Author

Her books include EarthDance: Living Systems in Evolution (iUniverse, 2000), A Walk Through Time: From Stardust to Us (John Wiley & Sons, 1998), and Biology Revisioned, co-authored with Willis Harman (North Atlantic Books, 1998). She has been invited to China by the Chinese National Science Association, organized Earth Celebration 2000 in Athens, Greece, and has been a United Nations consultant on indigenous peoples. She was a participant in the Humanity 3000 dialogues of the Foundation for the Future and in the Synthesis Dialogues with the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala. She consults with corporations and government organizations in Australia, Brazil, and the USA.

Dr. Sahtouris completed her postdoctoral work at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and taught at the University of Massachusetts and M.I.T. She was a science writer for the Horizon/Nova television series. She currently resides in California.