Join Host Cassandra Lynn Ferrera with Rako Fabionar as they share about how they are personally and professionally engaging in place-based liberation work—and how the kinds of wayfinding and inhabited learning they are exploring to grow and deepen kinship might be of service to other place-based and bioregional projects.
Join us for writing, dreaming, and discussion about the earth around us in this culminating event with our 2025 summer visiting scholar Craig Chalquist.
Part of the Visiting Scholar Series
In this conversation with 2025 Summer Visiting Scholar Craig Chalquist, Host Susan Grelock Yusem talks with Craig about how we can approach land with curiosity and how we can work with our imagination to re-envision our relationship with the land all around us.
Part of the Visiting Scholar Series
In this introductory lecture from Summer 2025 Visiting Scholar Craig Chalquist, meet him, and learn how imagination has been used in various traditions as a source of wisdom and change-making. To prepare for this lecture, bring an example of a dream with some aspect of nature in it. What about this dream inspires(d) you? How has that inspiration changed you?
Part of the Archetypal Psychology Series
Join us for conversation and a ritual on the Commonweal land with author and spiritual advisor Yeye Teish and host Cassandra Ferrera, director of Commonweal’s Center for Ethical Land Transition.
Join us for a conversation with author David Sheff about his new biography, Yoko, exploring how Yoko Ono coped under the most intense, relentless, and cynical microscope while being falsely vilified for the most heinous cultural crime imaginable: breaking up the greatest rock-and-roll band in history. Hosted by Steve Heilig.
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.

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.
Jeffrey J. Kripal holds the J. Newton Rayzor Chair in Philosophy and Religious Thought at Rice University. In this ongoing series of conversations, Jeffrey talks with Host Michael Lerner about his body of work—more than 13 groundbreaking books about the mystical and the erotic, the relationship of mind and matter, and parapsychological phenomena. Michael has been reading, talking, and meeting with Jeffrey for more than a year now, immersing himself in the consciousness worldview that Jeffrey presents in his books and teaching. Follow Michael's journey through these conversations.
As a founder of terrapsychology—the study of how the things of the world live in us—The New School’s Spring 2025 Visiting Scholar Craig Chalquist is interested in how imagination, story, and creativity let us tune in on the Greater Conversation unfolding continually around and within us. With the podcasts, videos, writings, and exercises gathered during Craig’s visit, you can join the exploration: growing a more resilient and earth-honoring worldview.
Let us know how to get back to you.