The Kerulos Center for Nonviolence

Living One 2024

What's Ours To Do?

Series One

This season, Living One asks our guests “What is ours to do?”.

Since 2018, Living One has asked the question: “We know what wrong looks like, but what does right look like? Most importantly, how do we get from wrong to right? When there is so much to change and heal, where do we begin? What’s the first step? What is the path each of us can undertake to make positive, deep, transformative change, not only as individuals, but as a collective whole?  Let’s talk about it!

This year, Living One hosts and hears from individuals who have forged a range of unique and inspiring paths to help transform and heal Earth, Animals, and human society. Join us for another year of rich conversations to learn how, individually and in community, we can make the necessary, concrete, timely steps towards a “right” world – a world of peace and wellness for all Earth Beings.

Tiant Mitchell is a Psychology Department Peer Assistant in a State Prison in Western Pennsylvania where he teaches cognitive behavior therapy-based classes and Suicide Prevention. He is the author of several book and associated programs including Felons-R-Fathers2: Parenting Outreach Program and Fatherhood Training System, The Correctional Solutions Institute, and Freedom Consultation Group, LLC. which he developed while in prison to train other incarcerated fathers how to be exceptional fathers from prison.

Pennsylvania Consortium for Higher Education in Prisons (PA CHEP) Presentation

Betty J. Kovacs, PhD received her doctorate from the University of California, Irvine, in Comparative Literature and Theory of Symbolic/Mythic Language. She taught Mythology and Fairy Tales as literary structures that reveal the organizing principles of human development, as well as Comparative Literature and Writing. She served many years as Chair and Program Chair on the Board of Directors of the Jung Society of Claremont in California and sits on the Academic Advisory Board of Forever Family Foundation. Among her numerous other publications, She is the author of Merchants of Light: The Consciousness That Is Changing the World and The Miracle of Death: There Is Nothing But Life.

Dr. Sandra L. Bloom is a Board-Certified psychiatrist, graduate of Temple University School of Medicine and currently Associate Professor of Health Management and Policy at the Dornsife School of Public Health at Drexel University. She is an author or co-author of a series of books on trauma-informed care, is Past-President of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, and Founder and immediate Past-President of The Campaign for Trauma-Informed Policy and Practice (CTIPP). From 1980-2001, Dr. Bloom served as Founder and Executive Director of the Sanctuary programs, inpatient psychiatric programs for the treatment of trauma-related emotional disorders, and during those years was also President of the Alliance for Creative Development, a multidisciplinary outpatient practice group. Dr. Bloom is recognized nationally and internationally as the founder of the Sanctuary Model. In extending her work to include an online delivery program called Creating Presence, Dr. Bloom makes the innovative approach to service delivery known as “trauma-informed” and “trauma-responsive” more available and cost effective.

David Michelson is one of the chief petitioners for Initiative Petition 28 (IP28), a proposed ballot measure for the Oregon 2026 election that would ask voters if they are ready to end the slaughter, hunting, and experimentation of animals statewide. Inspired by prior social movements, David believes that bringing the question of animal liberation to the ballot will help stimulate a radical transformation in how we collectively view the animals currently exempt from the same legal protections granted to our companions. David began working on building the foundations for this campaign in 2020, after recognizing the untapped potential of ballot initiatives to accelerate the animal rights movement. David’s activism is informed by his practice of Nonviolent Communication and participation in the Plum Village community of engaged Buddhism.

Liza is on a mission to help people discover and express their unique proposition, personally and professionally, for greater impact to themselves and others. She covers the mind-body-spirit movement as editor of Mindstream.world and host of The Mindstream Podcast, and provides strategic communications for the holistic wellbeing, spirituality and consciousness sector through her consultancy, Mindstream Ventures. She chairs the Frontier Journalists’ Network, which is devoted to helping the press cover topics surrounding the mysteries of human phenomena. Her latest endeavor is a new podcast, Express Yourself with Authenticity. Liza earned her Master of Science degree in strategic communications at Columbia University, and her B.A. in sociology with journalism at Mount Saint Mary’s University in Maryland. Liza is an American living in Edinburgh, Scotland. Learn more about all her projects at LizaHoran.com.
Kristin Flyntz is an assistant editor of Dark Matter: Women Witnessing, an online journal that publishes writing and visual art created in response to an age of massive species loss and ecological collapse. Her writing has been published in Dark Matter: Women Witnessing, Cloud Women’s Dream Journal, The Pivot: Addressing Global Problems Through Local Action, and The Corona Transmissions: Alternatives for Engaging with COVID-19—from the Physical to the Metaphysical. By day, she is a marketing executive for a retirement services organization, where she leads an editorial content team. She lives in northern Connecticut on undeeded land of the Algonkian Peoples with her musician husband and their feline teachers and companions, Ophelia and Zoe.
Paul Moss has an undergraduate degree in biology and masters degrees in agronomy and marketing. He is currently a PhD candidate in the Department of Geography, Environment & Society at the University of Minnesota. Paul is cofounder and executive director of The Plant Initiative, a nonprofit organization working to increase respect for plants, and has also served as executive director of the Minnesota-based grantmaking Cottonwood Foundation since 1992. He worked as a planner and program coordinator for a State of Minnesota environmental agency for 28 years on issues related to community sustainability and climate adaptation, and had previous experience as a marketing manager with a large food company. Paul has a strong commitment to increasing respectful treatment of plants and is interested in plant ethics, plant rights and plant liberation.
 
Check out Gay’s appearance on The Plant Initiative’s podcast here!
Chris Agnos is the co-founder of Sustainable Human, a non-profit organization dedicated to evolving human consciousness through video storytelling. When Chris became aware of the many crises facing humanity, he discovered that there are hidden forces guiding humanity, both individually and collectively. Those forces are stories. Chris realized that the best way to change the world was to help people become aware of their story and the impact it has on their lives. Along with his wife and co-founder of Sustainable Human, Dawn Agnos, Chris has created hundreds of video stories along the themes of economics, the natural world, human development and trauma. He is currently writing a book entitled The People’s Library, which offers a new economic story for humanity.
Dr. Lynn Rogers is the founder of the North American Bear Center located in Ely, Minnesota. He received his doctorate in ecology and behavioral biology at the University of Minnesota. Lynn has spent more than fifty years studying wildlife behavior and ecology, focusing on Black Bears. His Bear work has ranked as one of the five major studies of large mammals in the world and is one of the longest conducted with a single species. For close to two decades his research has centered on the more than two hundred Bears who live around the Center. As a result, he has developed many deep, long lasting relationships with Bears and is an accepted member of their community. This dedication has dispelled the myth of Bears as ferocious and dangerous beings. Dr. Roger’s work has indisputably demonstrated the complex intelligence, emotions, empathy, culture, and gentle nature of Bears. Lynn lectures widely, serves as a scientific consultant internationally, and is the focus of numerous documentaries including thirteen BBC-TV programs. Every year, thousands of visitors from around the world visit the Center to learn about who Bears really are.

Plant Voices: Guides to Understanding Nonviolent Living

Special Living One Series

This year, in collaboration with The Plant Initiative, we start off with a special series, Plant Voices: Guides to Understanding Nonviolent Living. 

Through the month of May, we hear five speakers reflect on: What Plants can teach us about nonviolent living; how Plant sentience affects and informs Plant-based living; and ways to model and maintain Nature nonviolence as Plant-based consumers.

Professor Edward Casey, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Stony Brook University, was the president of the American Philosophical Association (Eastern Division) from 2009-10, and he was chairman of the Philosophy Department at Stony Brook University for a decade.
Issy is an Independent Researcher who has written and presented on non-human animal cultures and relationships with the more-than-human. She is particularly interested in autonomous (wild) Animals and Plants. She enjoys sitting with Trees (and other non-human beings), being receptive to the wisdoms that can arise from an open-minded connection with the more-than-human. Her work embraces the factual and scientific, the theoretical and ethical and the speculative and imaginal. She works as a Broadcast Journalist (covering sport) and volunteers for various conservation organisations in her home country, the UK. Some of her stunning artwork and writing can be viewed here. https://www.coronaandthecrone.com/blog
László Nemes is a Hungarian philosopher, bioethicist (certified), and philosophical practitioner living in Budapest, Hungary. He holds a PhD in philosophy. László integrates bioethics and environmental and medical humanities with philosophical practice. Over the past 15 years, he has organized more than 500 public philosophy events—philosophical cafés.
Dr. Will Tuttle is author of the international best-seller, The World Peace Diet, published in 18 languages. A recipient of the Courage of Conscience Award and the Empty Cages Prize, he is also the author of several other books on spirituality, intuition, and social justice, as well as the creator of online wellness and advocacy programs.
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The Kerulos Center for Nonviolence

PO Box 1446
Jacksonville, OR
97530

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