Leading Through the Polycrisis: Healing, Resilience, and the Future of Environmental Health and Justice
Some leaders have said we are the first generation to understand the full dimensions of the climate crisis and the last generation to do something about it. As leaders, how can we hold the polycrisis without being crushed by the enormity of the personal, political and planetary challenges? Join Host Michael Lerner for a conversation with Gary Cohen, Annie Leonard, and Brandi Jenkins about the long road that has brought the environmental health and justice movement to where we are in this moment.
Invitation to Evolving in the Wonderment
What happens when you write one poem a day for 20 years? In this invitation to Evolving in the Wonderment, Winter Visiting Scholar Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer shares her journey with the simple every day, with the writing process, and her dance with grief, love, community, and joy. Follow her journey as a Commonweal New School resident through our events and workshops with her, coming in January 2027.
Quiet Reflection in Community: My Residency at Commonweal
In this short article, Visiting Scholar Catherine Olweny reflects on her residency at Commonweal New School.
Explore the Art of Being with Visiting Scholar Catherine Olweny
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.
Re-Dreaming Healing through Narrative and Story
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—Catherine Olweny talks about ways that art and narrative techniques allow difficult experiences to be shared.
Tending Our Future: Spirituality, Service, and the Art of Healing
Known for bringing loneliness and social connection into the national conversation, former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy joins host Serena Bian at Commonweal’s New School to reflect on the deeper currents beneath his work. Beginning with his spiritual biography, we explore the questions, traditions, and experiences that shaped his understanding of service, healing, and what it means to belong.
Listening to the Land with Visiting Scholar Melissa Nelson
How can a rematriated science address the roots of the polycrisis? Can society move beyond an anthropocentric, male-dominated science to a relational one rooted in justice and care? As an Anishinaabe ecologist and transdisciplinary scholar-activist, Commonweal New School Visiting Scholar Melissa Nelson is working to find ways to return to and revitalize the Indigenous and […]
Invitation to Listening to the Land with Visiting Scholar Melissa Nelson
In this introduction to Listening to the Land, September 2026 Visiting Scholar Melissa Nelson invites us to join her at the edges of experience and inquiry to explore what it means to rematriate science. An Anishinaabe ecologist and transdisciplinary scholar-activist, Melissa proposes that the fragmented thinking characteristic of dominant, patriarchal systems both creates and continues to perpetuate the polycrisis we now face. A solution lies in uplifting the historically marginalized scientific knowledges of women and Indigenous peoples, whose relational approach can bring healing and integration to the roots of an extractive system, transforming it into one that serves justice, life, and the Earth.
Celebration of Life: Rachel Naomi Remen
Join us in celebrating the life of one of Commonweal’s most beloved voices: Rachel Naomi Remen, MD. Rachel was a pioneer and influential leader in the field of healing and integrative medicine. She was co-founder and medical director of the Commonweal Cancer Help Program, which she helped build alongside Commonweal co-founder Michael Lerner, and which was featured in Bill Moyers’ landmark PBS series Healing and the Mind.