How Cooperating Contributors find their way to OneEarthU
A personal note from Dennis Rivers, MA, Principal Editor/Librarian, OneEarthU
We live in a time of information flood, in which millions of books, articles, images and music performances are available free of charge to anyone with an internet connection. However, given that the world we live in is seriously falling apart (through war, greed and the climate crisis), that profusion of resources is both a blessing and a problem. Not everything out there will help us to become agents of healing and reconciliation. As a lifelong anti-nuclear activist, I have come to realize that my task in this moment is to find, emphasize, and pass on materials that could help more of us become agents of the healing and reconciliation our world so desperately needs.
In helping to create OneEarthU, I have drawn of the work of two different groups of scholars, activists and artists. The first group includes well-known, heroic individuals such as Gandhi, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Jane Goodall, people whose work is already part of the global conversation about positive change. I have identified this group as “Empowering Ancestors and Contemporary Wisdom Bringers”. I have tried to bring more attention to their work by gathering as much free material about them as I can find, and offering it to the public in easy to download format. Their presence on this website does not mean that they know about, approve, or endorse OneEarthU. (It means that I admire them, not that they admire me.)
The second group consists of “Cooperating Contributors”. These are scholars, activists and artists I have come to know as personal friends in my long journey toward the light of healing. These “Cooperating Contributors” have become part of the OneEarthU circle of peer-to-peer encouragement by making a significant part their work available to everyone free of charge, thus helping to expand the global wisdom commons. In a time of many locked doors, expensive textbooks, exclusionary paywalls and through-the-roof tuitions, they have become companion mentor-learners in that wider circle that includes us all. They offer us their work as material for our lives, as we become deeper peer-to-peer LLEARMERS (Lifelong: Learners ~ Encouragers ~ Activists/creators ~ Researchers ~ Mutual Mentors).
Whenever possible, resources from both of the above groups are distributed as PDF files that are in the Creative Commons, so that they can be used freely by teachers and passed on freely to others by co-learners. Also, we continually scan the world of evolving technologies to find ways to serve people who might otherwise be economically excluded from existing educational processes.
We invite to join us in the quest to widen the circle of global learners-teachers-advocates-supporters of compassionate connectedness:Â ARTICLE: An invitation to Peer Learning for the Great Turning
I N D I V I D U A L S
Carl Anthony, Architect and Climate Justice advocate, author of The Earth, the City and the Hidden Narrative of Race.
Carl Anthony is revered as a social and environmental justice leader. He was the founding director of Urban Habitat, one of the country’s first environmental justice organizations, known for pushing the mainstream environmental movement to confront issues of race and class. With colleague Luke Cole from the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation, he edited and published the Race, Poverty and the Environment Journal, the first environmental justice periodical in the United States.
Rev. Ed Conrad, Minister and Spiritual Friend
As a young man exploring the Transcendentalists, and by extension, the New Thought movement in the United States, Ed Conrad was led to become a Unity minister. After graduating from Unity School for Religious Studies in Unity Village, Missouri (www.unity.org ), Edward served as a Unity minister for 26 years. He was the founding minister of Unity Columbine Spiritual Center in Boulder, Colorado and Unity in the Heart of St. Paul, Minnesota.Â
In the midst of his journey in ministry, Edward created The Heart of God, an interactive 7 week transformational seminar along with The Heart of God weekend workshop, both of which were shared in numerous Unity churches over the years. His ongoing personal and professional in-depth focus on the power and mystery of the heart resulted in him becoming a skillful spiritual teacher and inspiring facilitator of heart-centered groups and retreats.
Meganne Forbes, Visionary Watercolor Artist
Meganne Forbes is a watercolor artist born into a family of artists, musicians, and writers. With a natural inclination towards art, she studied at the University of California at Santa Barbara under the guidance of William Dole, Gary Brown, and Dick Dunlap. For the past 35 years, Meganne has been dedicated to mastering her craft, drawing inspiration from her travels to Bali, Mexico, Spain, and across the United States. Her spiritual journey also influences her work, which aims to heal the world by celebrating the pure, endless, eternal, and divine nature of each individual. Meganne teaches traditional watercolor techniques, shares her knowledge through her DVD and eBook "Enchanting Watercolor," and collaborates on various projects, including illustrations, book covers, and greeting cards. Residing in Carpinteria, California, Meganne finds joy in teaching, giving massage, hiking, dancing, and spending time with friends and family.
Michael Geis, MD, Psychiatrist and Psychotherapist
The videos on this website are my most impassioned discourses on the subject of coming alive. They all reveal my reaching out beyond Psychology to the arts, especially to poets. In this quest I have been deeply influenced by Carl Jung, and the many Jungian thinkers who carried forward his work.
Click here to visit Dr. Michael Geis's page on this website.
Vijali Hamilton, is a visionary artist, sculptor, poet, musician, author, and teacher.
She is the originator of the World Wheel, Global Peace Through the Arts project. This global peace project combines sculptures in living rock to establish sacred sites, community ritual-based theater and Wisdom Centers to address local problems, aspirations and to preserve the indigenous cultures.
Her work includes education, art, spirituality, peace activism, and focuses attention on the awareness of environmental, spiritual, and social problems. The World Wheel is an artistic forum for global awareness. It activates awareness of our interconnection with all life.
David Hartsough, (1940-2025) was a Quaker, a lifelong peace activist, and an author (Waging Peace: Global Adventures of a Lifelong Activist, PM Press). In the course of his life, he organized many peace efforts and worked with nonviolent movements in such far-flung locations as the Soviet Union, Nicaragua, Philippines, and Kosovo. In 1987 he co-founded the Nuremberg Actions cooperative group, blocking munitions trains carrying munitions to Central America. In 2002 he co-founded the Nonviolent Peaceforce which has peace teams with over 500 nonviolent peacemakers/peacekeepers working in conflict areas around the world. David Hartsough, may his spirit be carried forward by all who knew him, was arrested for nonviolent civil disobedience in his work for peace and justice more than 150 times, most recently at the Livermore nuclear weapons laboratory.
Cathy Holt, MPH, is passionate about earth regeneration using water retention, permaculture, agroforestry, and getting pollution out of rivers. Following a dream in which she felt a calling to work for indigenous water rights, she visited Ecuador, Peru, and finally Colombia, where she has now been living for over two years. Biogas digesters, used globally to capture useful methane for cooking, also transform wastewater into excellent liquid fertilizer. Cathy has been helping bring this technology to farmers as well as to the pueblo of Barichara, Colombia. Her previous career in holistic health included biofeedback, guided imagery, HeartMath, and nonviolent communication.
Randy Morris, Ph.D., is Professor Emeritus at Antioch University Seattle where he taught in the BA Liberal Studies Program for 30 years and was the coordinator of the Psychology and Spiritual Studies concentrations. Randy’s quest for an eco-spiritual revelation adequate for our Dark Night of the Species Soul has led him through experiences as an elementary school teacher, vision quest guide, dream worker, martial artist, musician, community ritual leader and elder-in-training. Randy’s investment in the Great Turning takes the shape of five grandchildren, ages 1-12.
Paloma Pavel, Ph.D., psychologist, teacher, author and video journalist/producer, is President of Earth House Center in Oakland, California. She is also co-founder of the Breakthrough Communities Project and has served as Director of Strategic Communications for the Sustainable Metropolitan Communities Initiative at the Ford Foundation.
David Richo, PhD, MFT, is a psychotherapist, teacher, workshop leader, and writer who works in Santa Barbara and San Francisco California. He combines Jungian, poetic, and mythic perspectives in his work with the intention of integrating the psychological and the spiritual. His books and workshops include attention to Buddhist and Christian spiritual practices.
Gretchen Sleicher is a singer, songpasser, songwriter and facilitator of The Work That Reconnects, who lives in Port Townsend, Washington. With the help of webmaestro Dennis Rivers, she created this Songs For the Great Turning website to help spread songs that bring us together and sing us into a new life-sustaining society.
Gretchen has worked with Joanna Macy, attending several multi-day workshops with her over the past 12 years, including two week-long retreats for facilitators of The Work That Reconnects. She delights in weaving group singing and harmony-making into her workshop facilitation, to enhance the meaning and message with the joy of collective song.
Click here to visit Gretchen Sleicher's page on this website.
Mary Watkins, PhD, is Professor Emerita of Psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara, California, where she also served as director of Community and Ecopsychological Fieldwork and Research. Her widely read books include Up Against the Wall: Re-Imagining the U.S.-Mexico Border, written with Edward S. Casey, Toward Psychologies of Liberation, coauthored with Helene Shulman, and Invisible Guests: The Development of Imaginal Dialogues.
O R G A N I Z A T I O N S
Skipping Stones Multicultural Literary Magazine, founded in 1988, is a timely and timeless, award-winning resource in multicultural and global education. We welcome your original art and writings in every language and especially from ages 8 to 17.
In a typical issue of Skipping Stones, you will find poems, stories, articles, and photos from a region of the world, an ecosystem, and/or a culture. In this leading multicultural magazine, you can read thought-provoking writings by students as well as educators. Each issue features book recommendations, noteworthy news, and articles appropriate for both parents and teachers. Submissions are read by multiple reviewers before their publication so as to assure high quality content.
Click here to visit Skipping Stones Multicultural Literary Magazine's page on this website.