Monthly Dinner Series, from 6-8 pm on campus here in Petaluma for dinner, with guest speakers. Dinner is $25, or $35 with wine.

Please join us on Thursday, March 12, with guest speaker Dr. Lee Lipsenthal. He will talk about enhancing healing work by detaching from ego and becoming deeply connected to your heart. Register now.

Dr. Lipsenthal, along with Cassandra Vieten, Ph.D., will be leading a weekend workshop here on campus on March 27 (details below).

Lee Lipsenthal, M.D. ABIHM, is a Harvard-trained physician, teacher, consultant, author, and founder of Finding Balance in a Medical Life.

Co-sponsored by the California institute of Integral Studies Alumni Association, Thursday, April 16, the dinner evening features Dr. Ralph Metzner, CIIS Professor Emeritus. Join CIIS alumni and friends for an evening of conversation, good food, and intellectual stimulation. Dr. Metzner will talk on Alchemical Divination, which is a process of structured intuitive inquiry for a mildly expanded state of consciousness. The process is used to search for guidance about probable and possible futures—in work, relationships, creativity, and spiritual growth. Register now.

Ralph Metzner, Ph.D., is a Harvard-trained psychologist, author, consciousness researcher, professor emeritus at the California Institute of Integral Studies, and co-founder of the Green Earth Foundation.

Expand your mind, open your heart, and activate your full potential with the Institute’s Transformative Learning Workshops. This series embraces the mission of IONS’ Founder and Apollo 14 Astronaut Dr. Edgar Mitchell "to broaden the knowledge of the nature and potentials of mind and consciousness, and to apply that knowledge to the enhancement of human well-being and the quality of life on the planet." Connect with innovative thought leaders who continue IONS' 36-year legacy. Facilitate your intention to manifest transformational potential in yourself and others as you learn through rigorous inquiry, group dialogue, and direct experience. Our magnificent landscape provides a living context for the integration of theory and practice, science and spirituality, and inspiration and renewal.

Please welcome Robert McDowell, who joined our team in mid-February as Director of Business Development and Fundraising for the Property/Retreat Center. As part of the recent re-structuring at the Institute and commitment to the successful development of the property, he will focus his efforts to develop the Institute of Noetic Science’s property and Retreat Center through grant writing, fundraising, and developing business and profitable projects.

Robert is a teacher/mentor/coach for businesses, organizations, and individuals in addition to being a fundraiser, grant writer, and marketing professional. He co-founded Story Line Press, which the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation named one of the nine most important publishers of serious literature in the United States. He worked there for twenty-two years as director, editor, and chief development officer (raising more than two million dollars to support literacy and the literary arts), and has also taught at UC Santa Cruz, Bennington College, University of Southern Indiana, and at conferences and workshops around the world. He recently published the bestselling Poetry as Spiritual Practice: Reading, Writing, and Using Poetry in Your Daily Rituals, Aspirations, and Intentions (Free Press/Simon & Schuster, 2008).

Robert can be contacted at rmcdowell@noetic.org or 707-779-8215.

One of our ongoing Retreat Center clients is the New Equations Foundation.

In 1994, Alan Sheets and Barbara Tovey made a discovery that may fundamentally shift the foundation upon which human civilization is built. They discovered what seem to be replicable and physically demonstrable expressions of the soul. These physical expressions can be seen in the way you move, the way your body responds to life's challenges, in the facial expressions you make, as well as experienced in the sound of your voice. Most importantly, these physical expressions identify a special gift of wisdom and expertise that you have embodied since birth. New Equations directly addresses human spirituality and how it is physically expressed in the world today. The mission of the New Equations Foundation is to advance the New Equations body-based system of spiritual knowledge through educational opportunities, training, research, and projects or programs that make its work available to the world at large. Participants in this multi-session training program learn how to connect and communicate with people in such a way that those with whom they engage discover the physical expression of their own spiritual nature. New Equations offers leadership trainings and workshops worldwide. You can learn more at www.newequations.com.

(Photo on left: Alan Sheets and Barbara Tovey, co-founders of New Equations)

What Our Guests Say:

"I also wanted to say how much I enjoyed spending time at your property. It's gorgeous; the food is probably the best I've ever had at an event of this kind, and everyone I met, from the cooks to the shepherd, was wonderful. I'll be keeping my eye open for more events there!"

Pam Gilkison, from the retreat A Network for Grateful Living with David Steindl-Rast, February 2009

Mark Brecke is part of the amazing culinary team here at the Retreat Center, led by Shannon Hughes, who was featured in our February newsletter. Mark is a man of many talents. While he was studying photojournalism he began cooking in some of the most notable restaurants in San Francisco. He worked for many years under Chef Elke Gilmore at the Miyako Hotel and Yo Yo, both renowned with Asian inspired menus. He has great skill and flair with Asian ingredients, and has done stints at Fog City Diner, Greens and Stars. He was personal chef to Grateful Dead musician Bob Weir. Mark is also fluent in the classic Bay Area California cuisines; he loves fusion cooking and loves the seasonal palette.

He is also a filmmaker and documentary photographer living in San Francisco, whose work documents the stories of people victimized by war, ethnic conflict, and genocide. For more than ten years and across three continents, he has covered some of the most troubled regions of the world, including Cambodia, Rwanda, Kosovo, Sudan, the West Bank, and Iraq. In September 2004 Brecke started photographing the refugee camps of eastern Chad and traveled behind rebel lines in the Darfur region of Sudan with the Sudanese Liberation Army. For the past four years, he has traveled around the United States lecturing and presenting his Darfur photographs to more than one hundred different audiences. In 2006, the U.S. Senate selected ten of Mark's Darfur photographs to be hung in the Russell Rotunda of the U.S. Senate Building in Washington, D.C. In October of 2007, Mark premiered his new film on the Darfur crisis They Turned Our Desert Into Fire at the 31st Sao Paulo International Film Festival. The film won the International Jury Prize for Best Documentary. In January of this year Documentary Educational Resources signed a deal with They Turned Our Desert Into Fire for worldwide TV/Broadcast and DVD distribution. Mark's passion for cooking soothes his soul and heart after seeing and documenting the atrocities of genocide that he is devoted to exposing. We feel so blessed to have his loving talent in our kitchen.

Mark can be contacted at balkins@hotmail.com.

We continue our collaborative partnership with The Lucid Art Foundation for our Art, Culture, and Consciousness Program. We are showing the collection of paintings of San Francisco Art Institute’s painting department chair Jeremy Morgan through March 31.

(Painting on left: Before Science, 2004, acrylic on canvas, 72" x 54")

This exhibit will be followed by a showing of the painting of Fritz Rauh from April 1st - May 31st. A reception of Rauh's work will be held May 3rd from 3-5 p.m. here on campus in Petaluma, California. View this amazing artist in a preview for the feature length documentary titled The Painter. It is a story of his life, his work and love for his wife, Alix.