Christina studied social psychology and has worked to shift the culture toward more just and sustainable practices ever since. Currently she is committed to exploring how art itself can serve as a change agent, by presenting regenerative solutions as irresistibly imaginative and fun. Having worked in glass and stone and built water features for community gardens and public spaces, she now uses whatever media can best raise consciousness about particularly pressing environmental issues (often water related).

In 1974 she tested affirmative action and was the first woman apprentice admitted to a CA plumbing union.  Later as a plumbing contractor, she plumbed many straw bale and rammed earth residences. In 1990 she designed and built a passive solar rammed-earth cottage in downtown Oakland demonstrating the feasibility of alternative materials for inner city infill.

In 2007 she joined the Greywater Guerrillas in creating a groundswell of support for greywater re-use and in 2009 helped craft a more reasonable state greywater code at stakeholder meetings in Sacramento. As part of the now mainstream Greywater Action she teaches hands-on greywater and rainwater installation workshops, professional installer trainings, and lectures about water harvesting and re-use options.

She is a guest instructor at OAEC, Merrit College, and other Permaculture courses

and directly installs rainwater and greywater systems.

She envisions we humans gracefully re-entering the nutrient cycle, offering what passes through our bodies back to the earth in the most delicious forms possible.

She holds several Permaculture Design certificates, is a Harner Method Shamanic Counselor, and sits on the boards of Women Eco Artists Dialog and the Metaphor Project.

She loves to play in her garden, graft, forage, dream, drum, listen to water sing, and take refuge in the woods.

2016 Convergence Red Talk Presentation: Permaculture and Art

2016 Convergence Panel:  Water Panel

Dragon Dreaming is a methodology based upon the principles of personal and group empowerment. Drawing upon the insights and experience of Living Systems Theory, Deep Ecology, Transpersonal Psychology, group dynamics, and organizational development, and from indigenous Third and Fourth World cultures and applying them to community enterprises, local or personal projects, activists and for non-profit organizations.

Presented By: Ivan Sawyer

Sunday, September 18th | 3:50 PM – 4:10 PM | Solar Panel: El Sol

It’s possible, we can reverse climate change through permaculture/ regenerative agriculture. And the “we” is everyone on the planet. There is a movement building globally and we need your participation. This workshop will give you skills to add your voice and talents to building the global movement. We’ll go over messaging, social media, storytelling, and how your unique skills, no matter what they are, can help spread the word.

Presented By: Lauren Tucker

Sunday, September 18th | 11:40 AM – 12:00 PM | Solar Panel: El Sol

This workshop will provide participants with the skills they need to determine how much water they produce or falls on their property, how to match that with water needs in the home, creating a balance of local water inputs and local water needs.

Participants will learn how to calculate the water available on their property and how best to use it.

Presented By: Dr. Elizabeth Dougherty

This workshop challenges participants to fall in love with the water cycle. By giving the big picture of water in California, including river flows, infiltration, stormwater, greywater, rainwater, groundwater, black water flows and uses, participants will have a better understanding of how to align their particular practices to support the hydrologic cycle instead of running at cross purposes.

This workshop gives the background to what we do daily with water, connecting people with their water sources, their local watersheds, and their own water use. Without understanding the whole cycle of water, we are limited in supporting its whole health.

Presented By: Dr. Elizabeth Dougherty

Elizabeth Dougherty has steeped herself in sustainable technologies and practices of green building, organic agriculture, fair trade, and permaculture in Latin America, Africa, and the United States. Upon finishing her PhD in Ethnography highlighting from the University of Pennsylvania, Elizabeth coordinated the first International Fair Trade Fair, organized specifically for WTO meetings in Cancun. Elizabeth moved on to project managing for Flex Your Power, helping cities and industries become more energy efficient. Heading towards water, Elizabeth leveraged sustainable sanitation and water filtration in an earthquake disaster relief zone in Peru, at the same time establishing the thriving Permacultura Peru, a growing group of Peruvian Permaculturists. In 2009, she established Wholly H2O, a statewide nonprofit that is making localized water conservation and reuse the hip and sexy thing to do in California. Wholly H2O currently organizes art-based interactive educational events, exhibits and programs. Her work in water spans policy, practice and art. She is frequently found in her American Steel art studio in West Oakland, building free standing rainwater harvesting sculptures and recirculating fountains. Elizabeth is an active participant in the policy groups Bay Area Water Stewards (SFPUC watchdog group), Green California, and the California Decentralized Water Policy Council.

2016 Convergence Workshops: How to Fall in Love with the Water Cycle  and Water Budgeting at Home