Some of my favorite moments in life occurred while sitting in rooms with experienced community activists, organizers, volunteers, and the like, tape recorder in hand, asking what inspired them to engage and what advice they had to share with those of us who ask “What can I do?”

A few of these interviews are shared on this site.

May 2020:

Mary Pipher, a cultural psychologist and best-selling author, has written 10 books including Reviving Ophelia, her most famous, and Women Rowing North, her most recent.  It’s her book The Green Boat: Reviving ourselves in in our Capsized Culture, published in a 2013, that offers a helping hand – and a psychologist’s generous ear – to anyone reeling from the climate crisis. I interviewed her for the Mill Valley Public Library’s “Borrowed Time” Climate Change Program. (Note: this link takes you to borrowed-time.org)

August 2010:

Joanna Macy and Louise Dunlap  are peace activists, writers, environmentalists, Buddhist practitioners, and mostly, master facilitators who help move people from overwhelm and into action for the world.

Fall 1999:

Dennis Seely and Gwenn Craig  shared their experiences of organizing for gay rights with Harvey Milk and others in the seventies and much more.

Alberto Saldamando offered his experiences as a tireless lawyer, activist, NGO director and advocate for indigenous rights internationally. 

Isao Fujimoto who seeded and contributed to countless community enterprises in California, in addition to helping found the Ethnic Studies department at UC Davis, told about his youth on a Yakima Indian reservation and in Japanese concentration camps, and offered lessons learned as a life long community builder.