Eternal Song: Echoes of Resilience Across Indigenous Worlds

Zaya Ralitza Benazzo was born and raised in Sofia, Bulgaria. For as long as she can remember, she has been fascinated with exploring life’s big questions. She feels most at home in nature and, increasingly, within herself. Zaya is a producer and film director with engineering, environmental science, and film degrees. For many years, she worked as an environmental activist in Europe. Her deepest passion is bringing together wisdom from spiritual traditions in service of all life. Zaya believes that individual and collective liberation are inextricably interwoven.

Maurizio Benazzo grew up in Italy, and in 1984 came to the United States on a ninety-eight-year-old sailing boat. He started working as an actor, model, and filmmaker, but his thirst for knowledge was only satisfied in 2001 upon encountering I Am That, the seminal work by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, while he was in India shooting the award-winning documentary Short Cut to Nirvana.

Susan Grelock Yusem, PhD leads strategy and innovation at Commonweal, where she’s part of the stewardship team guiding the organization and supporting the 30+ programs that call Commonweal home. A trained depth psychologist and community psychologist with a doctorate from Pacifica Graduate Institute, Susan’s career has unfolded at the forefront of the organic and regenerative food movement, including leadership roles at Patagonia’s regenerative food division and Amy’s Kitchen. She brings together strategic communication, psychological depth, and collaborative leadership, with deep interests in narrative design, radical hospitality, and bringing the sensibilities of depth psychology into everyday life and group settings. Susan lives in Point Reyes Station, California, where you’ll often find her hiking, trail running, writing, cooking, and celebrating the ways we gather and create meaning together.