Awe To Action
a day of exploration & dialogue

Presenters include:

JOHN PERRY BARLOW, co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, was the first to apply the term cyberspace to the "place" it presently describes. He has written for a diversity of publications, including Mondo 2000, The New York Times, and Time. His piece on the future of copyright, "The Economy of Ideas," is taught in many law schools, and his "Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace" is posted on thousands of websites. In 1997, he was a Fellow at Harvard's Institute of Politics and has been, since 1998, a Berkman Fellow at the Harvard Law School. In 1999, FutureBanker Magazine named him "One of the 25 Most Influential People in Financial Services."

BRIAN BEHLENDORF is Chief Technology Officer at CollabNet, a company he co-founded in 1999 to develop tools for enabling collaborative, open-source software development. Behlendorf was a primary developer of the Apache Web server, the most popular web server software on the Internet, and a founding member of the Apache Group, which later became the Apache Software Foundation. Behlendorf served as President of the Foundation for three years, and remains on its Board of Directors. More on Brian Behlendorf...

DEIRDRE CANDELARIA is a co-founder of SpiralMuse, an organization connecting and inspiring women as community. Involved in creating and leading Women's Circles and transformational courses, Deirdre is dedicated to women's leadership and growth. With a background in community building, events, arts, dance, healing, and BA in pre-physical therapy, Deirdre has been living in the Bay Area for more than a decade and is passionate about bringing peace into the world and creating a global network of women leaders.

JERRY CANDELARIA is a co-founder and executive director of the Arete Center for Excellence, as well as a dynamic community leader and personal coach/consultant. He has over 16 years of personal growth and development training through several of the world's leading-edge transformational organizations. For the last 10 years, Jerry has brought his expertise in leadership and community development forward in creating and supporting several intentional communities. His commitment to the individual, communities and the world has contributed to the lives of thousands of people. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and two children. .

ERIK DAVIS is an author, journalist, and performance lecturer living in San Francisco. He wrote the book TechGnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information, which has been translated into six languages. He is a contributing writer for Wired, and his award-winning journalism has appeared in publications including BookForum, Salon, The LA Weekly and The Village Voice. His essays enliven various collections, including Prefiguring Cyberculture, Zig Zag Zen:Psychedelics and Buddhism, De Capo Best Music Writing 2002, and War of the Words. He has taught courses at CIIS, Esalen, and the New York Open Center, and lectures internationally on media culture, music, and spirituality in the contemporary world.

SISTER CHANDRU DESAI is the Director of the San Francisco Brahma Kumaris Meditation Center and Vice President of the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual Organization, USA. From 1988 to 1990, she was Regional Coordinator for North America in the worldwide Global Cooperation for a Better World project. The project, a Peace Messenger Initiative dedicated to the United Nations, was conducted by the Brahma Kumaris in close affiliation with the UN’s Peace Studies Unit. A teacher and practitioner of Raja Yoga meditation for nearly four decades, Sister Chandru is a founding member of the United Religions Initiative, the San Francisco Interfaith Council, and the Interfaith Center at the Presidio.

GUSTAVO DUARTE has been improvising and leading improv workshops for ten years. He is a life coach and workshop leader for the Arete Center for Excellence. His mission in life is to make transformation and personal empowerment accessible to everyone by playing games and having fun, so that life and all growth within it turns into an infinite adventure of awe and enjoyment.

HARLEY K. DUBOIS is Director of Community Services for Burning Man. It is Harley's job to put her ear to the ground, listen to what participants want, and make it happen. Her responsibilities include placing all services, camps and villages, managing the volunteer process, and overseeing Playa Information Services, Greeters, Burning Man Recycling, Earth Guardians, the Lamplighters, the Rangers, the Gate and Perimeter, and the Emergency Services Department. She enjoys using her creative problem solving skills in an environment typically steeped with bureaucracy and tradition. Harley hopes to someday return to her first love, oil painting, but for now, Burning Man is her canvas.  

MARCELLA EVERSOLE, also a co-founder of SpiralMuse, is an experienced grassroots organizer and slightly disillusioned progressive activist. Passionate about bringing women together to fulfill common visions, Marcella has dedicated herself to numerous projects involving community technology and women.

DOROTHY FADIMAN has been producing award-winning documentary media with an emphasis on the power of the human spirit since 1976. Subjects range widely from the light of spirit as illumination (RADIANCE: The Experience of Light,) to progressive education that honors children’s natural knowing (WHY DO THESE KIDS LOVE SCHOOL?) to a miraculous healing for a woman with spinal cord injury (MOMENT by MOMENT: The Healing Journey of Molly Hale). Dorothy has taken a special interest in producing films which reflect the emerging power of the feminine through focusing on female health and women’s rights. Among her honors are an Academy Award nomination, an Emmy Award, and the Gold Medal from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. She is currently writing a book entitled, Producing with Passion: Making Films that Change the World.

JAMES FADIMAN, Ph.D. is a prominent figure in the field of humanistic psychology and consciousness studies, a longtime student of Sufism, and distinguished author of such books as Essential Sufism, Personality and Personal Growth, and the popular novel, The Other Side of Haight. He is the past president of the Association for Transpersonal Psychology, past president of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, and co-founder of the Institute for Transpersonal Psychology. He recently hosted the inaugural Be The Change event in London which brought together individuals and organizations at the forefront of finance, politics and science to explore the means of achieving true and effective systemic change in the world. .

COLETTE FLEURIDAS, PhD is a professor and former director of the Graduate Counseling Program at Saint Mary's College. Her research and clinical interests include the interface of spirituality and counseling; familial, social and natural environments that promote personal and social wellness; and the impact of gender, culture, class and spiritual/religious issues on psychological development. Her current research is exploring the value and importance of people‚s spiritual or religious beliefs, practices and experiences and can be seen (and participated in) at http://www.spiritresearch.org

MARIAN GOODELL is the voice of Burning Man. She communicates to participants through the Jackrabbit Speaks internet newsletter, and oversees information dissemination through the Black Rock Gazette, the Burning Man Journal paper-based newsletter, Survival Guide, and What Where When on-site events guide, and works with developing technology and communications tools with the web, extranet, and other tech teams. She oversees Media Mecca, interfaces with the press, and is heavily involved in government relations. In addition, she manages all legal and business and accounting aspects of the project. More on Marian Goodell...

ANDIE GRACE, whose own mother sometimes even calls her "Actiongrl," is the guest who comes to your party and does dishes and empties the ashtrays — so it was only logical that she found her way to the staff of Burning Man, after attending the event for the first time in 1997. Her widely varied role as Communications Manager includes wrangling legal and media-related issues, helping to manage Media Mecca, helping to coordinate the Regional Network, and writing — including the weekly Burning Man newsletter, The Jack Rabbit Speaks. Prior to joining Burning Man, she was an incorrigible dilettante, working in fields ranging from advertising to house painting to English tutoring to caring for emotionally disturbed children. Her spare time has recently been devoted to producing independent film.

LARRY HARVEY is the Founder and Executive Director of the Burning Man Project. He serves as chairman of Burning Man's senior staff and Black Rock City LLC. He also co-chairs the organization's Art Department, scripts and co-curates Burning Man's annual art theme, and collaborates with artists in creating the art theme and design of Black Rock City. As spokesperson for Burning Man, he is frequently interviewed, and he has lectured on subjects as diverse as art, religion, civic planning and the rise of cyber-culture in the era of the Internet. Larry is also a political planner. He supervises the organization's lobbying efforts and frequently attends meetings with state, county, and federal agencies. More on Larry Harvey...

RALPH HOOD, Ph.D. is a social psychologist at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. He has published over 150 articles, many on the topic of religious experience. He is past president of Division 36 (Psychology of Religion) of the American Psychological Association and a recipient of its William James Award for research in the psychology of religion. Formerly editor of the International Journal for the Psychology of Religion and the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, he is currently co-editor of the Archiv fur Religionpsychologie. He co-authored with Peter Hill Measures of Religiosity. He is a co-author of The Psychology of Religion (3rd. edition), and editor and contributor to The Handbook of Religious Experience.

MUSHIM IKEDA-NASH is a community peace activist, writer, diversity facilitator, and mother of a teenage son. She has done both monastic and lay Zen Buddhist practice over the past twenty years, in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and S. Korea. A consulting editor to Turning Wheel: The Journal of Socially Engaged Buddhism, she also contributes a quarterly column on family life and Buddhist practice, and her poetry and essays have been published widely. Mushim was coeditor of Making the Invisible Visible: Healing Racism in Our Buddhist Communities, and she currently serves as chair of the San Francisco Zen Center Board Committee on Diversity and Multiculturalism. A past board member of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, Mushim lives in Oakland with her family, and volunteers as a literacy teacher in the Oakland public high school her son attends.

ROBERT JESSE serves as chairman of the Council on Spiritual Practices, a collaboration among spiritual guides, experts in the behavioral and biomedical sciences, and scholars of religion. CSP encourages dialogue and sponsors scientific research on approaches to primary religious experience and conditions that help channel such experiences into favorable long-term outcomes. Jesse led the drafting of CSP's Code of Ethics for Spiritual Guides. He also serves as a co-chair of the UCLA Working Group on Awe-inspiring Experiences and is a founding member of the Rhythm Society. An engineer by training, Jesse formerly worked in software development.

DACHER KELTNER , Ph.D. received his B.A. in Psychology and Sociology from UC Santa Barbara in 1984 and his Ph.D. in Social Psychology from Stanford University in 1989. His research focuses on the biological and evolutionary origins of benevolence, with a special concentration on compassion, awe, love, and beauty, as well as the study of power and morality. Keltner has received numerous national prizes and grants for his research, and has been a research fellow and visiting scholar at Oxford University. Keltner is currently a Professor of Psychology at UC Berkeley, and Director of the Berkeley Center for the Development of Peace and Well-being.

MARK KLEIMAN is Professor of Policy Studies in UCLA's School of Public Policy and Social Research and a co-chair of the UCLA Working Group on Awe-inspiring experiences. His teaching and research cover drug policy, crime control policy, theories of imperfect rationality, and methods of policy analysis. Before entering academic life, he worked on Capitol Hill, as Special Assistant to Edwin Land at Polaroid, as Deputy Director of Management and Budget for the City of Boston, and as Director of Policy and Management Analysis for the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. Before moving to UCLA, he taught at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, where he received his Master's and Ph.D. degrees in public policy.

JACQUELINE LASAHN is an intuitive astrologer and ritualist who has created and contained sacred space for hundreds of ceremonies and rituals since 1981. Co-founder of Temple of Living Prayer, a California non-profit, Jacqueline served as minister for over 10 years and, as a healer, participated in a nationally funded study through the California Pacific Medical Center examining the power of prayer in healing advanced AIDS patients. She was also astrologer in residence at Wilbur Hot Springs for 2 1/2 years. She writes the popular AstroFlash, a bi-weekly newsletter and cosmic tidbit of astropoetic perspective www.AstroSpirit.com.

AARON S. PAVA is a technology project developer and campaign consultant committed to the transformation of politics through innovative and pioneering technologies. He is the co-founder of Raise The Frequency, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that develops programs and services for the advancement of the arts within communities. For 10 years, Aaron has been coaching and facilitating workshops, creating extraordinary opportunities for men and women to deepen relationships, accomplish personal goals, and discover their authentic passions. As a former IT manager and consultant, Aaron has brought his deep understanding of technology tools and advocacy into the political arena for both local and national campaigns.

IAN RHETT is committed to doing whatever he can to love, serve and inspire anyone who'll listen to accept themselves as being whole and complete and to live to their fullest expression, accepting their mistakes and failures as gifts and valuable lessons and to live compassionately. And he tries like hell to take his own advice. His background is too diverse to provide any real relevant connection to why he took on the role of Program Director. He's just super glad he did, and that you're reading about the conference in the first place.

WILSON RILES is President of Oakland C.A.N. (Community Action Network) and a Principal in Seven Generations Consulting. He works with communities, organizations and congregations to build and sustain neighborhood community power in Oakland through continuous engagement with the issues that are important to the residents of each community. Wilson served for 13 years as a member of the Oakland City Council, and for 10 years as Regional Director of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). AFSC works towards achieving a world without weapons, and supports programs addressing such diverse issues as US policy in the Middle East, and policy with regard to farm-workers, the homeless, the criminal justice system, and Native American, Asian Pacific, and African American communities.

REV. BAVI EDNA "NEDI" RIVERA : recently elected as a Bishop to the Diocese of Olympia in western Washington, Nedi is the first Hispanic woman bishop and only the 12th woman bishop in the history of the Anglican church. Nedi is the daughter of Victor Manuel Rivera who served as the Bishop of San Joaquin, Calif., from 1968 to 1988. She is presently serving as rector of St. Aidan’s Episcopal Church in San Francisco. She was ordained a priest in 1979.

NEAL ROGIN is an award winning writer, author and social observer whose work has reached millions of people around the world. Throughout his career he has demonstrated a unique ability to conceive and communicate ideas that move people to action and change the way they think. His film, entitled “Burning Down Tomorrow,” was nominated for an Academy Award and he received a National Emmy Award for his work on “Spaceship Earth,” a half-hour television special for teen-agers. Neal also serves as the director of communications for The Pachamama Alliance, a non-profit partnership between people from the modern world and indigenous people who call the rainforest their home.

GUY SENSTOCK is a co-founder and president of  the Arete Center for Excellence.  He is a recognized as a powerful course leader, personal coach/trainer, artist, author and philosopher.  Guy has over 15 years experience in leading people in having healthier, richer and more fulfilling lives.  His unique ability to provide perspectives and insights has made a profound difference in the lives of  hundreds of people. The cornerstone of his work is a deep commitment to Openness, Truth and Beauty. Guy holds a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and is currently living in the San Francisco Bay area with his wife and three children. http://www.aretecenter.com

HUSTON SMITH, holder of twelve honorary degrees, is an internationally recognized philosopher and scholar of religion. His book The World's Religions has been the most widely-used textbook on its subject for a third of a century, selling over two and a half million copies worldwide.  In 1996, Bill Moyers devoted a 5-part PBS special to Smith's life and work, "The Wisdom of Faith with Huston Smith."  Smith has produced three series for public television: "The Religions of Man," "The Search for America," and (with Arthur Compton) "Science and Human Responsibility."  More on Huston Smith...

STUART SOVATSKY, Ph.D. (B.A. Religion, Princeton; Ph.D. Psychology, California Institute of Integral Studies) - one of the planners of this event, is Co-President of the Association for Transpersonal Psychology, a CIIS trustee and faculty member, co-convener with Robert Thurman of the 2001 Infinity Foundation Roundtable on Indic Thought, convenor of the first International Prison-Yoga Conference, and author of "Words From the Soul: Time, East/West Spirituality and Psychotherpeutic Narrative", "Eros, Consciousness, and Kundalini", "Euro-Hinduism" in The Columbia University Desk Companion on Eastern Religions, and articles on suicidal linguistics, Buddhist impermanence, and overwhelming awe in infants. He has trained for 30 years in pre-classical Indian chanting with numerous performances in the US with Axis Mundi and in India. A therapist for 30 years, he is also founding consultant for the $40M GreenCity Development, the largest, greenest residential complex in Northern California.

CHERI SUGAL is a consultant for the creation and financing of parks and protected areas world-wide. Until recently, she was the Executive Director of World Parks, an organization that assists local conservation groups in Latin America to purchase and protect private lands. Before launching World Parks, she was the Senior Director of the Global Conservation Fund at Conservation International.  Cheri has worked with governments and indigenous people in the most remote parts of the world, and has written numerous articles about conservation financing and the regions where she has worked.

KATHY TAFEL enjoys exploring the intersection of art, science, technology, humor, and theology. Raised in a tradition of inquiry inspired by the Swedish mystic Emmanuel Swedenborg, and armed with a B.A. in English from UC Berkeley, Tafel was responsible for introducing the term "Mac addict" into the lexicon while at Imagine Media, designing buttons for the award-winning Deck II program at OSC, a digital audio software company, as well as building MIDI controllers from mouse pads, diodes, phone cords, and a bit of luck as intern for the breakthrough multimedia band D'Cückoo. She currently works for, but does not speak for, apple.com.

ROBERT WALTER is Executive Director of the Joseph Campbell Foundation. In 1979, Bob began to work on several projects with Joseph Campbell, who subsequently named him editorial director of his Historical Atlas of World Mythology. Following Campbell’s death in 1987, he served as literary executor of Campbell’s estate, completing Volumes I and II of the Atlas and supervising its posthumous publication. He continues to oversee the publication of Campbell's oeuvre, including the video series Joseph Campbell's Mythos and the Joseph Campbell Audio Collection. Bob was a founding Trustee of United Religions Initiative (URI) and has served that organization as Treasurer and as a member of its Global Council.

THOMAS WROBEL, JD, cofounder of JustVote.org, is a San Francisco based attorney, specializing in Nonprofit Law.  Tom has been a lifelong student of politics and is an active progressive within the Democratic Party.  Being called to action, he co-founded JustVote.org to help make voting and political participation more accessible to under participating citizens.  In addition to politics, Tom is passionate about community, transformation, and supporting men to live their purpose through involvement in men's circles.
 More about Thomas Wrobel . . .  

RABBI MICHAEL ZIEGLER is a spiritual leader of Shir haShirim Minyan in Berkeley, CA. He lived in India as a Hindu sanyasin and now runs Berkeley's largest yoga studio, "7th  Heaven". He is featured on the acclaimed CD: Tuning the Soul. Michael trained in Buddhist contemplative practices for decades. He is on the Faculty of Naropa and University of Creation   Spirituality. Michael is interested in the sacred expression of collaged spiritual practices in this generation.

Evening Program:

AMMON HAGGERTY inhabits the turntable arts by night and graphic arts by day. He is the MC of the Ferry Boat Vallejo, and goes back to the beginnings of the Rhythm Society. When he spins, you can feel his Cuban roots - from his Gramma Gloria Barado della Cheda, a famous Cuban dancer - that will keep you moving and moving. More about Ammon Haggerty...

TAMAM KAHN may have brought down the first Zikr at Burning Man a couple of years ago, but it's hard to say. Zikr is about Remembrance in Unity, using rhythmic chanting so the breath and heart of the circle of Zakiirs connects. It began with the ancient Sufis and caravaned into the 21st century. Tamam, a poet, and a practitioner of the Zikr for 30 years, is looking to link remembering into the swirl of smooth beats by Ammon, one of her favorite DJs.

MICHAEL LAZAR is a performing video artist/VJ by night, DVD designer and author by day. The name "okeanos" under which he performs comes from the Greek Titan most closely associated with the oceans and rivers of the earth. His visual lexicon frequently incorporates subjects from the ocean world but live performances may be composed using a variety of "found video objects" that tie thematically into the larger context of the events at which he works. He has been a regular video contributor to the dance celebrations of The Rhythm Society, Vision, and Vibrant. More about Michael Lazar...