Join Commonweal Cancer Help Program alumna Sue Mondello with Host Michael Lerner as they explore her hospice experience and the view from the edge of life.
Part of the CancerChoices Series
Join us for a conversation with CNS Host Steve Heilig and Dr. Anna O’Malley—both public health experts and music lovers—for a conversation about how creative play, including music-making and dancing, is soul medicine and builds individual and community resilience. This conversation took place live at the Commonweal Open House.
Join Host Christine Luckasavitch with Māori artist, designer, activist, and researcher Tanya Te Miringa Te Rorarangi Ruka for a conversation about storytelling, community building, working alongside our plant relatives, and Indigenous futurisms.
Part of the What Stories Does the Land Hold? Series
Join Host Michael Lerner for another series of spiritual biography conversations with social activist and community leader Orland Bishop. Together, they look at his life and work, working from his book, The Seventh Shrine: Meditations on the African Spiritual Journey from the Middle Passage to the Mountaintop.
Part of the Spiritual Biography Series
Let’s make love our way of life. Rachel Naomi Remen, MD, and Karen Drucker will share songs and stories about living from the heart.
Part of the Art and Healing Series
Join Host Steve Heilig for a conversation with Dr. Linda Birnbaum and Dr. Ami Zota, two innovative leaders in efforts to promote environmental health and justice in the United States.
Bringing with her the traditional Aboriginal practices of dadirri—a sacred practice of deep listening, reflection, stillness and connection to the land—and yarning—a conversational practice used by indigenous Australians to share knowledge, stories, and culture, Dr. Catherine Olweny offers another pathway to Mastering the Art of Being. Cultivating this presence is a gift she found in her own life, one she shares with other clinicians, and one we can learn from as well. Follow along with Commonweal New School’s Summer 2026 Visiting Scholar Catherine Olweny journey as resident through her writings, podcasts, and exercises gathered during her visit.

One of our most beloved voices, Rachel Naomi Remen, died August 8, 2026. We offer this course in honor of her presence, which will be greatly missed. Rachel spent a lifetime at the threshold between medicine and mystery. This course gathers recordings from her decades at Commonweal New School, inviting you to sit with her not as a distant authority but as a companion—someone who spent her life listening closely to what it means to be human.
More than 40 years ago, long before integrative cancer care was mainstream, Michael Lerner helped to launch the Commonweal Cancer Help Program. Over the years, he has sat with more than 2,000 souls navigating a cancer diagnosis, learning much about what it means to live—and die—with uncertainty and illness. One insight runs through each experience: cancer can be an invitation to heal our body, mind, and spirit. This course includes some of the most compelling conversations Michael has hosted at Commonweal's New School in recent years that explore whole-person cancer care. Join in Michael's exploration, through his letters and interviews, with integrative oncologists, healers, and patients who are leading the understanding and practice of whole-person cancer care.
Jeanine M. Canty is a visionary scholar whose groundbreaking work illuminates the profound connections between consciousness, thought, and our relationship with the natural world. Her teaching weaves together social justice, ecological wisdom, and transformation. By reading her writings and watching or listening to recordings of her time in residence, you can explore how mind and spirit intersect with ecological healing in your own life.
Let us know how to get back to you.