2017 Speakers – The Convergence

Starhawk

Lindsey Morriss — Mon, 06 Aug 2018 16:55:30 +0000

Starhawk is a committed global justice activist, organizer, speaker, teacher, and the author or coauthor of ten books. Starhawk is founder of Earth Activist Training, and travels internationally teaching magic, the tools of ritual, and the skills of activism for diverse groups, communities and audiences. Starhawk is perhaps best known as an articulate voice in the revival of earth-based spirituality and Goddess religion. Besides her inspiring, much-read books, she is a cofounder of Reclaiming, an activist branch of modern Pagan religion, and continues to work closely with the Reclaiming community. Her works include The Spiral Dance, long considered the essential text for the Neo-Pagan movement, and the now-classic ecotopian novel, The Fifth Sacred Thing. A personal favorite is award-winning Webs of Power: Notes from the Global Uprising. Starhawk’s latest book is The Earth Path: Grounding Your Spirit in the Rhythms of Nature. Starhawk’s books have been translated into many languages, while her essays are reprinted across the world, and have been included in numerous anthologies. Her writing is influential and has been quoted by many hundreds of other authors, from magazines to trade and academic press. Her books are often used in college curriculums.

Starhawk is a veteran of progressive movements, from anti-war to anti-nukes, and is deeply committed to bringing the techniques and creative power of spirituality to political activism. Her work in progressive movements spans over 30 years. She has organized, trained protesters, and been on the front lines of antinuclear actions at Diablo Canyon, Livermore Weapons Lab, Vandenberg Air Force Base, and the Nevada Test Site, among others. She traveled to Nicaragua with Witness for Peace in 1984 and made two trips to El Salvador to give ongoing support for sustainability programs. She continues to be a witness for peace on the front lines of the Palestine/Israel war, working with Palestinian and Israeli peace activists.

A main focus for the last several years has been the global justice movement; Starhawk has taken part in many of the major actions, including those in Seattle, Washington DC, Quebec City, Genoa, New York City, Cancun, Mexico, and Miami. She co-founded RANT: Root Activists’ Network of Trainers, and teaches non-violent direct action trainings for groups throughout the US, Canada, Mexico, Europe, Palestine, and South America. She is active in the revived American peace movement, and works with Code Pink. Starhawk also works on countless environmental and land use issues, and is a founder and active member of the Cazadero Hills Land Use Council in western Sonoma County.

Starhawk consulted on and contributed to a trio of popular films, the Women’s Spirituality series (directed by Donna Read). Starhawk and Donna Read formed their own film company, Belili Productions. Their first release is “Signs Out of Time” (2004), a documentary on the life of archaeologist Marija Gimbutas, the scholar whose discoveries sparked the Goddess movement. Watch Starhawk’s short videos on Permaculture – Tabor Tilth: Permaculture in the City, and Permaculture Principles at Work. Starhawk and Donna are at work on her next film, an Introduction to Permaculture. Starhak is currently working on a screen play and film for the film for her visionary best selling book – The Fifth Sacred Thing. http://fifthsacredthing.com/

Starhawk lives part-time San Francisco, in a collective house with her partner and friends, and part-time in a little hut in the woods in Cazadero, California, where she practices permaculture in her extensive gardens, and writes.

2018 Pre-Convergence Workshop: Social Permaculture Day Long Intensive

Thurs, Sept 20| 10:00am – 5:00pm| Hops Tipi

Pre-Registration Required
REGISTER HERE

2018 Convergence Main Stage Panel: Rooted in Love, Rising in Action

Friday Sept 21| 7:45pm| Main Stage

Sue Bennett and Simon Mont

zlotusmusic — Tue, 03 Oct 2017 21:46:12 +0000

Sue’s insures the organization’s office space and internal operations contribute to the wellbeing of staff, and the effectiveness of Sustainable Economies Law Center’s programs .

Sue has spent 25 years working in the nonprofit sector in a variety of program and administrative roles and feels it’s her professional destiny to advance The Law Center’s mission. This feeling is fostered by her personal/political value alignment with The Law Center’s structure and this opportunity to develop and share the lessons learned by the Law Center’s practice of worker self direction and deep democracy . Sue’s community activism is rooted in understanding and minimizing the impact of class and classism and is based on the principles of feminism and anti-racism.

In a past life, Simon directed a high school marching band and taught middle schoolers how to play piano. After that, they landed at Berkeley Law where they stewarded the Restorative Justice Committee in their efforts to create a holistic law school culture and also bridge the gap between the ivory tower and the lived experiences of people impacted by mass incarceration. Their experience at the San Quentin Roundtable piqued their interest in the relationship between experience, identity, social structure, intentional gathering, and conflict transformation. Their restorative justice training provided them with a foundation in facilitating safe and equalizing spaces.

After brief stints at the Alameda County Public Defender’s and the Hayward Burns Institute, Simon decided to shift their focus from mass incarceration to the broader social and economic conditions that perpetuated and enabled it.

Simon is active in the Bay Area Jewish community and lives in a community house filled with exciting experiments in collaboration, art, and creativity. When they’re not nerding out on liberating structures, you can find them writing, performing spoken word, hugging trees, and acting as the managing editor of Tikkun magazine.

Simon researches, consults, and connects around the intersection between leadership, anti-oppression, management, compassion, and awe in order to support the development of holistic organizations.

Sunday Oct 8| 9:30-12:30| Bioregional Hub

Worker Self-Direction: Distributing Leadership for Just & Powerful Organizations

John Valenzuela

zlotusmusic — Sun, 01 Oct 2017 22:32:22 +0000

John Valenzuela is a gardener, consultant and educator specializing in fruit tree care and productive perennial polycultures, by way of Cornucopia Food Forest Gardens. He is active with the California Rare Fruit Growers, volunteering as Orchard and Fruit Tree Nursery Manager at the Indian Valley Organic Farm and Garden College of Marin, and serves on the board of the Felix Gillette Institute which preserves heritage fruit tree varieties of the Sierra.

Friday Oct 6| 3:30pm| Solar Panel: Red Talks

Healthy Community Connections: How Plants Communicate

Dr. Kevin Danaher

zlotusmusic — Sun, 01 Oct 2017 22:13:41 +0000

Dr. Kevin Danaher is a Co-Founder of Global Exchange, FairTradeUSA, the Green Festivals, the Environmental Service Learning Initiative, and the Green Guardians. He has played a major role in Global Exchange’s 28-year record of merging social enterprise with human rights activism. His 1983 PhD in sociology from the University of California at Santa Cruz was based on his dissertation, The Political Economy of U.S. Policy Toward South Africa, which allowed him to synergize his academic work and his international activism in the anti-apartheid movement. He has travelled widely in Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, the Middle East, China, Europe and all 50 U.S. states. He is the author or editor of 12 books on the global political-economy, including his two latest, “The Green Festival Reader: Fresh Ideas from Agents of Change”; and “Building the Green Economy: Success Stories from the Grass Roots.” He has appeared on hundreds of radio and television shows, and he has spoken at colleges and community organizations in 47 states and many foreign countries. Described by The New York Times as the “Paul Revere of globalization’s woes,” He teaches at Feather River College in Quincy, California.

TBA

Creating a Resilience Innovation Center

Michael Sean Brown

zlotusmusic — Sat, 30 Sep 2017 16:19:56 +0000

Michael Sean Brown is Co-Founder of Delphi Southern Nevada and Delphi Village’s Chief Executive Officer. Sean is the visionary and social architect behind Delphi Village. He has thirty-years experience in aviation, real estate, and start-up ventures. He was the Chief Operations Officer for an aviation training company that lead to a key management role during the 1994 start-up of Frontier Airlines. Sean received training and experience through Occidental Arts & Ecology Center (Starting and Sustaining Intentional Communities) and Living Mandala (Transition Town Training).

TBA

Delphi Village

Leah Grant

zlotusmusic — Sat, 30 Sep 2017 16:17:38 +0000

Leah Grant is Co-Founder of Delphi Southern Nevada and Delphi Village’s Chief Marketing Officer. She owned a marketing consulting firm in San Francisco and an event production company in Los Angeles. She owns and runs an international consulting, coaching and training firm that focuses on business growth, innovation, collaborative teaming and process development.

TBA

Delphi Village

Margie Bushman & Wes Roe

zlotusmusic — Fri, 29 Sep 2017 15:52:01 +0000

Margie Bushman & Wes Roe are co-founders of the Santa Barbara Permaculture Network, an educational non-profit founded in 2000 that has sponsored hundreds of workshops and events about permaculture and sustainability to Santa Barbara region. Margie was also the Program Coordinator for the Santa Barbara City College Center for Sustainability.
Wes Roe served as board member & President of the Permaculture Credit Union. Both have served as a volunteer coordinators for the International Permaculture Convergence Support Group since its inception in 2005, that later evolved into the Friends of the International Permaculture Convergences (FIPC) & the International Permaculture Convergence Council (IPCC).

Saturday Oct 7| 9:30am| Willow Grove

Diversity of Participants, Ideas, and Solutions from Around the Globe: Come Learn About the International Permaculture Convergences

Chloe Buzzotta

zlotusmusic — Thu, 28 Sep 2017 21:56:00 +0000

Chloe has a background in environmental activism. Her passions include permaculture and intentional community living. Every day she aims to embody those passions; through her work with Austin Permaculture Guild and other like minded organizations including the Global Ecovillage Network and her personal organization, DIrect Action Valhalla.

Friday Oct 6| 5pm| Yurt

Permaculture 101

Jessica Bates

zlotusmusic — Thu, 28 Sep 2017 21:48:38 +0000

Jessica Bates Is a transplant from Washington D.C. who has been establishing her roots here in the Bay Area for the last 15 years. Jessica has been gardening for over 20 years, run multiple gardening education programs, co-founded the Berkeley Ashby community garden, worked with multiple Bay Area landscapers, and is a certified permaculture teacher and designer who cares about decolonizing our food system. A Master Composter and Master Gardener, she owns and operates a Food Forest Farm West – a permaculture business in which she designs, teaches and installs local gardens. Her specialty is in perennial vegetable and annual food production and propagation, as well as CA native and “Bay friendly” plants. Jessica aims to constantly deepen her understanding of the gardening world while sharing that knowledge with her community.
Social Media:
https://www.facebook.com//foodfoodforestfarmwest
Website: www.foodforestfarmwest.com

Sunday Oct 8| 9:30am| Hops Tipi

Applied Permaculture – Forest Garden Design Charrette

Delia Carroll

zlotusmusic — Thu, 28 Sep 2017 18:48:53 +0000

Delia Carroll is a lifelong resident of the bay area. She is a founding member of the 13 Moon CoLab, http://www.13mooncollaborative.com/, a teaching collective dedicated to bringing forth a balanced and integrated approach to the art and practice of permaculture. Delia created and curates the PlaceMakers TeaHouse, which serves herbal teas and facilitates conversations at gatherings up and down the west coast.

Sunday Oct 8| 9:30am| Hops Tipi

Applied Permaculture – Forest Garden Design Charrette

Jeff Clearwater

jay@livingmandala.com — Thu, 28 Sep 2017 00:14:20 +0000

Jeff has been a leader in whole systems regenerative design for over 40 years with a special passion for intentional community, ecovillage design and applied new paradigm economics.

Jeff has played a major role in the sustainable and regenerative communities movement – having co-founded the Ecovillage Network of the Americas (ENA) and Living Routes Ecovillage Study Abroad in 1997 and as Ecovillage Director at Sirius Community until 2001. Jeff has provided integrated systems and renewable energy design, consulting and installation in rural villages, businesses, governments and sustainability projects all over the world since the 1980s.

Jeff’s prime passion is to illuminate a new paradigm in economics. Grounded in a long cultivated understanding of sacred economics and numerous initiatives in creating Commons, Jeff works closely with the Metacurrency Project and recently developed a revolutionary model for collective wealth co-creation and stewardship – the Wealth Stewardship Pattern.

Jeff co-founded VillageLab in 2012 whose talented team is now busy building the RegenSolutions process and framework for the systematic research, development, demonstration, replication and dissemination of regenerative best practices for communities of purpose, practice and place.

When not actively engaging in regenerative community work, Jeff tends to find himself in wilderness – tuning into life amongst the woods, rivers and beaches of northern California and Oregon or the mountains of the Southwest.

Pre-Convergence Workshop: Village Design Intensive

Thurs, Oct 5| 10:00am – 4:30pm| Solar Panel

A. Keala Young

jay@livingmandala.com — Thu, 28 Sep 2017 00:08:07 +0000

Keala is a whole system designer, regenerative practitioner and permaculture teacher with a background in the healing arts. His rich study of permaculture and ecovillage design includes certificate programs from Findhorn Foundation to Esalen Institute and is complimented by experiential learning in co-production of multiple design courses and intensives. Keala is a co-founder of Atlan Living and Learning Center near the Columbia River Gorge in Central Cascadia, is a co-author and contributing editor of ReInhabiting the Village and is Co-Director of VillageLab’s RegenSolutions Initiative.

Pre-Convergence Workshop: 1 Day Village Design Intensive

Thurs, Oct 5| 10:00am – 4:30 pm| Solar Panel

Susan Juniper Park

zlotusmusic — Tue, 26 Sep 2017 21:32:38 +0000

Susan Juniper Park is an activist working at the cross-section of ecological, economic and social justice. She is also involved in urban farming, healing work, education and permaculture. She was a co-founding member of the Economic Development Without Displacement Coalition (Oakland-based anti-gentrification project), ran a food justice economic project at Phat Beets Produce (Oakland-based grassroots food justice organization), worked as a fundraiser for the Ruckus Society (a direct action training organization empowering frontline communities), and was an organizer with Occupy the Farm (Bay Area based land defense effort). These days you can find her subsitute teaching in Oakland K-12 schools, doing gardening gigs, and cultivating a healing justice practice. She is grateful and humbled to be an immigrant and permanent guest living on Ohlone territory.

Friday, Oct 6| 4:30| Hops Tipi

Decolonizing Our Resiliency Movements

Katie Stone

zlotusmusic — Tue, 26 Sep 2017 21:21:03 +0000

Katie Stone has been a passionate cannabis and drug policy reform activist since her youth, and is currently a board member of Students for Sensible Drug Policy. She is a PhD candidate at the California Institute of Integral Studies, and the Publisher of Sensi Magazine, San Francisco. Katie focused her Masters Thesis on advancing the dialogue around sustainable and ethical cannabis, and held internship positions at The Arcview Group, The Drug Policy Alliance, The California Governors Office of Planning and Research, and others. She is an experienced grassroots organizer and community developer, and envisions a regenerative cannabis economy that supports resilient, vibrant, communities. She spends her free time touring the country in her van, building a rapidly growing network of sustainably focused cannabis industry leaders, coordinating public education and recycling campaigns, and connecting entrepreneurs with sustainable solutions through Green B Consulting.

Sunday, Oct 8| 11am| Main Stage

What’s In Your Weed? Understanding Cannabis and Sustainability

EvOak Owl

zlotusmusic — Thu, 21 Sep 2017 20:01:47 +0000

I’ve been involved in the healing arts and my own path of awakening for over 10 years. Honing my gifts as a highly attuned empath, counselor, energy healer, conscious communicator, ritual facilitator and tantric priestess. I facilitate self care rituals and medicine journeys as well as offer guidance to men and women about sexuality, embodiment and empowerment. I am a skilled and ever growing practitioner of the tantric arts. Gaining my practice through touching and tasting my life fully ~ pain included. My training has included counseling work, shamanic explorations, working with plant medicine, priestess embodiment, tantra studies, nutrition, energy healing, bodywork, intuitive healing, dance and yoga.

Moon Temple

Speaking Your Needs in Bed

Keith Tucker

zlotusmusic — Wed, 20 Sep 2017 01:59:23 +0000

Keith Tucker – Founder of Hip Hop is Green

Health Activist, Film Maker, Radio Host, Journalist and Speaker

Keith Tucker has been a committed community activist and businessman for over 20 years. He has worked hundreds of businesses, youth groups and community organizations throughout the years. He has worked with many icons in the entertainment business as a promoter, activist and culture builder.

He spearheaded protests against the stereotyping of Hip Hop artists and mentored many youth over the years. He received the Martin Luther King County Executives Award for Community service, the African American Achievement Award, the Keep it Fresh award and the 2015 Jefferson Award and is responsible for the first ever Hip Hop Health day.

In 2008 Keith hosted his own radio show (the Keith Tucker Show) and subsequently embarked on a documentary film project entitled “Pursuit of a Green Planet” where he learned to live his life as a vegan. On his first research trip he visited the Seattle Vegfest and tasted vegan food for the first time. This experience was the catalysts for him to start to serve free plant based meals to the youth in the community and bring Hip Hop performers to entertain and educate a new generation through Hip Hop culture.

So in 2009 he held the first Hip Hop Green Dinner in history. Since then he has produced Hip Hop Green Dinners around the country and assembled the largest team of Hip Hop artist and educators in the world all with the goal of bringing health and wellness to youth and families. In 2015 he was the architect of the Hip Hop is Green tour, first ever national plant based Hip Hop tour in history. In 2016 he drafted the official 10^th Element of Hip Hop proclamation and thus created a new element in Hip Hop, the 10^th Element which is “ Health & Wellness.

Saturday, Oct 6| 4:30 – 5:30 pm| Main Stage

Hip Hop is Green

Max Meyers

zlotusmusic — Wed, 20 Sep 2017 01:41:25 +0000

Max Meyers is an experienced Ecological Designer, Permaculture Teacher, Consultant, Registered Aquaculturist, Aquaponic System Designer/Installer, Rainwater and Greywater System specialist, Farmer, and the Executive Director of the Mendocino Ecological Learning Center a nonprofit educational organization and ecological reserve offering green job training and sustainable living skills to the public. Through his work as an instructor of Permaculture and Ecological Design he has successfully trained over a thousand students from more than 40 countries world wide. In addition to the work at MELC, Mr. Meyers provides Ecological design services to the public, organizations, and schools through Osiris Designs and Nor Cal Aquaponics. He is passionate about all things related to a more just and sustainable world. Most recently Mr. Meyers helped write the guidelines for the newly formed California Fish and Wildlife Aquaponics subcommittee. He has been studying, practicing and teaching Permaculture and Ecological Design for 18 years.

Friday, Oct 6| 3:00pm| Yurt

Restoring Salmon and Redwooods Using Recirculating Aquaponics

Syntha Lorenz

zlotusmusic — Wed, 20 Sep 2017 01:31:55 +0000

Syntha Lorenz is a wild feminine spirit who blends Jungian psychology, Feminism and Shamanism in her work with people. She is passionate about life. She grew up in the Appalachian Mountains with her farmer dad. That part of her always been wild about dance, nature and animals. She roamed and started living a Bohemian lifestyle for most of her 20s before moving to Northern California where she has lived for the past 24 years, always keeping a connection to Spirit and nature. Before the fire, She was working with people 3 days a week in SF, living in a harmonious manner in the forest 4 days walking with her beloved dog, planting food, dancing and being in ecstatic connection with the Divine

Cassandra Ferrera

zlotusmusic — Wed, 20 Sep 2017 00:16:24 +0000

Cassandra is a community builder and catalyst for cooperative stewardship. She lives in a rural intentional community in Sonoma County where she educates and consults groups on community projects. She is a cooperative real estate agent with Green Key Real Estate and is a deep believer in the importance of belonging to place. Cassandra serves on the board of the Fellowship for Intentional Communities and CommonSpace Community Land Trust.

Tales from the Trenches: The realities of life in intentional communities

Abeja Hummel

zlotusmusic — Wed, 20 Sep 2017 00:12:37 +0000

Abeja has lived in intentional community for over 17 years. Her last 10 years have been spent at a small permaculture community called Emerald Earth Sanctuary in Boonville, Ca with her husband and son, various other communitarians, goats, chickens, and gardens.