Whether you are integrating mindfulness into core program delivery, weaving spiritual wisdom into justice work, or grounding social action in contemplation, you are part of a growing movement—and we invite you to gather with us.
The Conscious Change Forum will be a unique opportunity to meet fellow practitioners from around the world who share your values and who are working in innovative ways across a range of social issues and modalities. We will practice together, share approaches, deepen our collective insight, and help illuminate the field where consciousness guides social transformation. Over three days of dialogue, storytelling, experiential engagement, spiritual practice, and community learning, we will explore what connects our work. We will surface the wisdom emerging from our unifying field and imagine what becomes possible when we act together.
If you’ve been seeking a community that understands how inner work drives social change, this gathering and this broader movement is for you. Join the Garrison Institute’s Spirituality & Social Change Program and Conscious Change Collective —and help shape the future of conscious social change.
SCHOLARSHIPS
We are no longer accepting applications at this time. We thank you for your interest and overwhelming response. We regret that we are not able to assist as we had more applicants than our funding can underwrite. For more information on our scholarship funds, please visit this page.
SCHEDULE
| Conscious Change Forum: An Inner Work, Outer Change Retreat | |||
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| Day 1 | March 24, 2026 | ||
| ARRIVING: We ground ourselves in presence and relationship, arriving with our whole selves. We give gratitude for the land on which we gather and begin to build the sacred container for our time together. |
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| 3:00 - 5:00 pm EDT | Arrival and Check-In | ||
| 5:30 - 6:30 pm | Welcome, Land Acknowledgement, Opening Ritual | with Shawn Stevens and Wanonah Kosbab | |
| 6:30 - 7:30 pm | Dinner | ||
| 7:45 - 8:30 pm | Moonlight Receiving Ceremony (optional) | with Shawn Stevens, Wanonah Kosbab and Suzanne Bowles | |
| Day 2 | March 25, 2026 | ||
| CONNECTING: WHO ARE WE? Day 2 offers an exploration of the field of inner work and social change through different sources of knowledge and wisdom. Seeing who we are as a movement, as humanity, as a planet. Understanding the lineages and values upon which we build. What is happening 'out there' and in us, and why? Connecting with each other and the current moment. Composting what we no longer need. Holding all within a community of care. |
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| 7:00 - 8:00 am EDT | Morning Practice | ||
| 8:00 - 9:00 am | Breakfast | ||
| 9:15 - 9:30 am | Opening Ritual or Blessing | with Rabbi Nate DeGroot | |
| 9:30 - 10:00 am | Opening Intentions | with Rhonda Magee, Ames Paulson and Gretchen Steidle | |
| 10:00 - 10:45 am | Morning Session 1: LOVE AND SPIRIT AS A MOVEMENT FOR CHANGE | with Deepak Bhargava, Michelle Alexander and Rhonda Magee | |
| 10:45 - 11:15 am | Break | ||
| 11:15 am - 12:30 pm | Morning Session 2: SACRED WORLDVIEWS | with Cheryl Fairbanks, Robert Yazzie, Shawn Stevens, Wanonah Kosbab and Dr. Patty Ramirez | |
| 12:30 - 1:30 pm | Lunch | ||
| 1:30 - 2:45 pm | Afternoon Session 1: OUR CORE VALUES | with Cheryl Fairbanks & Robert Yazzie | |
| 2:45 - 3:00 pm | Break | ||
| 3:00 - 4:15 pm | Afternoon Session 2: WHAT HAVE WE INHERITED? | with Bayo Akomolafe | |
| 4:15 - 4:30 pm | COMPOSTING | with Ames Paulson | |
| 4:30 - 4:45 pm | Break | ||
| 4:45 - 5:30 pm | Afternoon Session 3: STEPPING IN BETWEEN | with Eddie Harris, Matt Hawkins, Sandra Ortiz, Suzanne Bowles and Katia Dumont | |
| 5:30 pm | Closing Ritual | with Ishwar Bridgelal | |
| until 6:30 pm | Downtime | ||
| 6:30 - 7:30 pm | Dinner | ||
| 8:00 - 9:00 pm | Evening Session - COMMUNITY OFFERINGS (optional) | of song, poetry, music, dance, art and play | |
| Day 3 | March 26, 2026 | ||
| SEEING & SENSING: WHAT ARE OUR DREAMS? Day 3 is an exploration of the defining features of this movement and what is emerging for our future and purpose. We come to understand who we are and what is emerging from our shared work. We dream how to bring into being the future that we collectively envision. We turn toward what may be possible together. We explore how a unified field can shape the future of our planet. |
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| 7:00 - 8:00 am EDT | Morning Practice | ||
| 8:00 - 9:00 am | Breakfast | ||
| 9:15 - 9:30 am | Opening Ritual or Blessing | from Dr. Patty Ramirez | |
| 9:30 - 10:45 am | Morning Session 1: SENSING - WHAT IS THE ESSENCE OF THIS MOVEMENT? | with Gretchen Steidle, Sara Taggart, and Matt Hawkins | |
| 10:45 - 11:15 am | Break | ||
| 11:15 am - 12:30 pm | Morning Session 2: WHAT’S EMERGING? | with Katia Dumont, Eddie Harris, Matt Hawkins, Dan Wolpert and Sara Taggart | |
| 12:30 - 1:30 pm | Lunch | ||
| 1:30 - 2:40 pm | Afternoon Session 1: OPENING PATHWAYS SESSION 1 | with Eddie Harris, Matt Hawkins, Katia Dumont, Dan Wolpert and Nate DeGroot | |
| 2:40 - 3:10 pm | Break | ||
| 3:10 - 4:45 pm | Afternoon Session 2: OPENING PATHWAYS SESSION 2 | with Eddie Harris, Matt Hawkins, Katia Dumont, Dan Wolpert and Nate DeGroot | |
| 4:45 - 5:30 pm | FOUR DIRECTIONS & INDIGENOUS SOLUTIONS-BUILDING followed by Closing Ritual or Blessing | with Robert Yazzie | |
| 5:30 - 6:30 pm | Downtime | ||
| 6:30 - 7:30 pm | Dinner | ||
| 8:00 - 9:00 pm | Evening Session - CIRCLE AT THE HEARTH (optional) | With Nate DeGroot | |
| Day 4 | March 27, 2026 | ||
| REFLECTING: WHERE NEXT? On Day 4, we reflect back on what we have discovered from our time together and look forward to where we go from here as a movement? How do we deepen relationships with each other? How do we support each other, practice together, collaborate? What is emerging as a common purpose(s) for what we want to do together that we cannot do alone? |
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| 7:00 - 8:00 am EDT | Morning Practice | ||
| 8:00 - 9:00 am | Breakfast + Check out by 9am | ||
| 9:15 - 9:30 am | Morning Ritual or Blessing | with Rev. Erica Williams | |
| 9:30 - 9:45 am | Closing Remarks | with Rhonda Magee | |
| 9:45 - 10:30 am | Morning Session 1: REFLECTION & SENSE-MAKING - SMALL GROUPS | with Leander Roth, Stas Schmiedt, Sara Taggart, and Gretchen Steidle | |
| 10:30 - 11:15 am | Morning Session 2: REFLECTION & SENSE-MAKING - LARGE GROUP | with Leander Roth, Stas Schmiedt, Sara Taggart, and Gretchen Steidle | |
| 11:15 - 11:25 am | WHAT IS NEXT FOR THE COLLECTIVE | with Gretchen Steidle |
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| 11:25 - 11:45 | Closing Ritual | with Shawn Stevens and Wanonah Kosbab | |
| 11:45 - 12:00 | Earth Practice & Group Photo | ||
| 12:00 - 1:00 pm | Bagged Lunch + Departure | ||
LIVESTREAM REGISTRATION
For those unable to attend in person, we are offering a special opportunity to join the Conscious Change Forum: Inner Work, Outer Impact via live stream for the second full day — March 25, 9:15 a.m. EDT to 5:45 p.m. EDT. Online participants will have access to all sessions that day and will be guided through practices by several of the field’s co-creators.
Following the gathering, the Conscious Change Collective will be sharing a report highlighting key themes, insights, and future directions that emerged across the Forum. Virtual participants will be included in this process and will receive the final harvest of the event.
Scholarship discounts are available to participants from the Global South, from under-resourced organizations, or who face stress in meeting basic needs. We also welcome those in places of abundance who choose to offer more to support those in need. This ensures broad accessibility while sustaining the work of this growing movement. Please contact socialchange@garrisoninstitute.org to request a scholarship discount.
SPEAKERS
***This will be a gathering led by and for our larger community. Though we may be hosting a few special speakers, most of our programming will be interactive engagements, practice, and dialogue led by our community members****
Rhonda V. Magee, M.A., Sociology; J.D., is a Professor of Law at the University of San Francisco and an internationally recognized leader in integrating mindfulness into education, law, and social change. Born in North Carolina in 1967 and shaped by a childhood of trauma and challenge, she discovered early that healing, service, and contemplative practice could provide a way forward. For more than two decades, she has pioneered courses on civil law, race and inequality, and mindfulness and lawyering, while training extensively in Buddhist traditions, mindfulness-based interventions, and interpersonal dialogue. A former president of the board of the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society and a Fellow of the Mind and Life Institute, Rhonda has served on its steering council and sits on the boards of the UMass Center for Mindfulness and the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute. She has also taught in leading mindfulness teacher training programs and led retreats at Spirit Rock, the Garrison Institute, Omega, Esalen, and other centers nationwide. Her teaching and writing focus on compassionate conflict engagement, presence-based leadership, and embodied mindfulness as keys to personal and collective transformation. She is the author of The Inner Work of Racial Justice: Healing Ourselves and Transforming Our Communities Through Mindfulness (2019).
Michelle Alexander is a highly acclaimed civil rights lawyer, legal scholar, advocate, and bestselling author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. The book helped ignite a national reckoning with mass incarceration and racial injustice in the United States and has been widely described as a foundational text of contemporary racial justice movements. It is taught in universities, used in advocacy and faith-based settings, and continues to shape public discourse more than a decade after its publication.
A former associate professor at Stanford Law School, where she directed the Civil Rights Clinics, Alexander has held leadership roles across academia and public interest law. She also held a joint appointment at The Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law and the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity, where her scholarship and teaching focused on structural racism, criminal injustice, and legal strategies for social change. Earlier, she served as Director of the Racial Justice Project at the ACLU of Northern California, leading major initiatives on educational equity, criminal justice reform, and racial profiling. Her writing and commentary have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Nation, and The Los Angeles Times, and she has been featured on major national media outlets including CNN, MSNBC, NPR, Democracy Now, and The Colbert Show. After years of leading racial justice litigation and teaching law, Alexander stepped away from the worlds of law and policy to explore the moral, spiritual, and personal dimensions of justice. She is currently Scholar in Residence at Union Theological Seminary, where she is pursuing a master’s degree in interreligious studies and preparing to launch Spirit of Justice, a new organization dedicated to nurturing the spiritual and ethical foundations of the struggle for collective liberation.
Deepak Bhargava is President of the Freedom Together Foundation, leading its mission to support people who have been denied power to build it, so they can change unjust systems and create a more democratic, inclusive, and sustainable society.
Deepak brings over 30 years of expertise in social justice movements. He previously led the grassroots organization Community Change for 16 years, strengthening the community organizing field and advancing public policies on economic and social justice. He also served as a distinguished lecturer at the CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies and as a Senior Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute.
Deepak is the co-author, with Stephanie Luce, of Practical Radicals: Seven Strategies to Change the World (New Press, 2023) and co-editor, with Ruth Milkman and Penny Lewis, of Immigration Matters: Movements, Visions, and Strategies for a Progressive Future (New Press, 2021).
Bayo Akomolafe (Ph.D.), rooted with the Yoruba people in a more-than-human world, is the father to Alethea Aanya and Kyah Jayden Abayomi, the grateful life-partner to Ije, son and brother. A widely celebrated international speaker, posthumanist thinker, poet, teacher, public intellectual, essayist, and author of two books, These Wilds Beyond our Fences: Letters to My Daughter on Humanity’s Search for Home (North Atlantic Books) and We Will Tell our Own Story: The Lions of Africa Speak, Bayo Akomolafe is the Founder of The Emergence Network, a planet-wide initiative that seeks to convene communities in new ways in response to the critical, civilizational challenges we face as a species. He is host of the postactivist course/festival/event, ‘We Will Dance with Mountains’. He currently lectures at Pacifica Graduate Institute, California. He sits on the Board of many organizations including Science and Non-Duality (US) and Ancient Futures (Australia).
In July 2022, Dr. Akomolafe was appointed the inaugural Global Senior Fellow of University of California’s (Berkeley) Othering and Belonging Institute. He is also the inaugural Special Fellow of the Schumacher Centre for New Economics, the Inaugural Scholar in Residence for the Aspen Institute, the inaugural Special Fellow for the Council of an Uncertain Human Future, as well as Visiting Scholar to Clark University, Massachusetts, USA (2024). He has been Fellow for The New Institute in Hamburg, Germany, and Visiting Critic-in-Residence for the Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles (2023). He is the recipient of an Honorary Doctorate from the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) and has been Commencement Speaker in two universities convocation events. He is also the recipient of the New Thought Leadership Award 2021 and the Excellence in Ethnocultural Psychotherapy Award by the African Mental Health Summit 2022. In a ceremony in July 2023, the City of Portland (Maine, USA) awarded Dr. Akomolafe with the symbolic ‘Key to the City’ in recognition of his planet-wide work and achievements.
Dr. Akomolafe is a Member of the Club of Rome, a Fellow for the Royal Society of Arts in the UK, and an Ambassador for the Wellbeing Economy Alliance. To learn more about Dr. Akomolafe’s work, please visit www.bayoakomolafe.net and www.emergencenetwork.org.
Cheryl Demmert Fairbanks, Esq. works in the area of Indian law as an attorney and tribal court of appeals justice. Currently, she is the Interim Executive Director of the UNM Native American Budget and Policy Institute. She recently served in Oregon as the Walter R. Echo-Hawk Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law at Lewis and Clark; and also was a visiting Professor of Law at the University of New Mexico’s Southwest Indian Law Clinic. Formerly a Partner at Cuddy McCarthy LLP, she had a general practice in Indian law, including tribal-state relations, personnel, tribal courts, peacemaking and family conferencing, mediation, family, school, education, and indigenous law. Also, Ms. Fairbanks was a partner with the law firm of Roth, VanAmberg, Rogers, Ortiz, Fairbanks & Yepa, LLP, where she specialized in Indian law. She also worked as senior policy analyst with the New Mexico Office of Indian Affairs in the area of state-tribal relations. There, she was instrumental in establishing the Indian Child Welfare Desk, New Mexico Office of Indian Tourism, the University of New Mexico Indian Law Clinic, and the passage of the New Mexico Indian Arts and Crafts Act.
The Honorable Robert Yazzie served as the Chief justice of the Navajo Nation from 1992 through 2003. He practiced law in the Navajo Nation for 16 years, and was a district judge for eight years. He is now teaching Navajo Law at the Navajo Technical University. He was the Director of the Diné Policy Institute of Diné College (Navajo Nation), developing policy using authentic Navajo thinking. He is the author of articles and book chapters on many subjects, including Navajo peacemaking, traditional Indian law, and international human rights law. He is a visiting professor at the University of New Mexico School of Law, an adjunct professor of the Department of Criminal Justice of Northern Arizona University and a visiting member of the faculty of the National Judicial College. He recently taught Navajo law at the Crownpoint Institute of Technology.
An enrolled tribal member of the Stockbridge Munsee Band of Mohicans and a licensed Tribal Elder and Youth Volunteer, Shawn Stevens has dedicated his life to the study and preservation of his heritage and peacemaking. He pursued education in Anthropology, Philosophy, Creative Writing, Oral Communications, Native History, Native American Literature, and Sustainable Development at the College of Menominee Nation. With over 20 years of experience as the Chairperson of his Tribe’s Language and Culture Board and as the former Vice Chair of the Tribe’s Repatriation Committee, he has played an active, vital role in his people’s tribal historic preservation and language research.
Wanonah Kosbab is an enrolled member of the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohicans and a direct descendant of the Oneida Nation. She is a mother, grandmother, teacher, and peacemaker who is dedicated to cultural reclamation and guiding others, particularly children and youth, to walk the Red Road. She has a passion for reconnecting the Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican people with their ancestral homelands and connecting all people to indigenous practices and traditions. Wanonah is a cultural revitalization advocate focused on environmental stewardship and mental health. As Co-Director of Nova Nations, Wanonah fights for ways to keep children and youth busy and off the street with a healthy place to hang out and get what they need. As co-leader of the Mohican Children’s Homeland Trips, she makes it possible for children and youth to connect with their ancestral homelands and indigenous teachings.
Gretchen Ki Steidle is the Founder and President of Circles for Conscious Change, a transformative education firm working with social entrepreneurs, nonprofits, and corporations on the use of mindfulness as a design tool for social innovation. Gretchen is also the founder and President of Global Grassroots, an international organization that operated a social venture incubator and mindful-leadership program for women and girls in East Africa. She has an MBA from the Tuck School at Dartmouth and a BA in Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia.
Gretchen is author of Leading from Within: Conscious Social Change and Mindfulness for Social Innovation (MIT Press, 2017) and lectures and teaches on mindfulness and social change worldwide. A certified Integrative Breathworker, Gretchen has been delivering breath-based therapeutic practices, resilience training, and trauma healing since 2002 to a range of individuals globally, including survivors of and first responders to war and mass disaster. Her workshops have been offered at institutions including the Skoll World Forum, Omega Institute, Kripalu Institute, Wellbeing Project, AshokaU Exchange, Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College and University of Virginia, among others. In 2007, Gretchen was honored by World Business Magazine and Shell as one of the top International 35 Women Under 35. She was recognized in 2010 as a CNN Hero volunteering in Haiti after the earthquake. She was chosen in 2011 as one of seven Remarkable Women of the World by New Hampshire Magazine. In 2018, Gretchen was named one of Inc.’s Top 100 Leadership Speakers. Gretchen currently serves as the Director of the Garrison Institute’s Spirituality & Social Change Program.
Sara Taggart is a conscious social change consultant working with organizations to integrate inner work and social entrepreneurship in the US and Africa. She has over 30 years of experience partnering with non-profits, private foundations, and government leaders to achieve greater impact through design innovations, inclusive program processes, and participatory evaluations. Sara holds a BA in History from Dartmouth College and an MPA in Education and Social Policy from the Daniel J. Evans School at the University of Washington.
Eddie Harris is an artist, philosopher and strategic coach dedicated to nurturing social change. From grassroots community initiatives to global live music operations, he has worked with teams to create experiences and environments people enjoy and trust. His work focuses on illuminating the narratives, practices, concepts that influence the quality of our institutions and their impact. Reverence and curiosity are at the core of his ideologies. He is a passionate and unrelenting advocate for what he calls “the reasonable expectation of a humane and sustainable planetary society.” He loves navigating with others through the ideation, clarification and materialization of ideas to enrich our lives.
Matt Hawkins has 15 years of experience working in movements and campaigning – and picked up many lessons along the way! The most important for him is the urgent need for campaigns to go much, much deeper and address the deep-rooted values at the heart of society. He’s seen how so many efforts for change can get stuck or undone because they’ve not brought society along with them. As a communications nerd he is also fascinated by how frames and stories can powerfully influence people’s worldviews.
Suzanne Bowles is a philanthropic advisor and post-capitalist movement builder with expertise in grassroots movement building, collaborative design, finance innovations, and economic systems change. She builds impact and investment strategies that repair life affirming values held in ancestral and biocultural wisdom traditions. Her regenerative funding strategies leverage philanthropic capital as a systemic transformation tool, leading to new ways of defining and experiencing wealth in these times. Suzanne is an expert at participatory field building and impact strategies that advance the human conditions to support flourishing of life on earth.
Stas Schmiedt (they/them) and Leander Roth (he/they) have been blending mindfulness and social entrepreneurship for 15 years as partners and the co-founders of Spring Up and bluelight academy of the liberatory arts. Both diagnosed with PTSD as a result of campus violence, their journey began with pursuing personal and collective healing. They built their own cooperative social enterprise to bring together the tools of conscious social change, participatory action research, restorative justice, mindfulness, somatic experiencing, community education, and biomimicry. Now a national organization with 9 member owners, Spring Up has provided transformative online education and consulting in conflict and harm response, liberatory facilitation, and collective governance to hundreds of organizations and over 7000 alumni. Their book and podcast “Getting Free Together” shares their original tools and approach, grounded in Integral Theory and organizational alchemy.
Rabbi Nate DeGroot became The Shalom Center’s new Director in October of 2024, when, after 41 years at the helm, Reb Arthur Waskow passed the organization’s leadership to Nate. As Director, Nate is helping to steward the organization into its next chapter, reimagining Jewish holidays as portals for public prophetic action and building a national movement of sacred justice rooted in the Jewish calendar. Before becoming Director, he served as The Shalom Center’s National Organizer and Associate Director, supporting the organization’s generational transition.
“Ames” (she/they) Paulson is a mental health and healing advocate working at the intersections of social justice, Healing Justice, and Transformative Justice, to disrupt cycles of violence, heal generational trauma, and democratize access to peer-based healing resources in the Bay Area and around the world. A survivor of orphan trafficking and sexual violence, Ames has been navigating medicalized, traditional, and alternative systems for mental and emotional health for decades – and, as a result, is passionate about de-stigmatizing and de-pathologizing trauma and broadening access to ancestral, land-based, and culturally rooted healing resources. In addition to serving as founder & executive director at Healing Together, Ames is a facilitator of Interpersonal Dynamics, aka “T-Groups”, at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Ames is a fellow at the Culture of Health Leadership Institute for Racial Healing and is a newfound land steward and food grower in the Miwok territory of the Central Valley, California.
Sandra Ortiz Diaz is a systems change leader with over 20 years of experience across leadership, social innovation, and transformative practice. Her work is shaped as much by lived experience as by professional pathways. At 18, Sandra migrated from Mexico to Germany, learning to live between cultures and question inherited belief systems. At 23, her work as an international consultant with Dialogue in the Dark—collaborating with blind and visually impaired leaders—offered her another lens on leadership and life, grounding her practice in presence, attentiveness, and humility. Sandra spent 13 years in corporate philanthropy, initially focusing on Latin America before becoming a member of the executive leadership team. During this time, she reclaimed her visceral intelligence—an embodied, intuitive way of knowing—and chose to lead from wholeness rather than adaptation. She actively supports networks she believes in, including the Presencing Institute, where she is a Senior Advisor; OC, where she volunteers as an Ecosystem Integrator and as Europe Chapter Lead t, and at the Wasan Network, where she serves as Steward.
Katia Dumont is a cultural anthropologist and ecosystem weaver with more than 15 years of international experience in community building, regenerative systems change, leadership, philanthropy and socioeconomic development. She specialises in strategy, facilitation, community infrastructures, experience design, and knowledge and learning models that support collective action and long-term transformation.
Katia is a natural connector who brings a deep understanding of human behaviour, power dynamics, and cultural narratives to her work across sectors and regions. She designs and facilitates brave, inclusive spaces that build trust, shift mindsets, and reconnect fragmented systems.
Daniel Wolpert is a healer and student of the spiritual life. Co-founder of the Minnesota Institute of Contemplation and Healing, he has taught in the fields of psychology and spiritual formation in numerous settings around the world. A writer, pastor, and a spiritual director, he has also played key roles in developing environments for contemplation and spiritual leadership, helping to build or restore monasteries, theological schools, and retreat centers across North America. Author of multiple books on the spiritual life, his most recent work is “Looking Inward, Living Outward: The Spiritual Practice of Social Transformation” (Upper Room 2024).
Nichol Chase is an educator, program leader, and thought leader at the intersection of contemplative wisdom, resilience science, and trauma-informed care. With over 15 years of experience, she has developed and led faculty training, research-backed programs, and large-scale initiatives that equip professionals in high-stress environments with practical, evidence-based tools for well-being. With a background as an opera singer and ballerina, Nichol brings a multidimensional and artistic approach to healing and resilience. As the Founder & Director of Educational Programming at the Wisdom Building Method School, Nichol has designed a trauma-informed 300-hour Advanced Yoga Teacher Training, integrating somatic experiencing, polyvagal theory, and interpersonal neurobiology into resilience-based movement, music and mindfulness practices. She has worked extensively with Garrison Institute’s Contemplative-Based Resilience (CBR) Program, UCSF’s Climate Resilience Course, and institutions such as Esalen and Kripalu.
Dr. Patty Ramirez is a transnational social worker, healing-centered facilitator, and founder of KLBRI, a grassroots organization devoted to cultivating ecosystems of care, cultural memory, and collective well-being. A Xicana Indígena and Salvadoran daughter of diaspora, she walks with the medicine of her ancestors, weaving sacred traditions with liberatory practice. For over 15 years, she has guided trauma-informed pathways for justice-impacted families, trained hundreds in the Xinachtli rites of passage, and shaped healing-centered strategies across California and beyond. Her work spans immigrant justice, violence prevention, racial healing, and organizational strategy rooted in wellness and healing justice.
Bianca Marks has been working with people and organizations committed to social change for nearly 20 years—building programs, strengthening networks, and creating spaces for learning and collaboration. She has worked as an educator, consultant and NGO professional. In her current role, she supports a global alliance of over 1,000 organizations, strengthening networks, designing participatory processes and strengthening long-term collaboration. Her work bridges inner and outer transformation and is grounded in a deep contemplative practice, including several years in intentional spiritual community.
Claudia Horwitz has 25 years of experience in leadership, community organizing and movement-building. She serves on the Leadership Development faculty for the Annie E. Casey Foundation; since October 7th 2023, she has been doing increased support for multiple organizations and leaders in the Jewish Left. Claudia founded stone circles, which sustained activists and the work for justice through spiritual practice; the organization ran The Stone House on 70 acres in North Carolina. Claudia founded Rise Up, an initiative to strengthen Jewish social justice work. She is the author of The Spiritual Activist: Practices to Transform Your Life, Your Work and Your World (Penguin Compass 2002) and numerous articles.
cathy-mae karelse hails from South Africa, with strong cosmic roots. A scholar-practitioner with a PhD in Religions and Philosophy from SOAS University of London, she is a changemaker focused on equity, belonging and liberation. Her deep systems change work composts and decentres underlying social norms and narratives that keep institutionalised and systemic discrimination in place, opening hearts to freedom. cathy-mae is the Climate Youth Resilience Global Lead and collaborates on various policy, change and peace programs. As author of Disrupting White Mindfulness: Race and Racism in the Wellbeing Industry, she foregrounds global South, Indigenous, and queer knowledges in worldmaking.
Ishwar Bridgelal works to uplift the psychosocial health of immigrant-origin and especially Indo-Caribbean families. As a doctoral candidate in educational psychology at Temple University, he studies the identity exploration of immigrant-origin college students who have experienced complex trauma. He applies his trauma-informed lens to social activism through the Hindu organizations Sadhana and Hindus for Human Rights. As a Fellow for the 2025-26 Civic Leadership Academy at the Interfaith Center of New York, and in partnership with South Queens Women’s March, he is developing “Desi Dad Diploma,” an educational and care space for new South Asian fathers. His progressive faith tradition honors Shakti, the energy driving individual and collective transformation, and he ultimately aligns his work with the cause of post-traumatic liberation. He is a native of Trinidad, a descendant of Indian indentured laborers, and a devotee at the Shri Shakti Mariammaa Temple in Ozone Park, Queens.
Adam Sher is a founding board member of Ayin Press, which recently published philosopher Bayo Akomolafe’s Selah — a project he conceived and midwifed into being through years of collaboration. Alongside Rabbi Nate DeGroot at The Shalom Center, he helped steward the organization’s turn toward Jewish Postactivism — a practice of prophetic witness in the lineage of Rabbi Arthur Waskow that treats the refusal of urgency as a form of moral seriousness. For over two decades, he has served Adamah — whose name holds two Hebrew words at once, adam (human) and adamah (earth), inseparably — most recently as Chief Strategy and Advancement Officer, and earlier as director of Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center, a crucible of cultural transformation where the framework of People, Planet, and Purpose first took root.
Holly Rogers, M.D. is a psychiatrist, mindfulness teacher, and author. She is the co-founder of the Mindfulness Institute for Emerging Adults (formerly the Center for Koru Mindfulness), an agency dedicated to developing and delivering mindfulness programs on higher education campuses in the US and abroad. Holly worked as a psychiatrist at the student counseling center at Duke University for 23 years. She is the co-author with Margaret Maytan of Mindfulness for the Next Generation: Helping Emerging Adults Manage Stress and Lead Healthier Lives. Her latest book, The Mindful Twenty-Something, is a guide for young adults who wish to learn about using mindfulness and meditation to enhance their journey through emerging adulthood.
Libby Webb is a co-founder of The Mindfulness Institute for Emerging Adults(MIEA), formerly The Center for Koru Mindfulness. Prior to her work at MIEA, Libby worked at Duke University’s Counseling and Psychological Services, as a Clinical Social Worker and Associate Director. Libby came to the practice of mindfulness through her early participation in the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Program. Her meditation practice is centered in the Vipassana tradition. In addition to her interest in mindfulness, she also has a strong belief in the restorative benefits of working together within and across communities to illuminate the humanness of struggle.
Jessica Dibb is the author of Breathwork and Psychotherapy: Clinical Applications for Healing and Transformation, the founding director of Inspiration Consciousness School, and the founding co-director of the Global Professional Breathwork Alliance. Jessica synthesizes Integrative Breathing, depth psychology, consciousness studies, interpersonal neurobiology, science, individualized spirituality, the enneagram, and somatic, emotional, and cognitive energy for supporting potential, presence, wisdom, and love—in relationship with all life and this breathing planet.
Chun Dong is the founder of two foundations, Intelli Alliance Foundation and Atrium Legacy Foundation. Intelli Alliance Foundation focuses on cultivating people’s inner joy and peacefulness through events and retreats, education curriculums, and personal transformation programs. Atrium Legacy Foundation focuses on empowering communities by installing social values, supporting holistic wellness, and creating sustainable futures through four initiatives: Holistic Aging, Empathy Education, Resilient Housing and Global Harvest.
ACCOMMODATIONS
There are Single, Double and Dorm rooms available. Please note, there is no available guest elevator and all rooms are accessible by stairs—except for those reserved for the mobility-impaired on the first floor. There are two communal bathrooms on each residential floor as well as a comfortable lounge with sofas and easy chairs, where tea and instant coffee are available. The lounges also are equipped with wireless, high-speed internet connection. There are several local hotels within driving distance from the Institute, for those who wish to stay off-site, as commuters. Onsite meals are included with commuter registrations.