Everywoman’s Leadership 2015: Local and Global Connections

Over the past year, the Bioneers Everywoman’s Leadership program has continued to expand its reach—from a surprise hit panel at the UN to three new Media Collections—while still continuing deep connection and network building through our Cultivating Women’s Leadership intensives.

Read on for more details and how you can be a part of our work in the coming year.

UN Commission on the Status of Women

In mid-March, I attended the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), and was invited to host a panel session sponsored by an interfaith justice NGO led by radical and inspired women.

This year, our panel topic was Women, Democracy, Health and Extractive Industries. They invited a longtime friend and past Bioneers presenter, marine biologist and democracy activist, Riki Ott, and others. A fisherwoman in Alaska, Riki was politicized into action by the Exxon Valdez oil spill and witnessing its long-term effects on that region. Now, she travels to educate communities about the toxic health impacts of spills, and about how to organize locally for democracy.

As I prepared for the panel during the nights preceding it, I was stunned by the scope of global data I found. Everywhere on the planet, it seemed, extractive industries (corporations drilling or mining for oil, coal or minerals) were assaulting women at the front lines of their communities, most often rural and Indigenous. I learned that companies move in “man-camps,” which precipitate heightened rates of sex trafficking, domestic abuse, rape and sexual violence, while also increasing drug and alcohol addiction among the men of those communities.

Although I’d known of this pattern permeating North America, I’d had no prior understanding of the global nature of the impacts on women and how closely it parallels the assault and commodification of the Earth.

At the UN, our session attracted nearly 150 people, about twice as many as any prior session. After framing the issue, we invited comments, testimonials and questions, and heard from women from Goa, France, Africa and Portugal about the health, environmental and social crises women were experiencing caused by the same threats.

The audience responded with passionate enthusiasm to Riki’s teachings on democracy and my correlation between this corporate assault on women and the rape of our Mother, the Earth, which threatens the very fertility of life itself.

Everywoman’s Leadership Collections

This year, I’m feeling like an expectant mom with the birth of three Media Collections featuring diverse and inspiring women leading change that are ready to be released:

  • Everywoman’s Leadership, Volume 2
  • Women Leaders on Leadership, Volume 1
  • Everywoman’s Leadership Audio Collection

These new Collections complement last year’s release of Everywoman’s Leadership, Volume 1, which is available as a digital download and as a beautifully packaged CD/DVD set.

The three new titles, also enhanced by great art, will be available as digital editions to stream for free and to download in a pay-what-you-wish model that gives you a stake in the Bioneers vision of spreading ideas that can change the world. 

Two of the new Media Collections are selections of videos and audio that feature an array of women whose modeling of leadership will be accessible to women and girls of any background. The third is an all-audio set, featuring seven great half-hour shows that span an array of stories, women and leadership.

We’ll be sharing them widely in the months ahead, and I’m elated at the prospect of this rich and varied response to the feminist adage “If you can’t see it, you can’t be it.”

Cultivating Women’s Leadership Intensives

In June, and again in July, we gathered 20 women leaders from a larger pool of applicants for a Cultivating Women’s Leadership intensive.

After having refined and produced this gathering for the past ten years, in collaboration with CWL co-founder Toby Herzlich and co-facilitators Rachel Bagby and Elsa Menendez, I enter each annual cycle with curiosity.

I wonder about what might be revealed that’s different this year; about whether I still feel called to continue this form given the challenges of supporting its scholarship requirements financially; and wondering about its continued relevance to my own purposes and the truths of now.

One of our youngest participants was producing large-scale events featuring music and life skills as a way of igniting engagement among youth in Georgia, while the eldest was an accomplished biologist, systems thinker and author.

A farmer developing a site for homesteading education came, and a community developer working to teach permaculture, food self-sufficiency and self-esteem to low-income girls in San Francisco’s Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood.

One woman is developing a framework for integrating arts with international economic development, while an attorney works to transform legal education for women and legal policies around incarceration. I was enthused to discover that this lawyer had been invited to help inform curricula for women in law school, the third CWL alumna working to help transform the law through this arena.

I am profoundly moved by the caliber and dedication of the applicants we select to work with and the transformative experience each of them has in her own way.

Though their numbers are not large, each is a deeply influential leader, reaching many more in her community. Their backgrounds vary widely and they are at very differing phases of their leadership evolution. Each one opens to seeing herself differently—with greater respect, love and appreciation—due to the program design, facilitation and reflections from a remarkable group of peers.

I recalled how well used I feel in producing these trainings, and how much I love our team supporting each woman’s transformations in sacred nature.

I remember the power of women collaborating toward effecting big change, and imagine that women’s abilities to grow each other’s leadership capacities may be one of the greatest untapped resources of this time.

What’s Next

We’ve just landed on dates and locations for next year’s Cultivating Women’s Leadership intensives, and applications are now available:

  • Northern California: Monday, April 25th-Saturday, April 30th, 2016 | Apply here
  • New Mexico: Sunday, July 24th-Friday, July 29th, 2016 | Apply here

I so hope that you may feel inspired to apply, and experience the dimensional power and magic that’s possible among women in such an extraordinary peer community. Read more about the CWL intensives here.

And in the nearer future, I hope to see you at the 2015 National Bioneers Conference, October 16th-18th in San Rafael, California.

Check out my must-see 2015 Bioneers conference highlights » 

Everywoman’s Leadership Highlights at Bioneers 2015

For the 2015 Bioneers National Conference coming up this October, I’m elated that we’re featuring truly outstanding women leading change from a spectrum of disciplines, backgrounds and approaches.

The integration of arts, spirituality and culture with healing for the earth and our human systems—a core aspect of leadership from the feminine—feels fuller and more dimensional than ever before!

Must-see Morning Keynotes

In the mornings, on the main stage, a highlight for me will be the keynote by Rinku Sen, who is perhaps the best spokesperson I’ve ever heard on healing our racial inequities and divides and the promise of transforming systems that perpetuate them.

Rinku carries so much clarity and light and translates with ease between the systemic and the personal. The quality of her inner awareness, coupled with clear-eyed analysis, knowledge and skillful means brings tremendous credibility and promise to her leadership.

I am also super jazzed about keynote speaker Jensine Larsen, the founder of WorldPulse, who will be sharing the stage with Sister Zeph, a young Pakistani advocate for girls’ education.

WorldPulse has grown its capacities and reach as a global platform to amplify and connect the power of women’s voices, which may be the most important tactic I know to help shift cultures and societies toward a future that is just, resilient and life-honoring.

I’m deeply honored to have Eriel Deranger offering a keynote this year. Eriel is a dynamic and fierce organizer working with Idle No More on the Alberta Tar Sands fight. As a young mother herself, coming from a First Nations community that’s been most directly impacted by extractive industries, her commitment and savvy as an organizer are dazzling.

Fania Davis has been adapting restorative justice practices in Oakland Schools with great success, and may open your eyes to an immensely powerful tool for social transformation. Her skillful applications, fierce commitment and wisdom in articulating the value of restorative justice help me to understand in entirely new ways, with larger applicability than I’d ever previously imagined. As a great innovator in social healing, she’s one to experience.

I’m super enthused to hear Michael Meade’s brilliant storytelling accompanied by John Densmore’s drumming. We’ve wanted to feature Michael’s work for years—his mythic storytelling illuminates truths about living now, while offering his particular street-smart brand of healing to our fractured world.

Paul Hawken’s eloquence is always a thrill—especially in sharing some of his work this year on Project Drawdown—as its relevance and timeliness is hard to beat.

And in this year of the Pope’s encyclical on climate justice, I’m overjoyed to feature one of the US’ greatest faith-based activists, Sister Simone Campbell, author of Nuns on the Bus.

Experiential & Interactive Options

In the afternoons, we’ll feature an array of experiential and interactive options that speak to the nexus of Earth health and social justice and also address everything from youth and Indigenous leadership to climate, movement building, citizen science, education and business.

There’ll be great how-to sessions, and some really edgy innovations, like Reimagining Philanthropy and Learning from Our Primate Kin, and The Art of Empathy.

Council sessions will gather to explore some of our most pressing themes, in a fully participatory forum. Other sessions will look at lifting our voices (there’s never been a revolution without song!), caring for the self and the world in balance and navigating power differentials.

I’m also excited that we’re so family-friendly this year, from our new Family Fair to rich mutual learning opportunities for youth and elders, so that intergenerational inspiration can flourish and seed future leadership from a very early age.

The films we’re featuring are fantastic, too, as well as dancing, celebrations and networking over meals and on the fairgrounds.

And Don’t Miss This Post-Conference Intensive

Another woman whose work I’m super excited about is Miakoda, founder of Fierce Allies. She is producing a daylong intensive on Monday, Oct 19th, just following the conference.

Called Transforming Power Dynamics into Dynamic Power, the intensive will focus on methodologies that combine restorative justice, somatic trauma work and Indigenous social practices.

I cannot imagine a more relevant skillset for this time, or one with more diverse applications. It equips people who come from differing power structures (as often occur across differences of age, race, gender or ability) to remain in challenging conversations and work toward greater collaboration.

Join Me at the 2015 National Bioneers Conference!

In summary, as I scan back over many years of our annual conference, I am gratefully observing how the systemic approaches of Bioneers create pathways to ignite changes in people and groups at both the micro and the macro levels.

I’m appreciating how well the holistic nature of our work is connecting the dots among disparate but related communities. And I am honored by the opportunity to help identify key ideas and leaders whose visions reveal viable routes to reinventing how we live as people, and with each other and the Earth.

I hope to see you at the Bioneers conference this October, please come up and say hello!

See the full Bioneers 2015 schedule and register today »

Actionable Intelligence: Climate Breakthroughs at Bioneers 2015

As climate disruption bears down, we’re witnessing the earth-shattering onset of heartbreaking suffering, dislocation and injustice. And this is just the beginning.

We’ve got to act now. If we do, we can still hopefully dodge completely cataclysmic disruption, and the solutions on display at the 2015 National Bioneers Conference this year are where the hope is. This is the real deal. This is the time.

Here’s a taste of what’s on deck.

Paul Hawken: Two Climate Questions

One sign of genius is to be able to distill mind-numbing complexity into simplicity itself, and to question the most basic assumptions we hold.

Paul Hawken has that genius. He asks two disarmingly simple questions about climate change:

  • What can we do right now with existing off-the-shelf technologies and solutions, and what measurable effects would each one have?
  • Why accept the idea that we cannot actually bring CO2 levels back down to pre-industrial levels of 350ppm?

Paul will present the startling data from his Project Drawdown that has assessed the 100 top technologies to pull carbon out of the atmosphere. It’s a massive collaborative research project that will provide lucid pathways for immediate action on a global scale.

The good news is that it’s actually do-able—now, here and everywhere. And you will be very surprised by some of the answers.

Tom Hayden: The Hopeful Truth about the Climate Movement

Because of the corporate media megaphone, we’ve been misled about how large the climate movement really is among growing numbers of cities and states. It’s huge and growing fast.

The leadership of Governor Jerry Brown has positioned California to become the game-changer for global climate leadership to build resilience from the ground up and link with other sub-national initiatives and networks worldwide.

Legendary activist Tom Hayden will dramatically paint the emerging landscape of how the California model is spreading rapidly both domestically and abroad with the formation of Green Blocs both at the state level and among nations.

At the center is the resolution of environmental and social justice and the rich-poor divide. This is the real game-changer. Check out our new Bioneers e-book on this topic too! Your heart will swell with hope.

Henk Ovink: What to Do about Rising Seas

Rising seas are no longer in the future, and the worst-case scenarios are just as likely as the best-case ones.

Legendary Dutch water management strategist Henk Ovink has helped lead the way, supporting incredibly sophisticated water management practices and policies in a nation that’s 60% below sea level. Holland needs the whole world on board to succeed—we all do.

Henk brought his expertise to the New York Metropolitan Area after Hurricane Sandy’s devastation. Based on his suggestions and process, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is funding breakthrough green infrastructure approaches in the region.

Now he is bringing it to California. These are proven practices that give us the best shot at building coastal resilience. Holland recently formed a formal partnership with California to start seeing how to implement these breakthroughs.

Andy Lipkis: LA’s New Water Reality

Fellow water wizard Andy Lipkis will update the astonishing policy advances his group TreePeople has helped lead for 40 years to build an integrated urban watershed for Los Angeles.

With the epic drought bearing down, suddenly policy makers and public officials are not just listening—they’re acting to make one of the nation’s most notoriously unsustainable cities into a green model of wise water management that integrates ecology, economy and justice.

Andy is networking globally, including in drought-ravaged Australia where the nation has instituted a national program where everyone becomes a watershed manager. Yes, the tide is turning and it’s breathtaking.

Eriel Deranger: Putting Rights ahead of Tar Sands

Even in the face of a Canadian government that is their Bush-Cheney era, the Indigenous activist Eriel Deranger has helped lead Canada’s huge Idle No More movement to unprecedented success challenging the catastrophic Tar Sands oil extraction in Alberta.

First Nations have managed to stop the hard-right, oil-loving government in its tracks by using a unique Rights-Based Framework in Canadian law. This movement is led primarily by Indigenous women and the battle is raging, with elections coming up this fall. This is one of the really big ones—failure is impossible. Please learn all you can and do all you can.

Climate Disruption & Your Health

We’re also experiencing the severe health effects of climate disruption and it is becoming a potent catalyst for action. Impacts range from heat illness to asthma and changes in vector-borne disease. It also threatens our food, air, water, shelter and security. It disproportionately impacts the most vulnerable.

The extraordinary health activists Barbara Sattler, R.N. and Linda Rudolph are on the front lines, the national nurses union is becoming a powerful force politically, and it’s just the beginning.

Learn how to put health front and center as an organizing strategy, and see what we all can do to prevent the worst and build the public health systems we’re going to badly need for the 21st century.

Carbon Farming

We’ve long known that transforming the way we grow our food is phenomenally important for people and planet. As it turns out, agriculture has the potential to be a major player in the effort to, in Paul Hawken’s words, drawdown carbon.

The game-changer is Carbon Farming to sequester carbon in soil, including scaling up organic farming and holistic rangeland management. John Roulac of Nutiva and John Wick of the landmark Marin Carbon Project will show how this strategy is at the top of everyone’s list for immediate practical solutions.

Carbon Economy Disruption

Another hot topic will be the Carbon Economy Disruption. The Divestment movement is just one reflection of the larger reality—that fossil fuels are simply becoming a lousy investment, compared to the ongoing clean energy boom.

Learn from some of the wisest analysts and strategists how fast the economics are changing, including Mike Brune, Executive Director of the Sierra Club, Atossa Soltani of Amazon Watch, and reporter Mark Schapiro whose stunning research helps show the way to a clean energy economy.

Join the Revolution from the Heart of Nature!

Hey, there’s lots more including brilliant sessions on Climate Education, but you get the drift.

The real question is how all of us can take this actionable intelligence and the life-changing connections that occur at Bioneers and move them out into our worlds—now. We really look forward to seeing you at Bioneers 2015 because the revolution has begun and the time is now.

Connect with the climate movement at Bioneers 2015 on October 16th-18th! Register today »

5 Questions with World-Class Yogi Suzanne Sterling

There is always a lot to take in over the weekend at Bioneers. All of the incredibly stimulating discussions about solving the world’s problems can get overwhelming, so many of you have expressed the desire for more opportunities to unwind and recharge, which is why we have radically expanded our yoga and movement offerings this year. We are delighted to welcome world class yogi and ritualist Suzanne Sterling, co-founder of Off the Mat, Into the World (OTM). Read on to learn more about OTM and Suzanne, including how she remembers to stay centered.

1. What inspired you to start Off the Mat, Into the World?  

Off the Mat, Into the World® (co-founded by Seane Corn, Hala Khouri and myself)  is a non-profit project bridging yoga and activism within a social justice context. We have many facets to what we do, including Intensive Leadership Trainings, grassroots community building, and lots of projects aimed at serving communities in crisis both locally and also in countries affected by genocide, poverty, war and disease. We have also recently begun to focus on making yoga/mindfulness practices accessible to ALL, as well as offering platforms for leaders on the margins who have not traditionally had a voice in the social change conversation. Our goal has been to unify and utilize the incredible resources (both practical and spiritual) of the yoga community to serve those who are suffering most and to be able to respond effectively to real time challenges as they emerge.

The program that I have been directing for the last 8 years is called the Seva Challenge which is a fundraising challenge culminating in a humanitarian work trip and collaboration with local organizations doing incredible solution oriented work around issues like sex trafficking, education access, environmental justice, girls and womens rights and human rights violations. To date, we have raised over $3.5 million for our partners doing direct service work in Cambodia, Uganda, South Africa, Haiti, Ecuador, India and Kenya. This has been an amazing journey for us and we are thrilled at the outpouring of enthusiasm and practical service that has been generated in the short time that we have been in partnership.

We began OTM as a response to the growing population of yoga practiioners who wanted to be of service but did not know how to organize. Our experience has shown us that almost everyone would like to be of service in some way, and yet so many of us are waiting for permission to start or waiting until we “get our act together.” Our message is that there is no time to wait and that there is no person who can offer your gifts to the world better than you! Over the last 9 years we have seen incredible growth and organization in the community such that we can now see that the intersection of yoga/mindfulness and social change is a crucial one for long term viability and sustainability.

2. Tell us more about the intersection of yoga/mindfulness practices and social change.

Well, part of what we teach in our Off the Mat, Into the World Intensives is that the mind and body are intimately connected and that how we approach our yoga practice is much like how we approach our lives. When things get challenging, how do we respond? Do we blame others? Self beat? Try to escape? Shut down and go numb? All of these coping mechanisms can be seen all around us both personally and culturally and one of the first steps we can take as conscious activists is to take responsibility for the ways in which we ourselves are at war within ourselves and with others. Understanding the personal and cultural systems that perpetuate separation and oppression helps us to contextualize that responsibility. Then and only then can we communicate and collaborate with others to make real, sustainable change in the world.

Yoga practice is an opportunity for deep self inquiry and a stripping away of the distractions so that we can find our true calling, service and dharma (sacred work in the world) and so that when we do serve, we do so cleanly and with an open heart, truly unattached to the outcome. This is challenging work but the interest in these ideas and concepts tells me that we are collectively ready to do this work. The yoga community is ready to activate and serve, and the activist community is ready to deepen the sacred container and context for it’s work.

I believe that once we truly experience the sacred web of all living things and our place in it, that we have an obligation and invitation to serve the continuance of that web. I also believe that when we cultivate mindfulness and self expression, we cultivate the creativity needed to come up with new solutions to the problems that we face in these times. In my work specifically I am focused on using self expression and ritual to build communities of interdependence and reciprocity. We want to help create a force for change that is so creative and exciting that it magnetizes the change we seek.

I believe that once we truly experience the sacred web of all living things and our place in it, that we have an obligation and invitation to serve the continuance of that web. I also believe that when we cultivate mindfulness and self expression, we cultivate the creativity needed to come up with new solutions to the problems that we face in these times.

3. You are obviously very experienced at helping others find peace within – what do you do to stay centered yourself?

I have a strong daily practice that is non-negotiable, I get out into nature as much as possible, I have a posse of stellar coaches, colleagues and friends upon whom I deeply rely for reflection and support.  This is an intense time on the planet and I often have to remind myself to remember the pure joy of simple living!!!

4. Do you have any hopes or goals in sharing some of your practices with the Bioneers community at the conference this year?

My hope and joy is to remind us all that it is important to integrate any new information that we receive into the body. Our bodies are so much more sensitive than we know and if we allow them to be a deeper part of the experience, if we allow the untamed part of our being to be part of the conversation, then we can experience a transformation that leads to deeper growth and deeper connectivity to the earth, ourselves and each other.  In other words, inviting all parts of ourselves — the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual — to the table will not only be a more engaged and joyful experience, but it will be smarter and more effective!

5. What are you looking forward to most at the Bioneers Conference?

I am looking forward to a deepening conversation about bridging the world of yoga/mindfulness and activism with some of the best thinkers in the fields of visionary environmental and social justice. The conversation is a juicy one and the more interdisciplinary thinkers work together, the more real and comprehensive solutions we can invent and manifest.

You can join Suzanne for a refreshing morning yoga class at 7:45 AM and a special embodiment class at 1:15 PM on Saturday, October 17, 2015 at the National Bioneers Conference. Click here for the full yoga and movement schedule.

Tap the Power of Youth: The Time Is Now

By Roberta Giordano, Youth Leadership Program Coordinator

In the words of Bono, “This is a time for bold measures. This is the country, and you are the generation.”

Institutional racism, the unequal distribution of wealth and power that aim to preserve the status quo of an economic system based on extraction and labor exploitation, and the perpetuation of systems of oppression that lie at the foundation of issues like climate change are just a taste of the challenges our generation must tackle.

Indeed, these challenges may seem insurmountable. There isn’t a day that goes by where I am not haunted by the incessant question: What kind of bold action can I take to effect change?

I Am a Bioneer

When I first joined Bioneers as the Youth Leadership Program Coordinator  little did I know that I was about to embark in a journey filled with bold action!

The Youth Leadership Program is an empowering program for youth ages 13-23 that runs in parallel with the National Bioneers Conference. The program provides a space for youth to connect with each other and elders to create and implement strategies to address social, economic and environmental issues.

We strive to make our program inclusive and diverse. We do so by providing scholarships to all those youth committed to build a resilient future and who need financial assistance to do so.

Soon after I joined Bioneers, I was tasked with supporting the team in running an Indiegogo campaign to raise funds to increase youth scholarships to the 2015 National Bioneers Conference.

Why an Indiegogo Campaign?

In 2014, we received over 600 youth scholarship applications, but we were only able to provide 357 youth with scholarships. Lack of funding and staff capacity is what limited our ability to bring all 600 youth to Bioneers.

This year, Bioneers staff decided to join forces with Bioneers community to increase youth attendance and ensure these seeds of change, our youth, are well nurtured.

We set a goal to raise $10,000, and after a month of sweat and soul, daily updates, emails, phone calls and social media, together with our Bioneers community, we achieved our goal!

What I Learned: #WeAreBioneers

  • The boldest action I can take is to set the stage for our youth to develop as leaders and be empowered to create and implement innovative solutions to the most pressing challenges of our times
  • Youth must be given a chance. Our youth scholarship applicants and their incredible stories allowed us to raise $10,000. If you haven’t read their stories yet, I encourage you to do so. You will see why it is impossible to not support their efforts.
  • The Bioneers community is real and tangible: together we raised $10,000. You made this happen!
  • We are all holders of knowledge, and together we are stronger.

This campaign was generated by the collective efforts of our staff, our community, partners, allies, and our scholarship applicants. Just like we ensured the success of this campaign together, we must continue to work together to transform the destiny of our planet and humankind.

Take Bold Action with Me!

We have the choice to either see the most pressing challenges of our time as a great burden or as an opportunity to challenge the status quo.

Inspired by Bioneers, our youth and allies who have decided to see these threats as an opportunity, I am determined to continue to nourish our youth who will advance the movement of transitioning from an extractive society to a regenerative and just world.

I am asking you to join me in this effort, and to continue nourishing these seeds of change.

Donate to our scholarship fund today »

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “Today, our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change.”

Thank you for staying vigilant, for your passion, and for being active agents for change.

In community,

Roberta
Youth Leadership Program Coordinator

Urban Native Food Justice and Revitalization Workshop at Bioneers 2015

Guest Author: Kaylena Bray, The Cultural Conservancy

Beyond simply being dietary staples, Native and Indigenous foods carry an extraordinary power to impact the cultural, spiritual, and physical health of entire communities.

Seneca scholar and activist John Mohawk spoke about a time when a group living in a place for a long period of time acquired knowledge about these foods and treated food like medicine. “We ask ourselves again, what is Indigenous wisdom and knowledge about food today?”

Youth Leading the Way on Native Food Justice

Native youth are at the forefront of revitalizing these ancient knowledge systems, and we invite you to join our panel in the Indigenous Forum at the 2015 Bioneers Conference as we explore the ways in which the Native foodways movement has grown among youth over the last decade and persists in present day Native communities.

By creating a new cultural framework for understanding foodways access and education, we will bring to the forefront issues of food sovereignty and justice, and explore creative ways that youth have begun to reconnect to traditional lifeways through soil, seeds, land, plants and Native foods. 

The Cultural Conservancy has been growing this innovative Native Foodways program and this work will be featured with youth stories, models, and a short film screening with youth-driven dialogue.  

Join Us Sunday, October 18th, 2015

Our “Urban Native Food Justice and Revitalization” panel on Sunday afternoon will provide unique perspectives on the Native foods justice movement through the eyes of our next generation of leaders.

For those of you who are not able to join us, please review The Cultural Conservancy’s new film, “Seeds of our Ancestors: Native Youth Awakening to Foodways.” 

Please also follow the Cultural Conservancy on Facebook and visit us online at www.nativeland.org.

View all Indigenous Forum sessions at Bioneers 2015 » 

Five Must-See Films at the 2015 Bioneers Conference

We are proud to be screening five incredible films at the 2015 Bioneers Conference covering topics including racial justice, art as activism, climate change and plant medicine. 

Here is a preview of the informative and moving documentaries that will be screened in the Showcase Theater at the Marin Center in San Rafael, California on Friday, October 16 and Saturday, October 17, 2015.

Friday 7:00pm — The Black Panthers, Vanguard of the Revolution

In the 1960s when a new revolutionary culture was emerging, those seeking to radically transform the system believed change was imminent. The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense would, for a short time, put itself at the vanguard of that change. Whether they were right or wrong, good or bad, more than 40 years after its founding in Oakland, the group and its leadership remain enduring figures in our popular imagination. This new feature documentary includes eyewitness accounts from the first members who joined the organization, rank-and-file members, and the voices of lawyers, journalists, scholars, police officers, and former FBI agents. Directed by Stanley Nelson. Sonya Childress of Firelight Media will introduce the film.  (113 minutes)

Friday 9:10pm — For All The Marbles

For All The Marbles tells the story of how, faced with the most urgent issue of our generation, climate change, a Salt Lake City carpenter decides to run for Congress in the 2014 election. We follow Bill Barron on his very unique campaign trail, as he rides his bike 600 miles across the state of Utah to raise awareness and get out the vote! (Bill was inspired by Bioneers to embark on this quest.) (13 minutes)

Friday, 9:35pm — Beyond the Walls

Beyond the Walls tells the inspiring story of how mural art on walls around the world expresses the aspirations of embattled communities in such places as the West Bank, Northern Ireland, Liberia, El Salvador, Argentina, Australia, and U.S. inner cities. A vivid and surprising exploration of one of the most dynamic and inspiring and under-reported artistic movements of our era. With: Director and Executive Producer Gayle Embrey. (40 minutes)

Saturday, 7:00pm — A New Understanding: The Science of Psilocybin

https://vimeo.com/132898493

A New Understanding: The Science of Psilocybin is a powerful documentary featuring groundbreaking FDA-approved research on the medical potential of psilocybin, conducted by leading doctors at UCLA, New York University, and John's Hopkins University, and funded by The Heffter Research Institute. The significant positive results of the Phase 2 studies have been published in top-tier peer-reviewed psychiatric journals, and reported by Michael Pollan in The New Yorker. With: filmmaker Robert Barnhart. (60 minutes)

Saturday, 8:20pm — Finding the Gold Within

This film follows six black men from Akron, Ohio, who all participated since 6th grade in an innovative program that gives young people a chance to grow into self-knowledge, discipline and confidence, through the challenges and tests they face during their first years of college. Each of them is determined to disprove society's stereotypes and low expectations. The film explores America's historically embedded fear of "blackness" and probes what it means to be young, black and male. Introduced by Director Karina Epperlein. (92 minutes)

Register now for the 2015 Conference!

Finding Kinship in Indigenous Culture & Modern Politics in British Columbia

Bioneers Kinship Trip 2015

It was hard to say goodbye to each other the morning of July 12th, the final day of our 2nd annual Bioneers Kinship Retreat. We had just spent a profound, life-changing week together—in ceremony with Indigenous elders, in conversation with policy makers and politicians, sharing feasts prepared for us, touring amazing places and meeting people creating a sustainable, just future now.

The most profound takeaway was the kinds of people who came together for the week: revolutionary thinkers, leaders and allies who were moreover spiritual, passionate, creative, funny, intellectual, incredibly kind humans. In other words, true bioneers.

Kinship Retreats are opportunities for Bioneers to honor the commitment of our most invested donors, and we do that by doing what we do best: connecting them with other amazing people and with innovations and ideas that can change the world—connections that might not otherwise have happened. Our journey reunited some of us, and for other newcomers it forged friendships that are sure to last a lifetime.

A Journey Started in Ceremony

Although our staff works hard behind the scenes to put together a powerful program and smooth logistics, authentic magic happened on this trip for which no one can take credit. Like on our first day in Vancouver when Chief Ruben George of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation invited us to his Reserve on the outskirts of Vancouver to learn about their heart-breaking battles with the oil industry in their backyard. And the gift of the revered elder Len George (and relative of the late Chief Dan George, the actor) coming to sit and share story with us will forever change our lives.

But what really hits hard in my gut is how, after we filed off our pre-arranged shuttle bus from the hotel and said a little prayer of intent together, they brought us into their gym and sat us down in their bleachers surrounded by all these beautiful little First Nations camp kids while their cultural leaders and dancers, dressed in their full regalia for us, sang and danced for us and told us of their creation stories and how all life came to be in that area of the world.

That is a gift of medicine and magic no one could have ever planned for, and that’s just how our journey together started—in ceremony. That’s a good place to start all things in life.

And just as this trip is about reciprocity to our donors, it is also about reciprocity for those brave warriors and culture keepers from Tsleil-Waututh who shared their story of an epic battle with big oil.  You can learn first-hand by clicking on the following link: Tsleil-Waututh Sacred Trust. These aboriginal people need our help.

An Insider’s Look at a Cutting-Edge Region

The transformative experiences continued throughout our rock star-style tour of British Columbia, thanks in large part to the all-too-humble Joel Solomon of Tides Foundation and Hollyhock retreat center who, perhaps on second thought, we can thank for a lot of the magic.

Joel arranged a guided tour of the policies that make Vancouver the “Greenest City in North American with the extraordinary people making it happen. The mayor of Vancouver dropped by during dinner and gave us further insight how the city is aiming for “Greenest City in the World” by 2020. We actually had to build in time just to decompress from all the learning, but what knowledge we gained! We learned about the Tar Sands issue from top to bottom, from political to Indigenous, from past to present.

Vancouver, we learned, is entering the race to 100% renewables. They lead North America in battling homelessness, they have safe-site injection places for addicts, community centers for the “down-townies” (homeless), pianos on the street corners for the public to just sit down and play, bans on all the plastics. Mind blown.

A Politician’s Surprising Reaction

But, for me, as the Indigenous person on staff, the unexpected happened at a dinner in downtown Vancouver when the Deputy Mayor spoke.

We were all gathered around dinner at a local restaurant where a show-stopping local politician, Andrea Weimer, was reporting on all the successes of Vancouver being the greenest city, how they are further ahead of the game than they ever thought possible…and the conversation turned to the tougher side of government.

From the homelessness to the orphanages, she explained how First Peoples were the most heavily impacted. And then she cried.  She apologized for her tears and gathered her composure as she explained how the Truth and Reconciliation Council had been formed to help colonials understand the atrocities of cultural and physical genocide inflicted upon the First Peoples.

I had never seen a politician cry for the Natives in my whole life. And she made me cry, too.

Moving Forward in Solidarity

I’ll think about this trip for the rest of my life. I’ll talk about it with all my friends and family and people from my village back home. I learned best practices and real-life stories of courage and success. I ate amazing food and saw magical places. I left with such a sweet taste of gratitude for the experience we all shared, how it has forever shaped my consciousness about this planet and its people and the magic all around.

And now I have new friends to move into the future with “in solidarity,” as they say.

Would you like to come along on the 2016 Kinship Retreat? Please contact Branden Barber (branden@bioneers.org or 415-660-9301) to explore the opportunity to have a personally impactful experience while positively impacting the lives of others. 

You can learn more about Indigenous resistance to fossil fuel destruction and explore climate solutions cities like Vancouver are pursuing at the 2015 Bioneers Conference »

Pollinate Change with Bioneers Media Collections

Bioneers was created, in part, to spread the word about breakthrough solutions for humanity’s urgent environmental and social crises. When people realize solutions exist, it increases the pressure for change, always our purpose.

Since Bioneers started, it’s been clear the conference provided a perennial wellspring of powerful media content seldom found elsewhere, including marginalized voices and issues.

Thanks to your support, starting in 2013 we began the process to digitize and secure our extensive media archive and create themed Media Collections featuring the “greatest hits” of Bioneers keynotes and radio shows.

The solutions to humanity’s challenges are largely present—and the Bioneers Media Collections showcase many of them.

If you haven’t already, please check out the first round of Media Collections released in 2014, available as both physical and digital editions. They are a fantastic introduction to the work of Bioneers and make great gifts for friends and family, or as donations to libraries and schools. And keep an eye out in the coming weeks when we release our next round of new Media Collections.

You can also always like and share your favorite Bioneers videos and radio shows online, where they can be streamed on demand.

Because these are ideas whose time has come, we need to rapidly spread and scale them. We can seriously influence the course of change with the wealth of practical wisdom and connections in the Bioneers network of networks.

It’s the moment of truth to turn vision into action to grow the world we want—the world the world wants!

Seven-and-a-half Questions for Laurie Benenson

1. Your background (often in collaboration with your husband Bill, pictured above) is a provocative mix of journalism, film production, adventurer, activist and philanthropist. What parts of your professional and personal history have most influenced your focus on the issues you care about today? 

I’m answering these questions as I fly from L.A. to New York, a flight I have taken countless times, and my favorite part of it (other than the roasted nuts and the chance to catch up on movies) is looking down at the deeply gouged magnificence that is the Grand Canyon, a place that has always held a profound significance for me. Although born in Brooklyn, N.Y., I grew up in Arizona, and so had the chance to visit the 70 million-year-old phenomenon many times during my childhood. Something about gazing upon, and hiking into, and staying within the embrace of this most unforgettable geological marvel, helped early on to set the coordinates for my life: a love and reverence for nature, a sense that we’re only here for a brief time and that we must marshal our time and resources in a way that aligns with our deepest interests, and an abiding fascination with the way the planet makes and remakes itself. Venturing into the natural world, whether it’s the sand dune beaches of Nantucket, the mountains of Big Sur, the rain forests of the Pacific Northwest and those of the Amazon, or the pristine fastness of the high Rockies, has always been my reset button, the cure for what ails me, and, I believe, the cure for what ails most of our fellow beings. So doing what I can to preserve the healing wildness of nature, and helping others in their quest to do the same, is of paramount importance to me.

The other side of my nature embodies a love of communications media: books, magazines, newspapers, all the proliferating riches of the Internet, and above all, film. Professionally, these interests have helped define my professional path as a journalist, a storyteller, a revealer of the truth as far as I am able to ascertain, and led me to found Movieline Magazine, and then go on to write for the New York Times about film, television and music. In 2009 all these passions recombined in a novel way to allow me to become involved with documentary filmmaking with my husband, director Bill Benenson. Happily, Bill’s and my intellectual and philanthropic concerns are extremely congruent. The films we’ve made and/or been involved with hopefully have helped to advance our social and environmental agendas. And our philanthropic lodestars are pretty consistently in line with the focus of our documentary films.

2. In addition to Bioneers you sit on the board of TreePeople. What specifically inspired you to support Bioneers and TreePeople among all the many good organizations that are in your universe? (Please feel free to include other relevant organizations that you support.)

Although I support a number of environmental groups, I have a particularly strong affiliation with TreePeople and Bioneers, as you point out. Both are relatively small groups, at least compared to behemoths like NRDC and Conservation International (two other great organizations I’m involved with), and I happen to have strong personal connections with the founders of both groups. Furthermore, I particularly resonate with the goals of both organizations: TreePeople, because I’ve lived in Los Angeles more than half my life, and TreePeople’s solutions are specifically oriented to the L.A. watershed; Bioneers, because of the global, interconnected biospheric vision fostered by Bioneers. It’s the micro and the macro.

3. Bioneers co-founder Kenny Ausubel talks about how we are in an era that has moved from “urgency to emergency” in reference to our ability to react and respond and create meaningful change despite massive shifts caused by climate disruption. What do you think are the most pressing issues that philanthropy should be addressing in this time of “urgency to emergency”?

The question of “the most pressing issues” for philanthropy to address is one that Bill and I have wrestled with incessantly. We personally have a broad range of organizations whose goals we champion, from the arts to education to the environment to social justice, and many whose goals straddle two or more of those areas. Ultimately, in many categories of concern, the goal must be to spread the word and motivate people to action, so change is generated on a mass, grassroots scale. When, for example, the majority of people demand sustainable, non-fossil fuel-based energy, the market and government policies will respond to these demands. One hopes.

4. You and Bill are both members of the Bioneers Kinship Circle and have traveled with us on the Indigenous knowledge journey in 2014 to Maui and most recently in 2015 to British Columbia to learn about the Province’s greening efforts and national and Indigenous struggles around the Tar Sands. What are some of your strongest takeaways about those experiences and why might you recommend these journeys to other Bioneers supporters? 

Both of our Kinship Circle journeys were memorable, intense, even revelatory experiences. The most indelible takeaways in both cases came from our interactions with the , people of the two regions we visited. Hearing the Native Hawaiians talk about how mega-Ag has ripped apart the fabric of life on the island of Maui by polluting the air and the waterways was deeply troubling, and led us to offer support to the Shaka movement, which succeeded in passing a “GMO hiatus” ballot initiative last November. (Unfortunately, due to challenges from GMO interests the new law has not yet been implemented, but we are hopeful that the injunction will eventually be reversed.)

And meeting with the First Peoples of the Vancouver and Alberta sections of Canada, we were blown away by the strength of their movement to reverse the depredations to their ancestral (and current) lands. In both cases we were afforded the privilege of diving more deeply than ever before into issues we care about passionately.

5. How has your view and approach to philanthropy changed since you first started?

Our philanthropy has evolved from just writing checks to organizations we considered “worthy” to a more direct involvement, by making sure we are acquainted with how the organization will use the funds we donate, and in some cases finding programs to support within the organizations so that we can more accurately target those funds. In many cases, including Bioneers, our commitment has gone beyond monetary donations to more concrete, hands-on involvement with the organization, which has in turn generated more significant financial support. I think the lesson is, the more involved one becomes with a group, the more one wants to support it and make sure it has the means to survive and prosper.

6. What is your advice to other young philanthropists entering into this field?

My advice is to get to know the leaders of the organizations you support. Even if you only write a small check, you have the right, even the duty, to know the people who are running the show. These interactions will help you decide whether, and to what extent, you want to continue your involvement. If you have the time, try to become actively involved with the group’s programs. If they offer volunteer opportunities, volunteer. If they offer trips or seminars, attend them. The name of the game is engagement.

7. Bioneers is about building bridges between cultures and generations. As you know, we have a big focus on youth leadership and youth scholarships to create this bridge. If you could time-travel back to a 15-year-old Laurie, what words of advice would you give her about the world she is about to enter?

I would say to my 15-year-old self—and to all the Bioneers Youth who can attend the conference—that staking a place in the Bioneers ecosystem could be a very rewarding way to figure out what their passions are, and help find the potential paths to address their concerns. The main difference between my teenage self and the youth of today is that, although there were huge issues to be addressed when I was a kid—the Vietnam War, American imperialism, deeply embedded segregation, the threat of nuclear annihilation, and so on—we were not for the most part aware of environmental concerns, and impending global climate catastrophe was not on the horizon. The impacts of climate change are global and universal, so today’s young people can partner with their peers throughout the world, and Bioneers can offer the means to do that.

7.5. What words of advice do you have for the youth leaders attending Bioneers this year? 

The “non-youth” leaders of Bioneers are passionate, engaged, committed and determined. But inevitably, they are not always attuned to the very urgent concerns, and potential solutions, that you, the young Bioneers, have to offer. You are a crucial, and very welcome addition to the Bioneers ecosystem. We need and solicit your input, advice, and feedback. Don’t hold back!

Connect with youth, philanthropists and other active, passionate people co-creating a new world at the annual Bioneers Conference »

Kinship: Intimate and Impactful

It’s easy to get lost in the weeds when you’re inside of a large project or organization. You strive to better an organization because you believe in it. You believe in what it aspires to and what it delivers. You give yourself in service and you give of yourself at every opportunity…but when in the day-to-day tasks of managing emails, scheduling meetings and addressing the latest emergency, it is easy to lose sight of the bigger picture and the real reason behind what we do. And then sometimes you get lucky. The clouds part and you see the view from high above and you remember, with your whole being, why Bioneers is so uniquely important.

Just as nature has her cycles, so do we. And our Kinship Journeys are an important part of our annual rhythm of sustainability in action.

Every year Bioneers takes a group of Kinship-level supporters—people blessed with the ability to support at the $25,000 level and higher—on a journey with purpose, beyond a local hotel and directly linked with sustainability, connection and personal growth. It reconnects us with the core of our mission and purpose…to feed the soul of our work and build our community and tend our community garden of relationship.

This year our Kinship Adventure was to British Columbia, in the spirit of place-based movement building and seeing around the corners. We situated ourselves at the intersection of savvy First Nations who are leveraging treaty rights and deep culture, visionary and compassionate civic government, effective and committed activists, strategic funders and change-makers…and us, a group of Bioneers weaving it all together, as witnesses and as participants and partners.

There’s a lot to be said about bearing witness—seeing and making more real that which is happening. Bioneers bears witness as a community; we witness each other creating a better world, and we do it progressively like a symphony. We’re bringing together forces of hope and goodness that stand for justice and celebrating the beauty and the sacredness of Life. We’re bioneering a new world, together.

As a group of fifteen we arrived in Vancouver. Some of us were meeting again as old friends, some as acquaintances glad for the opportunity to deepen relationships, and some meeting for the very first time. It was exciting and the air was electric with our joined spirits in adventure.

Canada is and has been in the throes of an extremely right wing, pro-fossil fuels administration, and the welfare of the dispossessed or the life-challenged have not been supported. First Nations have been strategically divided in efforts to access the fossil fuels below their soil or to build pipelines over their lands. But Canada is turning around, and Vancouver is at the heart of it.

We started bright and early, beginning with a trip north of Vancouver to the Tsleil-Waututh First Nation’s reserve. We were treated as honored guests, greeted and hosted by Chief Reuben George and attended by his brother, Gabriel George. Gabriel had assembled their traditional dance troupe, and in the language of the Tsleil-Waututh he shared their creation story, as well as their most important legends, songs and dances. Their legal team presented to us their efforts to clean up their lands and to protect their waterways from the local oil company, Kinder Morgan, which sits like a malevolent dragon opposite the traditional home of the “People of the Inlet”, polluting their air and threatening their waters. And they are winning! Kinder Morgan is running out of options. They will be gone soon, and their plans to expand their portage for transferring oil from new pipelines to more oil tankers will not happen. (You can read more about this here.)

The Tsleil-Waututh have literally come back from the brink of near-extinction, with numbers dropping down to as few as 50 survivors, whereas they’d numbered over 5,000 at their peak. Now they are 500 strong. And thanks to their eldest culture carrier, Chief Leonard George, son of famous actor and Tsleil-Waututh chief, Dan George, and his family, the nation is rising again. Through the power of ceremony and the reestablishment of their connection to their spirituality, they have found themselves again. They have turned around the alcoholism, the domestic strife, the dropouts and the incarcerations. They are a nation of proud people who are protecting their land, their home and their community…and their Mother…with education, ingenuity, courage and skilled leadership.

Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson and his remarkable team have committed to making Vancouver the greenest city in North America—including being fossil-fuel-free—by 2020. And they’re doing it. They invited us in to experience how they are doing it and we were all not just impressed, we were moved. We were inspired by the clear humanity these people wield in their daily efforts to make good on this promise. In our meeting with the inspiring Deputy Mayor, Councilor Andrea Reimer, she actually wept spontaneously as she shared with us her daily concerns for the people who rely on the city for support and for change that will bring better days. And then she left us, her dinner barely finished, as she headed to the airport to take a red eye to attend a Canadian Mayors climate conference. Impressive leadership.

Bioneers Kinship Trip

The city’s Director of Sustainability, Amanda Petre-Hayes, and her colleague, Chris Higgins, generously took us on a city tour by bus that showed us truly progressive social programs. We experienced the magic of City Studios which brings sustainability innovations to life throughout the city, and toured a wastewater heat-exchange heating plant that is turning wastewater heat into fresh heating for thousands of homes. We learned about a safe injection center, where those sadly addicted to IV drugs are treated with dignity and given a safe place where someday, they may begin a road to recovery, while limiting the spread of HIV and diseases.

The next day we were hosted at the office of Tides Canada, where they continue to do good works in multiple arenas, from Strategic Philanthropy to Impact Investing towards sustainability and environmental and social justice. The climate for social good organizations is hard in Canada. Organizations like Tides Canada are to be lauded for staying in business by engaging the fight—they deserve our support.

Afterwards, we heard from Janice Abbott. Janice has been the CEO of Atira Women’s Resource Society since 1992 and the CEO of Atira Property Management Inc., its wholly-owned, for profit subsidiary, since she conceived of and launched it in October 2002. She lead the Society through its growth from a single transition house located in South Surrey with a staff of seven, to a large multi-service agency with two, for-profit subsidiaries, a development arm, a women’s arts society and more than 500 staff. She is committed to employing people with lived experience and from community and since 2007 has hired more than 280 staff with multiple barriers to employment. She’s headed up numerous innovative capital projects and has led the introduction of recycled shipping container housing to Vancouver. Winner of numerous awards, Janice continues to grow the organization; the latest development includes a high-rise multi-income-level building, where low-income and market income residents will be neighbours. Janice and Atira are inspiring!

Joel Solomon is a lifelong Bioneer and a powerful, creative force of convening, moving and shaking, and he took us on a walk through Vancouver’s Lower Eastside and Gastown, showing us how the city is supporting those at the very lowest rungs of the economic ladder. From the Carnegie Centre with their low-cost, high-quality meals to a library, recreational facilities, urban gardens, the InSite safe-injection centre and a blooming café scene, Vancouver is creating a place for everyone and where everyone is valued, no matter their challenges or economic status.

Later in the day we met ForestEthics Advocacy’s Director of Strategy and Communications, Julia Pope, who took us on a tour of their campaigns and efforts to protect the forests and the waters of Canada, focusing primarily on the Tar Sands and pipelines issues.

And that night Joel hosted a dinner at his home where we gathered to share stories and meet one another more deeply. We were joined by the Mayor and his Chief of Staff, Mike Magee. After a long day administering his ever-greener city, Gregor was full of energy and enthusiasm for Vancouver and his team, and shared how Bioneers helped orient him towards where he is now—crediting Bioneers, in fact, for putting him on this path when he attended several Bioneers conferences  It was pleasantly poignant to see him leave on his bike afterward, cycling into the night on his own road as a Bioneer.

Next stop: Cortes Island—one of the most beautiful places on the planet—and home to the Hollyhock Center. Founded 25 years ago as a place for the exploration of human potential and a lab set up to facilitate change for a better world, it sits on this supernaturally beautiful island that has been home to four separate First Nations as a summer retreat for millennia. It’s literally at the end of the road in North America —the last ferry stop at the end of the last road. It’s out there. Upon arrival, we were met by Dana Bass Solomon, Joel’s wife and CEO of Hollyhock, who warmly welcomed us to this special place.

The warm waters and the serenity of Cortes were amazing. The Pineapple Express current that circulates around the Pacific reaches the waters here, making a swim inviting—amazing to those of us from lower latitudes where a wetsuit would have seemed apropos. It was delightful!

As we settled in, after a delicious, grown-in-the-Hollyhock-garden lunch, we met with three inspiring changemakers who would give us much to consider and inspire deep conversations over the next three days: Tzeporah Berman, Eriel Deranger and Karen Mahon.

Tzeporah Berman is one of the most effective eco-campaigners who has spent the past 18 years evolving from a civil-disobedient student to a key negotiator, reworking policies and agreements with global corporations, governments, and environmental groups. Seriously – she wrote the book on activism in our time. (You can read it yourself and I wholly encourage you to pick up a copy, This Crazy Time: Living Our Environmental Challenge.

Eriel Deranger – whom I had the pleasure of working with “back in the day” at Rainforest Action Network, is the communications manager of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation (ACFN) of Alberta and is a First Nations Dene Indigenous activist. She and her family have long battled industrial and often illegal activities on treaty lands and she is a powerful force for the Tar Sands lobby to reckon with. She’s courageous, committed and deeply grounded in her culture and community. Eriel will be speaking at Bioneers this year.

Karen Mahon – new Executive Director of Forest Ethics Canada, past campaign director at Greenpeace Canada, one-time Greenpeace Canada Executive Director, and long-time Hollyhock Leadership Institute Executive Director, was on the blockades at Clayoquot and at Burnaby Mountain to stop deforestation. Her lifetime of activism and commitment to social change, her experience and her maturity make her a skilled change maker and leader.

These are the people we were sitting with over the three days spent at Hollyhock. It was profound. It was terrible. It was heartening. It was complex. It was so many things that rolled us out into a hopeful forward direction. I cannot thank them enough for the time and focus they shared with us. Their Kinship is priceless!

On this leg we also had the honor of being with Greenpeace International and Hollyhock co-founder, Rex Wyler, whose film, How to Change the World is making its way through the festival circuit and provides history and guidance to those who would bear witness and demand change, and then make it. Paul Stamets, longtime Bioneer, joined us to share his mycological wisdom – he even brought the biggest fungus I’ve ever seen to a delightful dinner party generously and lovingly hosted by Play Big’s Carol Newell.

And so many others – we shared a magnificent afternoon and evening at Carol’s house, eating a locally caught salmon feast that Tzeporah and Karen created for us, swimming in the warm waters, talking and sharing and really creating community with purpose. It was a momentous occasion and one I will never forget.

On our last day I was up early for a walk through the cedars with Rex and our own Mr. Gratitude, Bioneers Executive Director, Joshua Fouts. We talked about the world we’re watching and the world we’re creating as we savored the smells of the forest and the taste of the rarified air. Rex took us to the house he built for his family, now empty but part of Hollyhock, and talked about his film. As we entered the backyard through the hand-crafted wooden gate a deer sat, unafraid, as it watched us enter its domain and move through. It never flinched.

We spent the rest of the day experiencing Cortes – some of us wandering the beach and others kayaking the waters. It is a truly magical place – a gift to those who visit and steward it.

Hollyhock hosts a weekly oyster BBQ, freshly gathered from its shores which we gratefully took advantage of before having our final dinner together on this magical trip we created and shared together. Our Kinship sister Sarah Grace created a song and played guitar as we sat by the fire in the Hollyhock living room where we laughed and reflected on all we’d heard, all we’d learned. And we looked forward to when we’d be back together again for another deep dive into the world we are co-creating.

And upon my own reflection, I realized that what we did together in this densely informed and feeling week mirrored what the Bioneers Conference does – we came together as people deeply committed to a better world – who shared with one another and came away enriched and inspired to achieve our goals, to be successful in our journey into the world the world wants and is coming into being.
In Kinship. True kinship. It was profound.

Next year we’re going to Spain where there will be a mini-conference in June. Sponsored by the Basque government, we will gather in San Sebastian, a beautiful city situated on the shores of the Atlantic. We’ll take some time after the event to take a Kinship tour – in the same spirit we met in Canada, next year, we’ll be on another continent. I hope you’ll join us, in Kinship.

Branden and Josh

To find out more about Bioneers’ Kinship Circle and Journeys, contact Branden directly: branden@bioneers.org or 415-660-9301.

Youth Leader Arielle Klagsbrun Asks, “Which Side Are You On?”

At Bioneers, we believe in supporting our future leaders. #BioneersYouth speaker Arielle Klagsbrun is already making a difference in her community. 

Klagsburn is an organizer with Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment and Rising Tide North America. She was a leader of the “Take Back Saint Louis” campaign to remove tax incentives to corporations profiting from climate change. She is also a 2013 recipient of the Brower Youth Award for a campaign to confront Peabody Coal, the world’s largest private-sector coal corporation headquartered in St. Louis.

Originally slated to speak at the 2014 Bioneers conference about youth leadership in the climate movement, she decided to change her focus last-minute in response to the protests in Ferguson, Missouri. “The resistance of African-American young people in Saint Louis has sparked a nation-wide movement, because in reality, Ferguson is everywhere.”

“Which side are you on?” Arielle says. “As people who care about sustained life on this planet, we must also care about sustained life right now on this planet. Just like in fighting the fossil fuel industry, the sides are clear. Either you are actively fighting white supremacy or you’re upholding the status quo that results in the killing of black and brown lives.”

She continued with a potent reading of the letter, An American Horror Story — Open Letter from Ferguson Protestors and Allies:

We will no longer allow you to escape this story and pretend that the epidemic of black lives dying by white hands is merely a figment of an active Black imagination. You must come face to face with the horror that we live daily. You must come to know and profess the truth of this story, and be determined to end it.

We are not concerned if this inconveniences you. Dead children are more than an inconvenience.

We are not concerned if this disturbs your comfort. Freedom outweighs that privilege.

We are not concerned if this upsets order. Your calm is built on our terror.

We are not concerned if this disrupts normalcy. We will disrupt life until we can live.

Do you also believe in the power of youth to positively change the world? Please help us bring more young leaders than ever to the 2015 Bioneers Conference—your contribution makes a difference!

Share this story and spread the word about #BioneersYouth!