Bioneers: Revolution From the Heart of Nature

World-renowned feminist, writer and change-maker Gloria Steinem connects the dots among disparate social movements to reveal the common patterns of oppression that underlie them all. From gender and race to democracy and universal spirituality, she weaves a unifying vision of a richly human and humane world where all people are valued for their uniqueness and full humanity.

Hello, My Other Self. In todays radically shifting world, the name of the game is resilience - the capacity of both human and ecological systems to absorb disturbance, roll with the punches and come up standing. Resilience arises from building community - enduring relationships and networks that hold cultural memory in the same way seeds regenerate a forest after a fire. Indigenous leaders Ilarion Larry Merculieff and Guadalupe Avila come from old-growth cultures that have sustained community over centuries and millennia.

The way we see the world creates the world. If a new way of seeing is needed, what might that look like? Indigenous leaders Dakota-Dine Tom Goldtooth, Anishnabe Winona LaDuke, Aleut Ilarion Merculief and The White Buffalo Souldiers conjure a new paradigm that begins with a change of heart.

From nature’s viewpoint, people are one species. Categories such as race, class, nation, religion and even many gender roles are human constructs. Yet the world is riven by exploitation and violence driven by these perceived divisions at an epic moment of demographic change toward the U.S. becoming a majority minority nation. john a. powell, Director of U.C. Berkeley’s Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society, and Manuel Pastor, Director of the Program for Environmental and Regional Equity at University of Southern California, show how to build effective movements to overcome these divisions and come together to solve the planetary emergency that threatens our common home.

How extreme is wealth disparity in the US? Imagine every person in the economy walks by, in order of income from low to high, with heights proportional to what people make. You’d see mostly a parade of dwarves, with some unbelievable giants at the very end. Political economist and historian Gar Alperovitz and social entrepreneur Ted Howard of the Democracy Collaborative depict breakthrough models for breaking this vicious cycle by democratizing wealth, ownership and access to capital.

How can we manifest the world we want, and who we want to be? Actor-activist Danny Glover and Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins, former CEO of Green For All, show how one sure path to resilience is to build community and social movements. That requires learning how to reach out across our differences – and it gets really personal.

"What I’d like to do is to be able to bring the possibility for hope and healing to people everywhere who need it. And to engage people in helping and healing themselves and each other, and to create the opportunity for them to do that."

Brain research is revealing astounding insights into the mechanisms of post-traumatic stress and neuroplasticity – the brain’s ability to be rewired and re-trained. The world today is ravaged by traumas – from war, privation and economic crashes to natural disasters and ongoing environmental degradation. In response, world-renowned psychiatrist Dr. James S. Gordon of the Center for Mind Body Medicine has trained thousands of teachers globally to advance ancient mind-body healing techniques of self-care to reconnect each individual with his or her own nature, with family and community, and with the natural world. The results are impressive. What might happen if we approach healing the environment from the inside out?

“Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it.” - Bertolt Brecht

John Densmore, legendary drummer of the Doors, joins visionary spoken word duo Climbing PoeTree in an exploration of creativity and social change. This episode of Bioneers Radio features exclusive interviews with the artists and a special Bioneers performance of Jim Morrison's poem, "American Prayer".

From North America to the Kalahari, Jeannette Armstrong, Marlowe Sam, Evan Pritchard, Kxao=Oma and Megan Biesele share powerful stories of how indigenous social technologies have succeeded in resolving conflict, and still are.