Awakening Human Potential

Bayo Akomolafe (Ph.D.), rooted with the Yoruba people in a more-than-human world, is the father to Alethea Aanya and Kyah Jayden Abayomi, the grateful life-partner to EJ, son and brother.

Sophie is a writer based in the Hudson Valley who focuses on the intersection of spirituality, storytelling, & ecology.

A former monk and long-term peace and environment activist, Satish Kumar has been quietly setting the Global Agenda for change for over 50 years.

World renowned intellectual and advocate for the preservation and celebration of biodiversity against genetic engineering and the negative impact of globalisation. She is an important voice in favour of people-centered, participatory processes; support to grassroots networks; women rights and ecology. Time Magazine identified Dr. Shiva as an “environmental hero” in 2003, and Asia Week has called her one of the five most powerful communicators of Asia.

Veronica Strang is an author and professor of anthropology affiliated to Oxford University. Her work combines cultural anthropology with environmental studies, and focuses on the relationship between human communities and their environments.

Born and raised in Scotland - and still a Scot at heart - Manda has been, variously, a veterinary surgeon, veterinary anaesthetist, acupuncturist (people and animals), crime writer, columnist, blogger, economist - and author. In between, she teaches shamanic dreaming, creative writing and concept-based dog training.

Beloved Sara Zaltash is queer British-Iranian astrologer, artist and musician, dedicated to raising the voice of GodS. With roots in sacred climate activism, they apply their skills as a performer, diviner, writer, singer, facilitator, teacher, space-holder, ritualist and community organiser to weave holy healing across all spheres of life.

David is the author of Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology, and The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-than-Human World. Described as “revolutionary” by the Los Angeles Times, as “daring” and “truly original” by the journal Science, David’s work has helped catalyze the emergence of several new disciplines, including the burgeoning field of ecopsychology.

Dr. Andreas Weber is a biologist, philosopher, nature writer, and mystic. He focuses on a re-evaluation of our understanding of the living.

David is an internationally renowned poet and author. Behind these talents lies a very physical attempt to give voice to the wellsprings of human identity, human striving and, most difficult of all, the possibilities for human happiness. He makes his home in the Pacific Northwest, where rain and changeable skies remind him of the other, more distant homes from which he comes: Yorkshire, Wales and Ireland. He speaks to the suffering and joy that accompany revelation, and the necessity of belonging to families, people and places.

Helena Norberg-Hodge is a pioneer of the local economy movement. Through writing and public lectures, she has been promoting an economics of personal, social and ecological well-being for four decades.

Dr. Predrag Slijepcevic is a senior lecturer at Brunel University London with 25 years teaching experience and a bioscientist investigating the cognitive side of the living world.

Charles Eisenstein is a world-renowned teacher, speaker, and writer focusing on themes of civilisation, consciousness, money, and human cultural evolution.

Somatic sexologist, bodyworker and life coach. Aisha blends her conscious approach to life with the profound experience of being in a body. She embraces all that it means to be a human with flesh, blood, bones, ego and eros. She experiences every day the wisdom of her body and has seen clients transform through the power of somatic methods.

Brontë is guided by the call that “black wellness is the antithesis to state violence” (Mark Anthony Johnson). As a black-latinx trans-disciplinary artist, designer, trickster, and wake-worker, their eco-social art praxis lives at the intersections of black feminist placemaking and prophetic community traditions, environmental justice, and death doulaship.

Alastair is one of the world’s leading environmental campaigners, distinguished in his ability to join together the outer and inner life. His book Spiritual Activism explores such paths of reconnection of the inner and outer worlds, which he argues is nothing less than learning how to sustain the flow of life. If we don’t do this, he states, “then our work will fall on stony ground, we’ll burn out or we’ll sell out.”

Charlotte is a writer, editor and co-director of The Dark Mountain Project.

Alnoor is a co-founder and executive director of The Rules (www.therules.org), founding partner of Purpose (www.purpose.com) and board member of Greenpeace USA (www.greenpeace.org). Alnoor’s work focuses on the intersection of political organizing, storytelling, and technology. As a founding member and the executive director of The Rules, he is part of a global network of activists, organizers, designers, coders, researchers, writers, and others dedicated to changing the rules that create inequality and poverty around the world.

Chiara Baldini is a raver, researcher and freelance curator from Florence, Italy. She investigates the evolution of the ecstatic cult in the West, particularly in Minoan Crete, ancient Greece and Rome, contributing to anthologies, psychedelic conferences and festivals.

Tyson Yunkaporta is an Aboriginal scholar, founder of the Indigenous Knowledge Systems Lab at Deakin University in Melbourne, and author of Sand Talk.