CIIS Public Programs

Shot at by police as an 11-year-old child for playing baseball in the wrong spot, as an adult Larry Ward continued to experience racialized trauma when his home was firebombed by racists. At Plum Village Monastery in France, he found a way to heal with his teacher, Vietnamese peace activist and Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh.

Now a Zen Buddhist teacher and author, Dr. Ward's work examines the causes and conditions that have led us to our current state, and he finds—hidden in the crisis—a profound opportunity to reinvent what it means to be a human being. This is an invitation to transform America’s racial karma.

In this episode, Women's Spirituality Professor Alka Arora talks with Dr. Ward as he shares what he has learned through his own life and work, and invites us to transform our society and heal our racial karma.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on October 6, 2020. A transcript is available at ciispod.com.

We live in a world where entitlement, incivility, and narcissism are incentivized. How do we learn to negotiate a world that often gaslights us and empowers the loudest and most toxic voices?

In this episode, CIIS Community Mental Health professor and psychologist Elizabeth Markle has a conversation with psychologist and narcissism expert Dr. Ramani Durvasula exploring the new normal of narcissism and incivility and how to stay sane in a narcissistic world.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on October 2, 2020. A transcript of this episode is available at ciispod.com.

In these pandemic times, and times of racial justice uprising and reckoning, the failure of U.S. and global health care systems to meet human need or to even ensure the basic safety of health care providers continues to be revealed. How did we get here?

In this episode, CIIS Faculty and multi-sector social justice organizer Mordecai Ettinger offers an exploration of the hidden history of white supremacy and colonization embedded in the Medical Industrial Complex(MIC)—a web of institutions—from hospitals, dialysis centers, and nursing homes, to health insurers, big pharma, and the corporate polluters that they are entangled with.

Mordecai addresses the myriad ways in which the MIC generates, perpetuates, and upholds ableism—particularly racialized medical ableism—as among the most dangerously violent and destructive forces of our times. Finally, Mordecai offers a vision for hope, a path forward for transforming the MIC and creating alternatives for health and healing, a crucial part of humanity’s collective liberation in which we all have a role to play.

Visit ciispod.com for the transcript of this episode as well as additional resources. This episode was recorded during a live online event on September 30, 2020.

Mainstream feminists rarely talk about meeting basic needs as a feminist issue, but food insecurity, access to quality education, safe neighborhoods, a living wage, and medical care are all feminist issues. All too often, however, the focus is not on basic survival for the many, but on increasing privilege for the few.

In Mikki Kendall's latest book, Hood Feminism, she takes aim at the legitimacy of the modern feminist movement, arguing that it has chronically failed to address the needs of all but a few women. Drawing on her own experiences with hunger, violence, and hyper-sexualization, she delivers an irrefutable indictment of a movement in flux and issues a ferocious clarion call to all would-be feminists.

In this episode, psychologist and CIIS Professor Danielle Drake talks with Mikki about writing Hood Feminism, her life, and the lessons she has learned.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on September 23, 2020.

We all tell ourselves stories about who we are. Many of these stories are self-critical and disempowering. Through the practice of self-compassion, we can rewrite these stories and become more authentic and powerful versions of ourselves—transforming not only our own lives but also the lives of those around us.

For author Marianne Ingheim the practice of self-compassion changed her life in ways big and small, helping her unlearn harsh self-criticism, survive multiple tragedies, and live more authentically.

In this episode, Integral Psychologist Kendra Diaz-Ford talks with Marianne about her experiences unlearning self-critical patterns in order to live a happier, more courageous life.

This week, we are showcasing selections from three previous episodes featuring California-based voices for change.

We begin with Kazu Haga joined in February 2020 by CIIS professor and restorative justice expert Sonya Shah for a conversation about his life, his experiences utilizing Kingian Nonviolence, and his book, Healing Resistance.

The second selection features Boots Riley, the writer and director of the movie Sorry To Bother You, and lead singer of The Coup discussing creativity and activism with Bay Area writer Chinaka Hodge live on stage in September 2018.

We close the episode with an excerpt of an inspiring conversation recorded live in San Francisco in November 2019 featuring Dolores Huerta. Latinx studies professor Maria L. Quintana talked with Dolores about her life and work as a revolutionary and inspirational leader dedicated to activism, feminism, and the future of America.

This episode contains explicit language.

In this episode Kirah Tabourn, educator, creator, and astrologer of THE STROLOGY, talks with Bay Area astrologer and medium Jessica Lanyadoo about her life and work, her book Astrology for Real Relationships, and how her book—and astrology more broadly—can be applied to a diverse set of relationships and our current times.

This episode contains explicit language. It was recorded during a live online event on August 27, 2020.

Drawing on her decades of clinical experience with couples, and incorporating spiritual practices, social justice perspectives, current news stories, and neuro-scientific findings, Dr. Molly Howes has developed an unsparing, accessible and ultimately optimistic model for apologies.

In this episode, Artificial Intelligence scientist and a Buddhist teacher Nikki Mirghafori talks with Dr. Howes about her work, her latest book, and how we can all learn to craft an effective apology.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on August 20, 2020.

Sherri Mitchell (Weh’na Ha’mu Kwasset) is a Native American attorney, teacher, and award-winning activist who grew up on the Penobscot Indian Reservation (Indian Island), Maine, and is the author of Sacred Instructions: Indigenous Wisdom for Living Spirit-Based Change.

In this episode, she is joined in a conversation with healer and movement builder Brenda Salgado. Together they explore Native American mythology and cosmology as a means of healing our collective wounds.

This episode was recorded during a live online event on August 1, 2020.

Whether you consider yourself an artist or not, viewing art is a creative act that can be a catalyst for inquiries into our world. In this episode, writer, artist, and curator Cindy Shearer explains how viewing artworks from the vantage point of its makers allows us to experience art-making from the inside out—drawing from what undergirds art in all forms as information and inspiration.

This episode was recorded live in person in the Desai | Matta Gallery at CIIS on November 15, 2018.