Ervin Laszlo, child prodigy pianist, philosopher, systems scientist, and author of more than 100 books and over 400 articles, is the founder and president of the international think tank The Club of Budapest and of the prestigious The Laszlo Institute of New Paradigm Research. He was twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, received the Japan Peace Prize, the Goi Peace Award, in 2001, and the Assisi Mandir of Peace Prize in 2006. He is the subject of the one-hour PBS special “Life of a Modern-Day Genius,” one of the “100 Most Spiritually Influential Living People in the World” according to Watkins Mind Body Spirit magazine, and in 2020 cited as 28th on OOOM Magazine’s “Top 100: The World’s Most Inspiring People” list. He lives in the Tuscan hills on the coast of Italy.
Jude Currivan, cosmologist, futurist, planetary healer, author, and member of the Evolutionary Leaders Circle was previously one of the most senior international business women in the UK. She has a Master’s degree in physics from Oxford University specializing in quantum physics and cosmology and a Ph.D. from the University of Reading, UK in archaeology researching ancient cosmologies. She has travelled to over 80 countries, worked with wisdom keepers from many traditions and is a life-long researcher into the nature of reality. She is the author of 7 nonfiction books, including the award-winning and best-selling The Cosmic Hologram (2017) and The Story of Gaia (2022). In 2017 she co-founded WholeWorld-View to serve the understanding, experiencing and embodying of unitive awareness and conscious evolution. She is also a faculty member of Ubiquity University and Humanity’s Team. www.wholeworld-view.org www.judecurrivan.com
Sherri Mitchell, born and raised on the Penobscot Indian Reservation at Indian Island in Maine, received her J.D. and a certificate in Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy from the University of Arizona’s James E. Rogers College of Law. She received her BS from the University of Maine, magna cum laude, where she received the Outstanding Student Achievement award from her department. She has worked as an Educator for the Maine Attorney General’s Civil Rights Division, a law clerk at the United States Department of the Interior, Office of the Solicitor, in Washington DC, and, as a legal analyst/advisor to Indigenous and Aboriginal groups across the United States and Canada. In 2009, her work on nation-state complicity with Indigenous human rights violations won her the Maloney-Dunn International Human Rights and Humanitarian Award. She was a recipient of the Maine Governor’s Community Service Award in 1996, 1997 and 1998. Sherri has served as a program coordinator to the American Indian Institute’s ‘Healing the Future Program and has been a participant of the Institute’s Traditional Circle of Indian Elders and Youth since 1995. She is the author of Sacred Instructions: Indigenous Wisdom for Spirit-Based Change.
Swami Tyagananda, a monk of the Ramakrishna Order since 1976, is the head of the Vedanta Society in Boston, and is the Hindu Chaplain at Harvard and MIT. He has written, translated and edited thirteen books, including Monasticism: Ideals and Traditions (1991), Interpreting Ramakrishna (2011), Walking the Walk: A Manual of Karma Yoga (2013), Knowing the Knower: A Manual of Jnana Yoga (2017), and his latest, Looking Deeply (2021). He has presented papers at academic conferences, and gives lectures and classes at the Vedanta Society as well as at MIT, Harvard and, on invitation, other colleges and religious groups in North America.
Philip Goldberg is an Interfaith Minister, public speaker, and author whose numerous books include the award-winning American Veda: From Emerson and the Beatles to Yoga and Meditation, How Indian Spirituality Changed the West; The Life of Yogananda: The Story of the Yogi Who Became the First Modern Guru, and Spiritual Practice for Crazy Times: Powerful Tools to Cultivate Clarity, Calm and Courage. He hosts the popular Spirit Matters podcast, leads American Veda Tours to India, and serves on the board of the Association for Spiritual Integrity. His website is www.PhilipGoldberg.com.
William Smith Ed.D. is founding executive director of the National Center for Race Amity and the National Race Amity Institute. He is cited by Sports Illustrated as a pioneer who integrated division one football in the old Confederate South. After leaving Wake Forest University to work as a community organizer in the Civil Rights Movement, he was drafted into the US Army, served as a medic in Vietnam, where he was awarded two Bronze Stars and the Combat Medic Badge and later graduated with honors from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He also earned his doctorate in education from UMass. Having addressed issues of race and diversity in his work with business, civic, philanthropic and religious organizations his entire career, he is the award-winning documentary filmmaker for such compelling public television films as “The Invisible Soldiers: Unheard Voices,” and “An American Story: Race Amity and the Other Tradition,” which explores the rich history of cross-cultural friendships in the struggle for social justice. He has received awards from numerous organizations including the International Academy of Communications Arts and Sciences, the NAACP Chairman’s Award, Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame Award, the Screen Actors Guild Diversity Award, and the National Education Association’s Award for Outstanding Program for Television.
Joe Weston is an international trainer, author, lecturer, consultant, coach, professor and—above all else—an advocate for lasting peace. With a career spanning 30+ years in the fields of conflict prevention, leadership, stress management, and communication, he is a highly sought-after facilitator for individuals, as well as corporations, government agencies, and nonprofits around the world. Joe’s first book, Mastering Respectful Confrontation: A Guide to Personal Freedom and Empowered, Collaborate Engagement, has sold well worldwide. He writes a regular advice column, “Ask Joe,” for the U.S.-based online magazine, The Fulcrum. His second book, Fierce Civility: Transforming our Global Culture from Polarization to Lasting Peace, was released in 2023 and is currently a best seller in multiple categories on Amazon, including Business Conflict Resolution & Mediation, Stress Management, and Leadership Training.
Robert Shetterly is an American artist best known for his portrait series, “Americans Who Tell the Truth,” a project begun in response to U.S. government propaganda to attack Iraq following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Towers in New York City. Shetterly undertook the project as a way to deal with his own grief and anger by painting Americans who inspired him. He intended to paint only 50 portraits, but there are currently 270 portraits in the series. Portions of the series tour widely across the United States, being shown in schools, museums, libraries, galleries and other public spaces. A book titled “Americans Who Tell the Truth,” written and illustrated by Shetterly, was published by Dutton Juvenile Press in 2005. It won the International Reading Association’s Intermediate—Nonfiction award for 2006, and the nonprofit Children’s Book Council listed it among the “2006 Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People.” New Village Press recently published two new books: “Portraits of Racial Justice” and “Portraits of Earth Justice.”
Betty Burkes is a peace educator, former US President of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, former Peace Education Program Coordinator for the Hague Appeal for Peace, and an advocate for a “beloved community” working for racial justice and peacebuilding, with her portrait in Americans Who Tell the Truth.
Tim DeChristopher is an environmental activist and founder of Peaceful Uprising, an organization dedicated to creating livable futures and empowering nonviolent action. Tim is best known for an act of civil disobedience in which he disrupted a government oil and gas lease auction in order to protect fragile land in southern Utah from long term damage. He continues to use his “Bidder 70” notoriety as “a platform to spread the urgency of the climate crisis and the need for bold confrontational action in order to create a just and healthy world.”
Kim Kelsey, LCSW, is a licensed clinical social worker and family therapist in private practice. She recently spent 2 years providing end of life care as a medical social worker with York Hospital Hospice. She taught a graduate course on Race, Culture and Oppression at University of New Hampshire for many years, and is grateful for the early influence of her father, Jack Remignanti, and her uncle, Nathan Rutstein, for inspiring her abiding interest in issues of Social Justice.
Kim serves on the Board of Directors for the Pinetree Institute, a local non-profit agency which is undertaking a major initiative focused on community-based Resilience and Trauma-Informed Care. She and her husband live in Eliot, Maine and enjoy spending time with their 11 grandchildren.
Contemplative Practice Coordinator
Kate Sheehan Roach, an interfaith, interspiritual, interdisciplinary writer, editor, and community builder, is director of Prosocial Spirituality at Prosocial World. She has served as an editor with St. Martin’s Press, founding editor of Contemplative Journal and as managing editor of the Spirituality channel at Patheos.com. She is currently Director of Content for ContemplativeLife.org and a founding member of Transformation365.org. Kate is a certified Centering Prayer facilitator who serves on a national service team with Contemplative Outreach, and she’s a member of the North America Leadership Council for the United Religions Initiative. She holds a BA with honors in American Studies from Mount Holyoke College and an MA with high honors in History from the University of Connecticut.
Moderator
Julie Krull, PhD, integrative health practitioner and psychotherapist, popular speaker, and host of the The Dr. Julie Show: All Things Connected, is a Nautilus award-winning author of Fractured Grace: How to Create Beauty, Peace and Healing for Yourself and the World. She is a steward of the new earth, midwifing the evolution of consciousness, supporting whole-system health, and expanding a whole worldview. Her 34-year career as an intuitive, integrative health practitioner and psychotherapist, coupled with her spiritual gifts that emerged after an early childhood Near Death Experience, have influenced her work with evolutionary thought leaders and change-agents from around the world—co-creating connections that inspire personal, cultural and planetary healing. As a visionary way-shower, speaker, and consciousness coach, her authentic, down-to-earth approach assists in bridging worlds, navigating change, and bringing a message of hope in liminal times of whole-systems transformation. Dr. Julie is a Mentor of Conscious Evolution, supporting leaders and influencers who are working collaboratively toward conscious, global transition, and a Co-Founder and President of GOOD of the WHOLE. Her second book, Imaginal Souls, will be released in late 2023. She is a member of the Evolutionary Leaders Circle.
Performers
Randy Armstrong & Marty Quinn
Randy Armstrong, World Fusion pioneer, hailed by the Boston Globe as “a sure-fingered, guitar virtuoso,” has appeared on more than 50 albums and music scores for film, theater and dance. He has performed concerts at Carnegie Recital Hall, festivals at Lincoln Center, and has shared the stage with Dizzy Gillespie, Fatoumata Diawara, the Paul Winter Consort, King Sunny Ade, Eddie Palmieri, Babatunde Olatunji, Michael Hedges, Richie Havens, Mose Allison and others. Randy is co-founder of Do’a World Music Ensemble, Unu Mondo and Beyond Borders and leader of the Randy Armstrong Trio & World Fusion Ensemble. With his collection of more than 300 instruments from around the world, including numerous guitars, sitar, balafon, djembe, Lakota courting flute, koto, charango, mbira, South African marimbas and a wide variety of percussion and stringed instruments, he has amazed audiences throughout the world. His fifth album with Do’a entitled World Dance, reached the top 10 of several national charts including #7 on Billboard. In 2015, Beyond Borders was nominated for “Best World Album” by the ZMR Music Awards. He was the Director of the Phillips Exeter Academy African Drumming Ensemble and North Indian Music Program from 1991 to 2020 and has taught courses for the Plymouth State University Integrated Arts Graduate Studies. Randy was selected to be the 2017-2018 artist in residence for the Portsmouth Symphony Orchestra and was the recipient of the 2017 New Hampshire Governor’s Arts Award for Arts Education. His new ensemble, Randy Armstrong & WorldBeat Marimba received the 2023 NH Magazine Best of NH, “Ambassordors of Peace” award.
Marty Quinn, drummer, tabla player, percussionist, and vocalist, has performed, recorded and/or toured with Pat Martino (Warner Bros.), Darius Brubeck, Randy Armstrong and Do’a World Music Ensemble (Global Pacific/Columbia), Visant Rai (Vanguard), The Funky Divas of Gospel and Rock My Soul Gospel Choirs, various Broadway Show tours, and original music, drama, and dance productions The Magic Bird and The Seven Valleys with his wife, Dr. Wendy Quinn (quinnarts.com). He is the founder of Design Rhythmics Sonification Research Lab that specializes in transforming data into music and has collaborated with scientists at the Venice Marine Institute, the Climate Change Research Center and Space Plasma Group of the University of New Hampshire, and the Lunar and Planetary Lab at the University of Arizona. Marty has developed innovative teaching methods including the experiential Drumming Extravaganza for group drum set instruction and the Inspiration Code Vocal Training workshops.
Pihcintu Multicultural Chorus, welcoming immigrant children from around the globe, helps restart young lives from war-torn villages and refugee camps who have come to Portland, Maine, an ever-expanding international resettlement community and fertile ground to bring together children from diverse backgrounds to sing as one. Con Fullam, award-winning producer, musician, and songwriter, created The Chorus with the help of countless supporting souls from all walks of life.