Johnetta Roberts specializes in community project development and asset-building initiatives in West Louisville, an historically underserved area of the city. Johnetta played a key role in the creation of the new Village @ West Jefferson real estate development project and is committed to revitalizing West Louisville, from real estate development to fostering the growth of small businesses that provide essential community services. In this podcast, recorded from a live Earth & Spirit Center Community Conversation event, we explore a vision of an empowered, thriving West Louisville – and how all of us can participate to help such a vision become reality, whether in West Louisville or in other urban areas that face socio-economic challenges.

Earth & Spirit Center website: www.earthandspiritcenter.org

Earth & Spirit Center Community Conversations: https://www.earthandspiritcenter.org/class/community-conversations/

Johnetta’s real estate consulting company, The 40&1 Company : http://fortyandone.com/

Molo Village Community Development Corporation: https://www.molovillagecdc.org/

Sponsor 4 Success: https://www.sponsor4success.com/

Learn about AMPED Russell Technology Business Incubator

John Gage is a Louisville-based folk singer-songwriter and a former public radio host. For decades, his music has engaged deeply with spirituality, social justice, and care for the Earth. John brought his beloved old Martin guitar with him to the Earth & Spirit Center to add a few live songs to this wide-ranging conversation about music as a force for good in the world. His most recent album, Circles of Our Lives, features several Wendell Berry poems that John set to music, some of which he performed during this conversation.

Earth & Spirit Center website: www.earthandspiritcenter.org

John Gage on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/26zYYPXePtVOO7hHjieUGj

John Gage bio on Kentucky HomeFront: https://kentuckyhomefront.org/john-gage.html

Jeanette Prince-Cherry had careers in the Air Force and as an industrial engineer before dedicating her life to Zen Buddhism. A Zen priest and instructor, she divides her time between the Louisville Zen Center and the Rochester Zen Center in New York. In this episode, Jeanette explains the basics of Zen, how it is similar to and different from secular mindfulness, and how it provides tools and resources for mental health, resilience, and the strengthening of communities, especially in a post-pandemic world. Earth & Spirit

Center homepage: www.earthandspiritcenter.org

Louisville Zen Center homepage: https://www.louisvillezen.org/

Rochester Zen Center homepage: https://www.rzc.org/

Dr. Andrew McCart is an assistant professor of health management and systems sciences in the department of public health at the University of Louisville. He has been a practicing Taoist for over two decades and is a certified senior instructor of the Healing Tao Association of the Americas, and he also holds black belts in three martial arts. In this conversation, Dr. McCart not only provides a primer on Taoism, but he also reflects on how Taoist practices and the Taoist worldview can be relevant for all of us, regardless of religious and spiritual creeds and commitments.

Dr. McCart’s four-week course on Taoism begins October 5, 2021: https://www.earthandspiritcenter.org/class/interfaith-spiritual-practice/

Dr. McCart’s blog: http://thetaoblog.com/

Dr. McCart’s book, The Alchemist's Tao Te Ching: Transforming Your Lead Into Gold

Earth & Spirit Center homepage: https://www.earthandspiritcenter.org/

Joe Grant is a Scottish-born poet, author, and spiritual director and was the inaugural guest on the Earth and Spirit podcast. In this episode, Joe reflects on Celtic spirituality and the lessons it offers for fostering awake, aware, abiding relationships with the living Earth and within human communities.

More reading:

• Joe Grant’s course on Celtic Spirituality: https://www.earthandspiritcenter.org/class/interfaith-spiritual-practice/
• Joe Grant’s website and blog: https://engagedpresence.org/
• Earth & Spirit Center homepage: https://www.earthandspiritcenter.org/

Morgan Atkinson is a documentary filmmaker based in Kentucky. Focusing on a wide range of subjects from the Trappist monk Thomas Merton to waterway pollution in his hometown of Louisville, his work asks deep questions about spirituality, social justice, and ecology. In this episode, Morgan reflects what he has learned over his filmmaking career and how we might navigate our polarized times with nuance, balance, and generosity.

Morgan Atkinson’s website: https://morganatkinson.com/

The Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University: http://merton.org/

Trappist Abbey of Gethsemani: https://monks.org/

Earth & Spirit Center: https://earthandspiritcenter.org/

Carmel Bowman and Maggie Hettinger describe themselves as ordinary citizens of rural Kentucky who are trying to help move the needle on climate change. From their own lifestyle choices to their active efforts with the Citizens' Climate Lobby, they are passionately engaged for positive change. In this podcast, recorded during one of the Earth & Spirit Center’s live community conversations events, Carmel and Maggie invite us to consider a realistic path for the U.S. to reach net carbon neutrality by 2050 or earlier.

https://citizensclimatelobby.org/

https://www.earthandspiritcenter.org/class/community-conversations/

https://www.earthandspiritcenter.org/

Dr. Gary Paul Nabhan is a first-generation Arab-American who has spent his life crossing borders. An agrarian ecologist and ethnobotanist whom Time magazine called the father of the local food movement, his work straddles both sides of America’s southern border in Arizona. As a professed ecumenical Franciscan brother, his spiritual practice goes far beyond the walls of institutional religion, and his new book, Jesus for Farmers and Fishers, describes the struggles of those living on the margins of empire, in the ancient Middle East and today. In this conversation, Gary reflects on the richness and challenges of life that unfolds on the wild edges of places, societies, and religion.

Book recommendation: Jesus for Farmers and Fishers: Justice for All Those Marginalized by Our Food System, by Gary Paul Nabhan

Gary's website: https://www.garynabhan.com/

Borderlands Restoration L3C: https://www.borderlandsrestoration.org/borderlands-restoration-l3c.html

Earth & Spirit Center website: https://www.earthandspiritcenter.org/

Doug Van Houten describes himself as an ardent beekeeper, a visual artist, a wily wanderer, a dream tracker, a deep ceremonialist, and a heart-centered activist. He’s an international wilderness guide with the nonprofit Animas Valley Institute, helping to foster nature-based personal development. In this episode, as part of our Community Conversations series, Doug shares how healing, eco-centric soulwork can help us become fully mature adults and elders, claim our life purpose as a member of the Earth community, and contribute our gifts for the healing of our culture and our planet.

https://www.earthandspiritcenter.org/

https://www.animas.org/

www.bodyartsoul.org

Dan Misleh is the executive director of the Catholic Climate Covenant, a national nonprofit organization devoted to faith-based education, advocacy, and practical actions related to climate change. In this episode, we explore how mainline religious traditions like Catholicism can help address climate issues with moral and spiritual leadership and practical resources and examples, but can also invite us into a deeper and richer belonging with each other and the more-than-human world.

Links:

Catholic Climate Covenant: https://catholicclimatecovenant.org/

Catholic Energies: https://www.catholicenergies.org/

National Religious Partnership for the Environment: http://www.nrpe.org/

Alliance of Religions and Conservation: http://www.arcworld.org/

Passionist Earth & Spirit Center: https://earthandspiritcenter.org/