Future Primitive

Geoff Oelsner has built a following as a performer both of his own songs and of poems which he sometimes sets to music or chants and recites to the accompaniment of guitar, harmonica, dulcimer, autoharp, harmonium, and the shruti box (a drone instrument from India). He has released 2 CD’s of original songs, Morning Branches and Ordinary Mystery with musician friends, including Kelly Mulhollan and Leslie. Geoff has published a collection of his poetry, Native Joy: poems songs visions dreams (1963-2003) (2003, Trafford) and his work has been featured in several other books, including Writing Poetry from the Inside Out by Sandford Lyne (Sourcebooks Inc., 2007). His new book, A Country Where All Colors Are Sacred and Alive, A Memoir of Non-Ordinary Experience and Collaboration with Nature (2012) is now available from Lorian Press.

A Buddhist meditator since 1974, Geoff founded the Buddhist Meditation and Spiritual Support Group in 1995. As a licensed certified social worker in private practice of psychotherapy in Arkansas since 1982, Geoff also utilizes poetry therapy with selected clients in psychotherapy. He is committed to sharing the healing and inspirational power of poetry, music, and story with the community.

A long time environmental activist and researcher, Geoff co-authored a book titled Fighting Radiation and Chemical Pollutants with Foods, Herbs,and Vitamins (1992). He is presently involved in several environmental initiatives, including the Psi-Sci Alliance project, which brings together established climate scientists with highly qualified intuitives to innovate new approaches to addressing and ameliorating climate change.

www.geoffoelsner.com

Geoff Oelsner speaks with Joanna about his deep love and connection with the natural world, transpersonal experiences in Nature, the emergence of a spiritual form of environmental activism…

Music: “The Sacred Hoop” (from Morning Branches) by Geoff Oelsner.

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Speakers at Bioneers By The Bay Connecting For Change (2011)

Christopher Johnson is a highly acclaimed, nationally known Spoken Word artist and Poet. Christopher has been on many National Poetry Slam Teams including New Jersey, Providence and Boston. In 2007, Christopher won the $10,000 dollar grand prize for spoken word in the Fame Cast contest. He now resides in Providence, Rhode Island where he gives workshops throughout the Rhode Island school system.

www.marioninstitute.org/connecting-for-change/events/performance-christopher-johnson

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Nora Barrows-Friedman, an award-winning independent journalist, radio producer and writer, was the senior producer and co-host of Flashpoints on KPFA for seven years, and currently is on the editorial staff at The Electronic Intifada. Nora also contributes to al-Jazeera English, Truthout, Inter Press Service, and a number of periodicals. She is the author of a chapter on Western media and Palestine in the Project Censored 2011 anthology, and regularly travels to Palestine.

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Martin Prechtel is a thinker, writer and teacher whose work, both written and oral, hopes to promote the subtlety, irony and pre-modern vitality hidden in any living language. As a half blood Native American with a Pueblo Indian upbringing, his life took him from New Mexico to the village of Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala where he became a full village member of the Tzutujil Mayan population, and eventually served as a principal, responsible for instructing the young people in the meanings of their ancient stories through the rituals of adult rights of passage. Once again residing in his native New Mexico, Martín teaches at his international school Bolad’s Kitchen.

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Dr Hugh Wheir graduated from Texas A&M University School of Veterinary Medicine in 1979 and operated a successful and innovative veterinary practice in Santa Fe for many years. A pioneer in animal acupuncture and natural healing, Dr Wheir was trained by Sensei Nakazono in the Kototama School of Japanse acupuncture and practiced on humans with many remarkable healing successes before he turned his full attention to animals. Dr Wheir has been  an advocate for humane population control of domestic animals and wildlife and the protection of endangered species, including Mexican sea turtles and African elephants. He has conducted hundreds of spay-neuter clinics in the US and Latin America through the organization he founded, Animal Alliance, and has lectured widely, collaborating with the Humane Society of the United States, Humane Society International and many other foundations and institutions. He now serves on the board of Alliance for the Earth, Elephants in Crisis, and The Biosphere Foundation – and is excited to be a hands-on veterinarian once again!

Dr Wheir’s veterinary practice specializes in animal acupuncture and alternative approaches to health and healing, herbal medicine, diet and neutraceutical support for dogs, cats and horses. He offers exams, consultations, diagnosis, second opinions, geriatric care, management of chronic pain, lameness and paralysis and…..having successfully treated over 20,000 horses with acupuncture, Dr Wheir’s rapport with horses is extraordinary.

Hugh’s commitment is to create a field of healing intention in close collaboration with concerned clients to develop understanding & balanced energy for their animals. His expertise and years of tried and true natural solutions has resulted in many herbal remedies that anyone can apply.

Anyone interested in consulting with Dr Hugh Wheir on natural animal health care and healing and management or treatment of many common diseases can contact him at     allanimals AT igc DOT org

elephantsincrisis.org/index/drwheir

earthtreasurevase.org/about-us/board/

Hugh speaks with Joanna about his life-long dedication to our animal companions, his very first treatment in animal acupuncture, inter-species communication, meeting the white lions of Timbavati…

Music: “Hey Da Ba Doom” (from The Codona Trilogy) by Don Cherry, Nana Vasconcelos & Colin Walcott

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Kawan Sangaa Woody Morrison began his training as a History Keeper for the Haida people at the age of three. Heir to the chief of the Whale House, he has sat in ceremony with tribal elders from around the world and has been an active planner and participant in international conferences on environmental, economic and health issues. He is president of the Vancouver Society of Storytelling and on the board of directors of Wisdom of the Elders, a non-profit organization that records and preserves indigeous oral traditions and cultural arts in order to regenerate the greatness of culture among native peoples.

www.wisdomoftheelders.org

www.ancientwisdomrising.com

Woody Morrison speaks with Joanna about the indigenous perception of time, storytelling and humor, the communication with whales and the Earth, the soul and the breath of life, the  cultural discrimination against native culture, sustainable societies…

Music: “We are the Ones“, Live Music at the Conference

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F. David Peat is a holistic physicist and author who has carried out research in solid state physics and the foundation of quantum theory. He holds a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Liverpool. For many years he was associated with physicist and philosopher David Bohm. While living in Canada Peat organized discussion circles between Western scientists and Native American elders, and while living in London organized a conference between artists and scientists. He has authored or co-authored many books including “Synchronicity: The Bridge between Matter and Mind” “Seven Life lessons of Chaos“, “Turbulent Mirror” and “Gentle Action“. His most recent book is “A Flickering Reality: Cinema and the Nature of Reality“. He has written on the subjects of science, art, and spirituality. He is also director of the Pari Center for New Learning, which is located in the village of Pari near Siena in Tuscany, Italy. He is adjunct professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies, a Fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science and a Distinguished Fellow at the University of South Africa.

www.fdavidpeat.com

David speaks with Joanna about beauty, synchronicity, “Bohmian dialogue” as an experiment in holistic communication, change and complexity, his views about the sacred, the crucial role of the merry trickster…

Music: “Mirage”  (from Vaghissimo Ritratto) by Gianluigi Trovesi

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Dennis McKenna is an American ethnobotanist and ethnopharmacologist. He has authored numerous scientific articles and books, among them - The Invisible Landscape – with his brother Terence McKenna.

Dennis has spent a number of years as a senior lecturer for the Center for Spirituality and Healing, part of the Academic Health Center at the University of Minessota. He is now a senior research scientist for the Natural Health Products Research Group at the British Columbia Istitute of Technology in the Vancouver area.  He is a founding board member of the Heffter Research Institute and serves on the advisory board of non-profit organizations in the fields of ethnobotany and botanical medicines. He recently completed a project, funded by the Stanley Medical Research Institute, to investigate Amazonian ethnomedicines for the treatment of schizophrenia and cognitive deficits. At the Heffter Research Institute, he continues his focus on the therapeutic uses of psychoactive medicines derived from nature and used in indigenous ethnomedical practices.

http://www.heffter.org/board-mckenna.htm

Dennis’ kickstarter.com Project: The Brotherhood of  The Screaming Abyss

Dennis speaks with Joanna about the KickStarter project of writing a memoir of his experiences with his brother Terence McKenna as a collective effort, the noetic experiment at La Chorrera, teonanacatl and primordial language, following the call of the Mystery…

Music: “Tejido de sueños (Tissue of dreams)” from Nierika, by Jorge Reyes

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Nora Bateson is a media producer and educator. Her work includes documentaries, multimedia productions, magazine columns, and developing curriculum for elementary and high school students. Central to all her pursuits is the idea of utilizing media and storytelling to encourage cultural understanding, social justice, and environmental awareness. Ms. Bateson has a steadfast dedication to the possibilities of human evolution, starting with encouraging young children to see the interrelatedness of the natural world with that of the “human-made” world using all media.

www.anecologyofmind.com

Nora speaks with Joanna about the process of making the film , the concept of beauty for Gregory Bateson, story as a co-evolving relationship, art and beauty as ways of intimacy with Nature, the perception of life as a “dynamic web of interrelationships”, paradox, play, double bind, the ecological imperative of changing our way of thinking about the world…

Music: soundtrack of  the documentary “An Ecology of Mind” (voice: Nora Bateson,  original music composed and performed by: Dan Brubeck,  Miles Black, Jack Duncan, Rick Kilbourn, and Nora Bateson)

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Dr. Jamie K. Reaser is a practitioner and teacher of ecopsychology, nature-based spirituality, and various approaches to expanding human consciousness, as well as a conservation ecologist, poet, writer, artist, and homesteader-in-progress. She has extensive training in leadership development, communications, conflict transformation, dream work, ceremonial design, wilderness rites-of-passage, and group facilitation, and has studied traditional knowledge and healing practices with community and indigenous leaders from around the world.

Jamie has a passion for bringing people into their hearts, inspiring the heartbeat of community, and, ultimately, empowering people to live with a heart-felt dedication to Mother Earth. She serves as a guide for Animas Valley Institute, and makes her home in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Her books, focused on the interface of nature and human nature: She is Editor of the Courting the Wild Series and author of – among others - Huntley Meadows: A Naturalist’s Journal in Verse, and the forthcoming Note to Self: Poems for Changing the World From the Inside Out.

www.jamiekreaser.com

Jamie speaks with Joanna about embracing our woundedness as a rite of passage, ceremony as soul dialogue with Nature, heart consciousness, poetry ans revelation, care taking of humans/Nature, and an invitation to the audience…

Music: “Kadarchynyn Yry/Shepards’ song” (from Five Elements) by Ay-Kherel (Ray of Moonlight)

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Leslie M. Browning is a poet,writer, and longtime student of Religion, Spirituality, Nature, Language and Philosophy as such these themes permeate her work. Raised a Catholic, she studied both the Traditional and Apocrypha doctrine before her spiritual search eventually crossed into the other religions of the world, compelling her to investigate: Judaism, Tibetan Buddhism, Druidry and Shamanism.

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Theodore Richards, PhD, is a poet, writer, and religious philosopher. He is a long time student of the Taoist martial art of Bagua and hatha yoga and has traveled, worked and studied in 25 different countries, including the South Pacific, the Far East, the Indian subcontinent, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. Theodore has received degrees from the University of Chicago, The California Institute of Integral Studies, Wisdom University, and the New Seminary where he was ordained. He has worked with inner city youth on the South Side of Chicago, Harlem, the South Bronx, and Oakland, where he was the director of YELLAWE, an innovative program for teens in Oakland created by Matthew Fox, teaching philosophy, cosmology, and martial arts with a particular emphasis on creativity and imagination. He is the author of Handprints on the Womb, a collection of poetry. Theodore Richards is the founder and executive director of The Chicago Wisdom Project.

www.cosmosophia.org

Theodore Speaks with Joanna about imagination and co-creation of reality, “cosmosophia”: the cosmos as womb, the shaman and the mystic…

Music: “Sansa Dream“, from Jadur Madur-(DreamTree Project), by Adham Shaikh & Uwe Neumann

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Originally trained as a climate scientist (Ph.D. in the Atmospheric Sciences, climate change research for thirty years), Jeffrey Kiehl decided to return to school to get an M.A. in psychology from Regis University. He completed his analyst training with the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts and he is a Diplomate Analyst with both the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts and the International Association of Analytical Psychology. He is a Licensed Professional Counselor in the state of Colorado and have also received training in Gestalt therapy. Jeffrey gives workshops & lectures on various topics, including: Personal Myth and the Lord of the Rings, The Life & Psychology of C.G. Jung, The Anima in the World, and Psyche & Nature.

www.jtkiehl.com

Jeffrey speaks with Joanna about depth psychology and Nature: the different ways of relating to Nature, the Lord of the Rings as a story of reconnection to nature, imagination and beauty as healing dimensions, and retrieving our relationship with the primal energies of Life.

Music: “Seven Ancient Glaciers” (from Three Organic Experiences) by Aglaia

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David De Rothschild is an adventurer, environmentalist and the founder of myoo.com a group that primarily uses exploration and storytelling as a way to give nature a voice. David’s passion and commitment to action has seen him ski, dogsled and kite to both the North and South poles as well as visiting some of the world’s most remote and fragile regions in order to bring wide-spread media attention and, moreover, solutions to urgent global environmental issues. From March to July 2010, David and a crew of five undertook the latest expedition, the Plastiki, sailing across the Pacific Ocean on a catamaran made buoyant by 12,500 reclaimed plastic bottles to beat waste. David is recognized as a National Geographic Emerging Explorer, Clean up the World Ambassador, UNEP Climate Hero and a Young Global Leader respectively.

www.theplastiki.com

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Jeffrey Lewis is a story teller and trader who has lived for many years close to Zuni and Hopi indigenous people learning about their traditions and stories:

“My role in the revitalization of these ancient routes has been a blessed one. I have brought macaw feathers from the Mayan jungles and worked to preserve that species. I have traded for weavings from the highlands of Guatemala and southern Mexico; shells from as far away as southeast Asia; corals from the Mediterranean. I have crawled into the mines at Cerillos and recovered turquoise; worked to re-establish the Zuni fetish trade.

All of this I have done. My commitment has always been that of preservationist: to preserve and protect the cultural rights of indigenous
people: to practice their religion as well their long and rich heritage as artists.”

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Charles Eisenstein is the author of The Ascent of Humanity: The Age of Separation, the Age of Reunion, and the convergence of crises that is birthing the transition – a book about the history and future of civilization from a unique perspective: the evolution of the human sense of self.

He is also the author of The Yoga of Eating and his most recent book Transformational Weight Loss, a book which applies the deep ideas of Ascent to a very specific crying need. He also give seminars and workshops focusing on two areas: holistic health, and the transformation of human consciousness and civilization.

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Recorded on 18 April at a speech given in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Cindy Lee Miller Sheehan is an American anti-war activist whose son was killed during his service in the Iraq War on April 4, 2004. She attracted national and international media attention in August 2005 for her extended anti-war protest at a makeshift camp outside President George W. Bush’s Texas ranch — a stand which drew both passionate support and angry criticism.

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Martin Prechtel is a thinker, writer and teacher whose work, both written and oral, hopes to promote the subtlety, irony and pre-modern vitality hidden in any living language. As a half blood Native American with a Pueblo Indian upbringing, his life took him from New Mexico to the village of Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala where he became a full village member of the Tzutujil Mayan population, and eventually served as a principal, responsible for instructing the young people in the meanings of their ancient stories through the rituals of adult rights of passage. Once again residing in his native New Mexico, Martín teaches at his international school Bolad’s Kitchen.

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Slava Trigubovich is a Russian conservation biologist and the co-founder of the Altai Foundation of Russia, a non-profit organization devoted to protecting the natural and cultural heritage of the Altai Mountains, and to supporting initiatives that sustain, enhance, or expand Russia’s network of nature reserves or “zapovedniks.” He was previously headed the Siberian Interregional Center Zapovedniki (SICZ).
* This is the first part of an interview to be completed at a later date. *

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Talk given at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe on May 25. Joan Halifax Roshi is a Buddhist teacher, Zen priest, anthropologist, and author. She is Founder, Abbot, and Head Teacher of Upaya Zen Center, a Buddhist monastery in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She is Director of the Project on Being with Dying. A Founding Teacher of the Zen Peacemaker Order, her work and practice for more than three decades has focused on engaged Buddhism.

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Also known as Mountain Girl, Carolyn was a Merry Prankster and the wife of Jerry Garcia. In 1964 she met Neal Cassady who introduced her to Ken Kesey and his friends, one of whom gave her the name “Mountain Girl”. She quickly joined the inner circle of Pranksters and was romantically involved with Kesey. She later met and married Jerry Garcia.

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President and co-founder (with wife Lena Stevens) of Power Path Seminars, an international school and consulting firm dedicated to the study and application of shamanism and indigenous wisdom to business and everyday life. José completed a ten year apprenticeship with a Huichol Maracame shaman in the Sierras of Central Mexico. In addition he is studying intensively with Shipibo shamans in the Peruvian Amazon and with Pacos shamans in the Andes in Peru. He is a licensed Clinical Social Worker, Life coach, master teacher and author of ten books and numerous articles.

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Craig Barnes is an author, essayist, playwright and international mediator. In the 1980s he negotiated nuclear issues with leaders in the Academy of Sciences in the Kremlin, in the 1990s he facilitated talks between opposing sides in the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan and thereafter led talks to knit together transboundary water agreements between Kazakhstan, Uzbeckistan, Tajickistan, and Kyrghizstan. His books include In Search Of The Lost Feminine, Decoding the Myths that Radically Reshaped Civilization, an analysis of the roles of women as they appear in archeology and myth before the patriarchy.

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Psychotherapist, writer and researcher who has been involved in the study of transformations of consciousness since graduate school when he worked with Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert (later Ram Dass) on the Harvard Psilocybin Projects. He co-wrote The Psychedelic Experience, and was editor of The Psychedelic Review. He is the co-founder and president of the Green Earth Foundation, an educational and research organization dedicated to the healing and harmonizing of the relationships between humanity and the Earth.
To listen to the first interview click here.

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The fifth and final in a series talks on Entheogens and the Planetary Shift. The fifth talk deals with The Revolution and Evolution of Love.

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Live dialogue with Elisabeth Sahtouris, Joanna Harcourt-Smith and John Lash.

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Co-owner of The Ark Bookstore in Santa Fe, New Mexico which provides a comprehensive selection of books in such areas as spiritual traditions, psychology, health, healing sytems, astrology and many others. The store also has a selection of world and new age music, meditation and yoga aids and other unique items from many areas of the world.

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