Kerri Kelly, Founder, CTZNWELL, Rabbi Nate DeGroot, Director, The Shalom Center, and Eddie Harris, Co-Founder, commonplace
In this experimental session, we will explore what it looks like to practice new worlds and live into the future we long for now. This inquiry calls us to interrupt the patterns that keep us bound to the old world – habits of domination, extraction, disconnection – and choose something different. By embodying new ways of being, relating, and organizing, we can begin to live into a world not yet born, breaking cycles of harm and rehearsing possibilities of justice, care, and liberation.
Some of the questions we will live into are:
- How do we practice change in real time?
- What are the immersive rituals, practices, relationships, conditions that allow us to build capacities for new ways of being, relating, dreaming and doing?
- What are the containers and practices that allow us to expand our capacity for discomfort, move beyond conditioned responses and move differently?
- How do we hold the paradox of living into new worlds while we are still deeply steeped in the current one?
- How do we build spiritual resilience without falling vulnerable to spiritual bypass?
- Who are we accountable to and how do we practice accountability together?
- How did we come to accept built-in inequality/in-equability, and even celebrate relative more-ness? How do we explode that model to ensure that abundance is the default for everyone?
Zoom links will be emailed within 24 hours of registration. Please contact us at events@garrisoninstitute.org with questions.
HOSTS
Kerri Kelly, Founder, CTZNWELL: Kerri is the founder of CTZNWELL, a movement that is democratizing wellbeing for all. A descendant of generations of firemen and first responders, Kerri has dedicated her life to kicking down doors and fighting for justice. She’s been teaching yoga for over 20 years and is known for making waves in the wellness industry by challenging norms, disrupting systems and mobilizing people to act. A community organizer, wellness activist and author of the book American Detox: The Myth of Wellness and How We Can Truly Heal, Kerri is recognized across communities for her inspired work to bridge transformational practice with social justice. She’s been instrumental in translating the practices of wellbeing into social and political action, working in collaboration with community organizers, spiritual leaders and policy makers to transform our systems from the inside out. Her leadership has inspired a movement that is actively organizing around issues of racial and economic justice, healthcare as a human right, civic engagement and more. Kerri is a student of abolition, anti-racism, ableism and decolonization. She works diligently to dismantle oppression within herself and the systems and culture she is a part of. She works in support and solidarity with BIPOC leaders and organizations to explore how to work across lines of difference to advance equity and build community resilience.
Rabbi Nate DeGroot, Director, The Shalom Center: 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. Ordained at Hebrew College in 2016, Rabbi DeGroot has served as Associate Director, Spiritual & Program Director at Hazon (now Adamah) in Detroit and as a Jewish Emergent Network Rabbinic Fellow at IKAR in Los Angeles, where he had also served as Rabbinic Intern. While in rabbinical school, DeGroot founded a grassroots cooperative Jewish community in Portland, OR, called Mikdash: Portland’s East Side Jewish Cooperative. Nate has served as a facilitator with Encounter, he was a Rabbinical Student Year in Israel Fellow with T’ruah, and he has worked with AJWS, the Amir Project, and more. He has been published in various articles and book chapters, and was an invited speaker at The Chautauqua Institution. Living in Detroit, Michigan with his wife and two kiddos, Nate also serves locally as a part-time congregational rabbi, educator, and service-leader.
Eddie Harris, Co-Founder, commonplace: Eddie 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.