Charles Eisenstein is a teacher, speaker, and writer focusing on themes of civilization, consciousness, money, and human cultural evolution.

His on-line writings have generated a vast following; he speaks frequently at conferences and other events, and gives numerous interviews on radio and podcasts.

Eisenstein graduated from Yale University in 1989 with a degree in Mathematics and Philosophy, and spent the next ten years as a Chinese-English translator. He currently lives near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania with his wife and four sons.

In his own words:

"I will give you some of my background, although the intense transitions of the last few years have left me feeling like a new person. Hmm, I wrote that sentence two years ago, and it is still true today. I was born in 1967 and was a very sensitive, intellectual and dreamy child. I was always consumed by questions like, “Where did I come from?””Why am I here?” “Where am I going?” so of course, embedded as I was in a culture that sees science and reason as the source of truth, I tried to “figure out” the answers. I graduated from Yale University with a degree in Mathematics and Philosophy, but my development of reason and intellect brought me no closer to any truth I really cared about.

I didn’t know what I was searching for, but I knew that none of the usual options life presents a Yale graduate attracted me. I went to Taiwan, learned Chinese, and soon found myself working as a translator. I spent most of my 20s there, educating myself broadly (though not at all rigorously – it was more through osmosis) in Eastern spiritual traditions. I also read voraciously: books on health, nutrition, globalization, physics, and biology. Translation led to other business opportunities, and I became familiar with this dimension of the human experience. In Taiwan, I met my dear friend and ex-wife Patsy, with whom I have three children, all boys.

In my late 20s I entered what was to be a long period of intensifying crisis. It started when all my professional work became intolerable. It became excruciating to do work I didn’t care about. Even though a million reasons told me why it was irresponsible, impractical, and foolish to quit, I eventually could not make myself do it anymore. An irrepressible feeling, “I am not here to be doing this!” took control of my life. So I entered a long period of searching. I spent time teaching yoga, learning about herbs, and teaching at Penn State’s department of Science, Technology, and Society. All of these endeavors have contributed to my present and future, but none were really me.

The next five years were much like a birthing process. The old world dissolved, and the contractions birthing me into the new took the form of a collapse of all that I once held onto. Crises in health, marriage, and money forced me to let go of a “life under control.” In my helplessness, I accepted help, discovering a generous universe that has always met my needs, somehow, in unexpected ways. I have never made much money, but I have become rich in connections to other people. Friends and strangers from all over the world write to tell me how my books have affected them; they sustain my faith and nourish my passion for my work.

In addition to writing books and essays, I have been doing a tremendous amount of public speaking. Sometimes, especially when I am tired from traveling, I wonder if the world needs yet another man performing “speaker up in front of an audience.” Why not stay at home and use technology? But I find that something happens in person that is irreplaceable. For one thing, at live events I can see the expressions on people’s faces, and I respond to that in real-time, engaging in a sort of dialog. Secondly, my speaking is not just about conveying ideas. Something else rides the vehicle of the words, even if the topic is something mundane like steady-state economics. I sometimes describe my experience as a speaker as being plugged into a field that is not my creation, but is generated by the audience and by something beyond the audience. Besides, I find that my thinking stagnates and my heart atrophies when I am in front of my computer too much. I need to interact with real people, face to face. That’s why I travel and speak.

On the other hand, I am increasingly drawn to developing the non-verbal, embodied gifts that I’ve neglected. Like many people, I have a feeling that there is a Next Step about to happen, in my work and beyond. I don’t know what it is, but I do know its revelation will come through transforming experiences that reveal and heal things I was blind to. My work, my play, my family, my deep soul connections, my wholeness, my wounds… all of these are bound up together, evolving as one.

I am now remarried as of 2011 and have a baby, my fourth son, Cary, with my wife Stella. Besides mothering, Stella practices Chinese Medicine and other healing modalities. The two teenagers, Jimi and Matthew live with us too; the 9-year-old Philip only sometimes. My favorite moments are watching Jimi and Matthew play “pass the baby” with Cary, who thinks it is the funnest game in the world. Of course we have our challenges and I have occasional moments of seeing my whole life as a father as a collision-course of errors, but overall I feel extremely lucky to have such amazing, sensitive, talented, kind children.

Lately people sometimes treat me like a celebrity, which makes me feel uncomfortable, because I know I am just me. On the other hand, it has become impossible to answer every email and say yes to every offer to interact. I have to turn down most offers to speak, travel, write blurbs for books, and so on. Also the attention focused on me can get overwhelming. I understand why real celebrities need to insulate themselves. Even receiving appreciation can be too much to handle sometimes, although it has sustained me too through periods of setbacks and doubt. I do my best to stay accessible and answer as many contacts as possible.

I can’t really tell you my plans for the future; it all depends on what is revealed to me in the next phase of my personal exploration. Besides, the world is approaching a state of flux that could easily render most plans irrelevant. I will continue writing and speaking for at least another year or two. My main interest now is in exploring the boundaries of what is “possible” according to our received beliefs, received habits, received technologies, and received ways of knowing. For humanity to take that Next Step, we are going to have to violate what is politically practical, socially practical, and even technologically practical. The same holds on the personal and relational level. I have caught glimpses of the impossible in all these realms and I am excited about what lies ahead."

LUCA CECCARELLI

Luca Ceccarelli is an Italo-American Director/Producer, based in Los Angeles with strong ties to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he is festival programmer and creative director of the CineFesta Italia Film, Food & Culture festival launching this year. The festival runs in Santa Fe, June 1-4, 2016 and showcases current Italian films. CineFesta is honred to host emcee, Filippo Voltaggio.

Luca is currently developing two features and a TV series co-authored with his producing partner, Eileen Street. Together they own and operate development and production company, HDNM Entertainment and their Los Angeles shingle, EDGY Pictures.

His passion for directing moved Luca to spearhead The Director’s Edge, which offers unique tools and coaching programs designed to help emerging and established directors maximize their creativity, preparation and practice, featuring the unique Get-Set-Ready! Method.

For Luca It all started in 1979 with his big sister’s Fisher Price record player and a collection of Morricone cuts from Leone classics. He buckled his holster, readied his caps in his plastic six-shooter, tipped his hat low above his 5-year-old brow, and stared into the mirror. That was it. In that moment he knew he was a filmmaker. Luca is extremely excited to be developing his own features, Noah’s Ark and Eve Angelic.

Luca directed and produced the reality-tv pilot Planet Snowkite – Episode 1, Ushuaia/Argentina (FilmCom 2011). Before that, he was primarily engaged in producing and line-producing film and television features. Titles include Italian “spaghetti westerns”, Triggerman (Lionsgate 2009) and Doc West (Lionsgate 2009), starring European favorite Terence Hill, and Paul Sorvino. Other titles include the Santa Fe Film Festival – Independent Spirit Award winner, Shoot First & Pray You Live (Lionsgate 2008), as well as grind-house exploitation flick Naked Fear (Cinetel Films 2007).

Luca studied at ARTTS International, UK, and St. John’s College and graduated from the College of Santa Fe with a BA in Moving Image Arts (with honors). He spearheaded HDNM Entertainment in 2004.

Luca was Founding President of the New Mexico Post Alliance (NMPost.com) and creator of ShootSantaFe.com.

Alice Austin is a singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist from Vermont, currently living and performing in Los Angeles. Her sound ranges from vintage to modern, crossing over from a Classic Rock vibe to Americana.

Austin’s latest release from October of 2014, ‘Left One In The Rain’, is a compelling three-song EP containing elements of isolation, hope, acceptance, and surrender. Produced by Patrick Avalon in Los Angeles, the music the lends itself well to a sunny electro-acoustic style, yet retains its grounding in the solo artist’s Classic Rock attitude.

‘To A Star In The Yard’, her album released in 2009, is Austin’s fourth full-length album, but her first solo record on which she has composed, arranged, recorded, produced, and performed all the the tracks. Some of the highlights on this album are the edgy 60’s throwback, ‘Sharp Side of the Knife’, and the garage-blues inflected ‘Graveyard Before Dark.’

Prior to solo performances, Alice Austin played with the Boston-based bands The Stark Raving Mad and The Lavas, and from her hometown Burlington, Vermont, Queen Tangerine and Zola Turn.

Signed to now-defunct Los Angeles label, Brick Red Records in 2002, (subsidiary Gold Circle Entertainment), Austin hasn’t missed a beat from the trials and tribulations of being signed and dropped all within a six-month span, rather persevered and thrived. The evolution of her songwriting has gone from irreverent punk-pop to an evocative perspective of the human condition. She has toured all over the east coast and southern United States, playing in such legendary venues as The Middle East Downstairs, The House of Blues Boston, The Knitting Factory, as well as South by Southwest and CMJ music festivals.

I taught special education for many years. I left teaching due to the current reforms that are taking over the nation’s classrooms. I am now committed to writing about the profession that I hold dear and the public schools that are critically important to the future of America and its children.

Along with my book, Misguided Education Reform: Debating the Impact on Students, I have been published in Phi Delta Kappan and Education Week. I am an activist on the issue of safe school facilities. In 2012, I was invited to speak about school building safety at the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute’s annual meeting in Memphis, Tennessee.

I have a B.S. degree in special education from Central Michigan University, a M.Ed in special education from the University of North Florida, and a Ph.D. in Educational Leadership from Florida State University. I earned credentials in teaching students with emotional disabilities, learning disabilities, developmental disabilities, and school administration. I also obtained post-doc credentials in teaching gifted and talented from the University of South Florida. My student teaching involved working under wonderfully talented veteran teachers who I still hold in high regard.

Teachers—and the culture in which they work—have the most significant impact on student achievement. Teachers must have a deep understanding of instruction; that is, they must (1) understand the principles that govern how the human mind integrates, processes, stores and masters new skills and information, and (2) be skilled in implementing instructional strategies that capitalize on those learning principles.

It is my responsibility to put the most highly skilled teachers in front of my students; to engage teachers in continuous professional learning of effective instructional practices; and to orchestrate and invest in a collaborative adult learning environment that gets groups of teachers working together with purpose and persistence--an environment that respects the infinite intellectual capacity of teachers to identity problems and to work collaboratively to solve them.

At my current school we are in year three of a six-to-eight-year effort to completely transform teaching and learning through a combination of directed professional education, collaborative-teacher directed learning communities focused on problem solving, and the capacity building to bring it all together. Data has a place in our work, but it does not drive our efforts, it informs them. Our efforts are driven by our love for our students, our respect for our profession, and the sense of responsibility and purpose that each of us experiences as we work with our students.

After just two-and-a-half years, our results have been impressive. Some of our achievement information is illustrated below.

Unfortunately, our politicians and their education appointees do not always have an appreciation for--or understanding of--the systems and resources it takes to develop and maintain high performing schools and school systems. As a result, I have engaged in advocacy for our city's public schools

Cara StLouis is a writer, teacher, activist and speaker hailing from the American Southwest, infused with the old spirit of the sovereign individual. She is committed to Waldorf School's teaching, which is centered around protecting the Imagination of the human being. She has been a journalist for Veterans Today and is the author of several books including Consolata's Companion, about the dark side or archontic presence in our lives. The Sun Thief is a thinly fictionalized thriller about the murder of her mother who had a top security Navy clearance, and a pilot who steals a chemtrail plane. With Harald Kautz-Vella, Dangerous Imagination, Silent Assimilation is the paradigm shifting book which flings the doors open to expose the vast coordinated manipulations to control and dominate humanity.

Former producer at The People's Voice, Cara has 6 titles out, soon to be 8.  Currently, she is promoting the 3rd episode on the workbook series called The Great Food Con aka Taste Buds.  Later this year, the 3rd volume of the Imagination Chronicles will be out titled, I, Magician.  She leads esoteric research journeys 2 to 3 times per year.  Her complete Sovereign Imagination Studio Workshop series is available via private lessons online.  You can find her on Facebook, YouTube, and her website link.

Becky is a gifted educator and a has been a driving force at Redstone Media Group for over 12 years as the Western Regional Director of operations located in Los Angeles. Animals, natural healing, alternative health care and educating people are her passion which is why she is so successful in helping our advertising partners tell their story. Becky also has the rare gift of being able to understand the needs of her clients as well as the challenges that many of our readers experience with their animals. She is a true advocate of integrative health care for both animals and humans … “When I found Animal Wellness Magazine, it was everything I had been working toward and promoted all that I believed in”. Becky enjoys the California lifestyle living on Long Beach with her beloved dogs Timothy and Cute at her side. Oh ya...she likes monkeys too!

Elliott Maynard is a neo-renaissance scientist and conceptual designerwho walks his talk, lives his dream and is driven to share this information with others of like mind. His background spans the fields of Global Ecology, Coral Reef Ecology, Oceanography and Tropical Rainforest Biology. He earned a Ph.D. in Consciousness Research and has served on the faculties of Adelphi University and Dowling College in New York. Dr. Maynard defines his master paradigm as “a new operating system forthe human race.” But how does Future Science Technology assist in upgrading our mind to the mind of new man (Homo novus)? What are the characteristics of this new man? How do we access this quantum mind? Maynard skillfully highlights an array of seemingly unconnected subjects from which he weaves a “Living Tapestry.” This tapestry contains both the threads of the future science world that are already in place, as well as threads that exist in the future. By embracing this new mindset we can work collectively to birth a new era of effective fixes for a world in which our established institutions are teetering on the brink of collapse or are already broken.