More presenters will be added soon.
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Presenter Bios
Lead Teacher for all Modules:
Stephan Martin is an astronomer, educator, and author who has taught astronomy, physics, and consciousness studies at colleges, universities, and learning centers across the US for over twenty-five years. Between 2003-2008 he studied directly with Brian Swimme and others at the California Institute of Integral Studies, out of which came his first book Cosmic Conversations, in which he held dialogues with scientists, spiritual teachers, and cultural creatives on the nature of the universe and our role in it. Since then he has led workshops on the New Cosmology at seminars and retreat centers across the US and Europe and has been active in exploring multidisciplinary approaches to exploring the universe. He is currently adjunct faculty in the Consciousness and Transformative Studies graduate program at John F Kennedy University where he teaches a course on “Cosmology and Consciousness.” Steve is also a co-director of the continuing care program at the Center for Spiritual Emergence in Asheville, NC where he assists clients in living more conscious lives from an expansive perspective.
Presenters for “Introducing the New Cosmology”
(Deeptime Leadership Program Module 1)
Brian Thomas Swimme is a professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. He received his Ph.D. from the Department of Mathematics at the University of Oregon in 1978 for work in gravitational dynamics. He brings the context of story to our understanding of the 13.7 billion year trajectory of cosmogenesis. Such a story, he feels, will assist in the emergence of a flourishing Earth community.
Swimme is the author of The Hidden Heart of the Cosmos and The Universe is a Green Dragon. He is co-author of The Universe Story, which is the result of a 10 year collaboration with cultural historian, Thomas Berry. Swimme is also the creator of three educational video series: Canticle to the Cosmos (1990), The Earth’s Imagination (1998), and The Powers of the Universe (2004). He lectures widely and has presented at conferences sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, The World Bank, UNESCO, The United Nations Millennium Peace Summit, and the American Museum of Natural History. Most recently he hosted and co-wrote, with Mary Evelyn Tucker, the 60 minute film Journey of the Universe, broadcast on PBS television stations nationwide. Journey of the Universe won the Northern California regional Emmy for Best Documentary, 2011. The Journey of the Universe book, ebook and ed series are published by and available from Yale University Press.
Imogene Drummond, M.F.A., M.S.W., A.C.S.W., is an internationally collected painter, award-winning filmmaker, artist/educator, author of articles on cultural transformation, and former psychotherapist. Her interdisciplinary educational program, Art Sparks, combines Creativity, Self-Worth, and the Cosmos to engage and empower the whole learner. Her accomplishments in psychotherapy, fine art, and education uniquely inform her expertise as an empowerment-through-creativity specialist.
Ursula Goodenough is Professor of Biology Emerita at Washington University, now living in Chilmark MA. Her research has focused on the molecular genetics of the green alga Chlamydomonas. Her teaching included a 10-year offering of a course for non-science majors called The Epic of Evolution, taught with a physicist and an earth scientist. Her book, The Sacred Depths of Nature, tells the story and offers spiritual responses thereto. She is president of the Religious Naturalist Association http://religious-naturalist-
Rev’d Dr. Matthew Cobb, is Regional Missioner for Indigenous Ministries in the Episcopal Church in Minnesota and Co-Founder of Walks Back, LLC, an international consulting firm specializing in Cross Cultural Dexterity, DEI, Integral Design and Leadership Development. He received his doctorate from the Graduate Theological Union at the University of California, Berkeley, and holds a Masters of Divinity Degree with an emphasis on Social Theory from the Episcopal Seminary of the Southwest – Austin, TX. He also holds Masters of Arts in Contextual Theology and Ignatian Spirituality with a Certificate in Spiritual Direction and Directed Retreats from Creighton University – Omaha, NE. His Bachelor of Arts in Continental Philosophy is from Rockhurst University – Kansas City, MO.
Herman Greene, JD, DMin is founder and president of the Center for Ecozoic Studies in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, a research and education center for the realization of an ecological age. He is co-editor and co-author of Earth Law: Emerging Ecocentric Law—A Guide for Practitioners. He serves on the Boards of the Earth Law Center, Institute for Ecological Civilization, and International Process Network, and on the Advisory Boards of the Center for Process Studies and the Institute for the Post-Modern Development of China. He is a retired corporate, tax, and securities lawyer and holds graduate degrees in law (University of North Carolina-JD), theology (University of Chicago-MTh & MDiv, and United Theological Seminary-DMin), and political science (Stanford University-MA). https://www.ecozoicstudies.org/
Presenters for “Applying the New Cosmology”
(Deeptime Leadership Program – Module 2)
Marianne Rowe, MS, is a Founding Teacher of Monterey Bay Meditation Studio, an Emergent Dialogue facilitator, and a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in Pacific Grove, CA. Her teaching, therapeutic work and leadership focus on healing, transformation and evolution through awareness and relationship — developing Integral consciousness through the physiological, cognitive, emotional, relational and spiritual aspects of being. She is dedicated to catalyzing and cultivating embodiment of a New Story for human beings (inspired by Charles Eisenstein) and playing a conscious role as part of the evolving Universe Story (inspired by Thomas Berry, Brian Swimme, and Duane Elgin). Marianne’s passions include inspiring reverence and reciprocity with Earth and Universe, spiritual activism, and conscious relationship with all beings.
Jennifer Morgan, president and founder of the Deeptime Network, is an award-winning author, storyteller, and educator inspired by the work of Teilhard de Chardin, Maria Montessori, Thomas Berry, and Brian Swimme. Her Universe Story Trilogy — Born With a Bang, From Lava to Life, and Mammals Who Morph — are used in classrooms around the world, particularly in Montessori schools as part of the Cosmic Education Curriculum, and have received the Teachers Choice Award, Nautilus Semi Finalist, highest ratings from AAAS and endorsements from Jane Goodall, Neil de Grasse Tyson, astronaut Edgar Mitchell, Thomas Berry, Brian Swimme and others. She is Vice President of the American Teilhard Association. Her life inspiration is to foster emergence by helping to link a planetary nervous system of people immersed in this radical new understanding.
Orla Hazra, PhD currently lives in Sarasota Florida after recently returning from ten years in Mumbai, India. While in India she developed a curriculum to renew the Ignatian (Jesuit) Pedagogical Paradigm, applying it at St. Xavier’s College and at Tarumitra, an ecoliteracy center in Patna. Her academic formation in recreation leadership, addiction counseling, and spiritual direction, led her into a PhD program in Religious Education, from Fordham University; her research becoming a model for educational reform considering the fourfold wisdom conversation suggested by Thomas Berry — science, religion, women and indigenous peoples. She is a founding board member of the Deeptime Network and is delighted to be witnessing the model in practice, healing our trauma of separation.
Cliff Berrien is a professional drummer, percussionist, music educator and performer of music of the African diaspora with over 35 years’ experience. Performing with ensembles in the U.S., Europe, India, Nigeria and Japan, he also has 30 years of experience as a professional night club and mobile DJ specializing in interactive, multimedia and World Music programming. In 1995 he was introduced to the work of Brian Swimme and began a journey of discovering multidisciplinary, multicultural, and artistic approaches to exploring the cosmos. A contemplative practitioner since 1975, he was invited to be a curator of spiritual practices for the Daily Meditations and Program Design teams at The Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, NM. In 2016 he recommended Dr. Barbara A. Holmes for a faculty position with the Center’s Living School where he had the honor of assisting her developing student curriculum that explored her books, Race and the Cosmos and Joy Unspeakable.
Margie Abbott calls herself and elder and is devoted to working for thriving communities for the rest of her life. Margie is qualified to teach and guide because of her long life experience and reflection on that life experience. Her professional qualifications include education, theology, spirituality, group facilitation and psychodrama. Margie is actively involved as a member of XR in regular nonviolent actions for climate.
Gail Worcelo is a co-founder, along with Bernadette Bostwick (and the late Passionist priest and cultural historian Thomas Berry), of Sisters of the Earth Community at Green Mountain Monastery in Greensboro, Vermont. The mission of this community of Catholic sisters is to foster: A Single Sacred Community: Where we go into the future with the natural world in a mutually enhancing way. She joined the Passionist nuns, a monastic community of women in 1982 with a Master’s degree in Christian Spirituality from Fordham University, and directed, Homecomings: Center for Ecology and Contemplation; served on the Leadership Team as Councilor and Novice director of the community, and obtained a Master’s degree in Clinical Psychology. She gives retreats to congregations of men and women religious based on her work with Thomas Berry (1990-present). www.greenmountainmonastery.org
Duane and Coleen Elgin. Duane and Coleen hosted and produced the new film Facing Adversity: Choosing Earth, Choosing Life. Duane is an internationally recognized speaker, author, and social visionary who explores the deeper trends that are transforming our world. In 2006, Duane received the International Goi Peace Award in Japan in recognition of his contribution to a global “vision, consciousness, and lifestyle” that fosters a “more sustainable and spiritual culture.”
His books include: The Living Universe, Promise Ahead, Voluntary Simplicity, and Awakening Earth. He has an MBA from the Wharton Business School, an MA in economic history from the University of Pennsylvania, and an honorary Doctor of Philosophy for work in “ecological and spiritual transformation” from the California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco, CA.
Coleen LeDrew Elgin is Co-director of the Choosing Earth Project. She develops and leads educational programs and media that explore our time of great transition. Coleen researched, wrote and directed the film: Facing Adversity: Choosing Earth, Choosing Life. For over 15 years her documentary work has focused on pioneers of consciousness and spiritual growth. Examples are Science and Sacraments: Psychedelics Research and Mystical Experiences (2012); and The Way of the Shaman; The Work of Michael and Sandra Harner (2017). Her MA degree focused on Transformative Learning.
Penny Andrews, D.Min, MA, has had a lifelong interest in spirituality, creativity and consciousness as paths to intuition and deeper knowing. This passion led to the study of forms of art as meditation at the University of Creation Spirituality. She is an ordained interfaith minister, and during her career as a hospital chaplain applied a variety of healing modalities in her work with patients and family caregivers of all spiritual backgrounds. A retreat leader and Earth activist, Penny been actively involved in Creation Spirituality, The Work that Reconnects, the Earth Charter and DeepTime studies. Currently, she guides a weekly Work that Reconnects meditation, offers a monthly webinar with Gail Ransom called Creation in Crisis, serves on the board of directors of Creation Spirituality Communities, is a regular speaker at a local Unitarian Universalist congregation, and provides spiritual companioning for others. She is co-creating a food forest on the drumlin in Wisconsin where she has lived for 30 years.
Presenters for Deeptime Leadership Practicum
(Deeptime Leadership Program – Module 3)
Marianne Rowe, MS, is a Founding Teacher of Monterey Bay Meditation Studio, an Emergent Dialogue facilitator, and a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in Pacific Grove, CA. Her teaching, therapeutic work and leadership focus on healing, transformation and evolution through awareness and relationship — developing Integral consciousness through the physiological, cognitive, emotional, relational and spiritual aspects of being. She is dedicated to catalyzing and cultivating embodiment of a New Story for human beings (inspired by Charles Eisenstein) and playing a conscious role as part of the evolving Universe Story (inspired by Thomas Berry, Brian Swimme, and Duane Elgin). Marianne’s passions include inspiring reverence and reciprocity with Earth and Universe, spiritual activism, and conscious relationship with all beings.
Rev’d Dr. Matthew Cobb, is Regional Missioner for Indigenous Ministries in the Episcopal Church in Minnesota and Co-Founder of Walks Back, LLC, an international consulting firm specializing in Cross Cultural Dexterity, DEI, Integral Design and Leadership Development. He received his doctorate from the Graduate Theological Union at the University of California, Berkeley, and holds a Masters of Divinity Degree with an emphasis on Social Theory from the Episcopal Seminary of the Southwest – Austin, TX. He also holds Masters of Arts in Contextual Theology and Ignatian Spirituality with a Certificate in Spiritual Direction and Directed Retreats from Creighton University – Omaha, NE. His Bachelor of Arts in Continental Philosophy is from Rockhurst University – Kansas City, MO.
Mary Evelyn Tucker is co-director of the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology where she teaches in an MA program between the School of the Environment and the Divinity School. With John Grim she organized 10 conferences on World Religions and Ecology at Harvard. They were series editors for the 10 resulting volumes from Harvard. She co-edited Confucianism and Ecology, Buddhism and Ecology, and Hinduism and Ecology. She has authored with John Grim, Ecology and Religion (Island Press, 2014). They also edited Thomas Berry’s books including Selected Writings (Orbis 2014). Tucker and Grim published Thomas Berry: A Biography (Columbia University Press, 2019). With Brian Thomas Swimme she wrote Journey of the Universe (Yale 2011) and was the executive producer of the Emmy award winning Journey film that aired on PBS. She served on the International Earth Charter Drafting Committee and was a member of the Earth Charter International Council.
Denise Tangney is a storyteller, educator, and archeologist of the soul inspired by the work of Teilhard de Chardin, Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme and Maria Montesorri. Her latest experiential workshops are: Braiding Love: The Universe Story, The Christian Story, Your Story; and Earthing Spiritual Literacy: How to link spiritual development and education to a new Earth Consciousness. Denise holds a BA in Theology from Molloy College, MA in school district administration from the College of New Rochelle, MA in Transcultural Studies from Adelphi University, and a Doctor of Ministry from the Leadership Institute of Graduate Theological. Dr. Tangney received certification from United Nations International and the University of Peace as an Earth Charter Educator. She is a member of the Guild for Spiritual Guidance since 1997 and a Third Order Franciscan.
Sarbmeet Kanwal, PhD is an award-winning college level educator and a pioneer in novel ways of teaching quantum physics and astronomy. He holds a PhD in Theoretical Physics from the California Institute of Technology. His aptitude for explaining, in everyday language, intricate concepts in cosmology has made him a sought after speaker among both scientific and non-scientific communities. Last year he was selected from hundreds of applicants to make a speech titled “Chaos to Cosmos” at the highest rated TEDx event on the East coast. Raised in India as a follower of Sikhism, Sarbmeet is a long time board member of the Monmouth Center for World Religions and Ethical Thought where he helped initiate several interfaith projects including the cofounding of an award winning youth leadership program called MOSAIC. Strongly influenced by the writings of Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry, he is the founder and leader of a popular study circle centered on the New Creation Story.
Yona FrenchHawk is a full-blooded Cherokee Wisdom Keeper and Ceremonialist. He was born and raised on the Qualla Indian Boundary and is an enrolled member of The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in the Great Smoky Mountains in Cherokee, N.C., the Cherokee Indian Reservation. Yona offers his BirdClan gift of song, storytelling, plus insights into the prophesies and ceremonies of the Eastern Cherokees. This knowledge bridges the ancient past with the deep future. We honor their voices and visions of ancestors by sharing the abundance life has to offer. Yona offers individual sessions to assist in being present in one’s current journey while connecting with ancestral healing. Yona helps to connect with one’s roots to truly live an organic green way of life and embrace the legacy of connecting cultures by understanding what fruit to bear according to our roots. Click here for more info: http://www.yonafrenchhawk.com/
Robert Athickal, S.J., is an environmentalist, lecturer in theology and co-ordinator of Tarumitra (which means trees), an organization of students in 23 States of India. Over 3,000,000 students form the movement in over 2000 colleges and schools. He is a lecturer on Eco-theology at JDV Pune, India, for post Graduate students, Vidyajyoti, Jesuit National College of Theology. He coordinated the writing of text books on environmental education. He’s a delegate in: the United Nations Frame Work Convention on climate change 2002, representing the Holy See. He’s a delegate in UNEP Tunza Conferences in Connecticut USA; Tayohashi, Japan; Stravanger Norway; Bandun Indonesia; and Rio, Brazil. www.tarumitra.org
John Leydon is an Irish priest of the Missionary Society of St. Columban who has been in the Philippines since 1973. Aside from his pastoral work, most of his missionary years were dedicated to social action and ecological work. For several years, he had been the coordinator of the Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation Ministry of the Columban Missionaries in the Philippine Region. His masteral studies in Creation Spirituality at the Institute in Culture and Creation Spirituality, Oakland, California (which he completed in 1996) led him to co-found the Center for Ecozoic Living and Learning (CELL), an eco-center dedicated to the Universe/Earth through the inspiration of Thomas Berry, in 1998. He also co-founded, in 2019, the Terra Sisters of the Trinity, a new and emerging Earth-oriented Philippine-based Catholic religious community of women. He is currently a member of the Steering Committee of the Global Catholic Climate Movement (GCCM) and Chairperson of its Philippine Chapter, GCCM-Pilipinas. Click here for more info about CELL: https://cellsilang.weebly.com/
Elizabeth (Bing) Carranza, a passionate Earth-lover, is Co-Founder and Coordinator of the Terra Sisters of the Trinity, a new and emerging Earth-oriented Philippine-based Catholic religious community of women established in 2019. She works with the Global Catholic Climate Movement-Pilipinas and is involved in the Education Program at the Center for Ecozoic Living and Learning, an eco-center dedicated to Thomas Berry which was set up by the Mondejar Foundation along with some members of the Missionary Society of St. Columban in 1998. She was a College Physics Instructor at the University of the Philippines before she entered the religious life. Active in the ecological circle in the Philippines for over 15 years now, she was Chairperson of the Save Sierra Madre Network Alliance Inc. and was also part of the Board to four other environmental organizations. Click here for more info about CELL: https://cellsilang.weebly.com/
