Orland Bishop

Spiritual Biography

In this remarkable series of four interconnected conversations, we trace Bishop’s spiritual biography from his childhood in Guyana to his teen years in Brooklyn, his college years in California, and the subsequent conscious emergence of his shamanic journey. These conversations with Michael Lerner took place in the presence of a small group of friends at The New School at Commonweal.

Orland Bishop combines an extensive study of medicine, naturopathy, psychology and indigenous cosmologies with a deep dedication to human rights advocacy and cultural renewal. He was a research fellow at the Center for the Study of Violence at Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science in Los Angeles and has consulted for many human development organizations in the United States and internationally.

Orland is co-founder and Executive Director of ShadeTree Multicultural Foundation in Los Angeles, California, a unique organization devoted to the mentoring of young people and the creation of communities to support them. Through ShadeTree, Orland has pioneered approaches to urban truces and working with at-risk youth that combine indigenous wisdom and practices with contemporary methodologies designed to mentor the human potential and create intentional communities. He has developed processes that support people to come into deeper inner and collective agreements in order to heal violence and social exclusion. Orland is currently focusing on understanding the deeper meaning money as a pathway to designing new economic forms that support healthy community life.

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