Smithsonian Folklife Festival
The Smithsonian Folklife Festival is an international exposition of living cultural heritage annually produced outdoors on the National Mall of the United States in Washington, D.C., by the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.
The Festival takes place every summer, often overlapping the Fourth of July holiday. It is an educational presentation that features community-based cultural exemplars. Free to the public, like other Smithsonian museums, each Festival typically draws hundreds of thousands of visitors.
Initiated in 1967, the Festival has become a national and international model of a research-based presentation of contemporary living cultural traditions. Over the years, it has brought more than 25,000 musicians, artists, performers, craftspeople, workers, cooks, storytellers, and others to the National Mall to demonstrate the skills, knowledge, and aesthetics that embody the creative vitality of community-based traditions.
Click here to check out their site and their live 2024 Festival schedule
Robin Kimmerer
Distinguished Teaching Professor and Director, Center for Native Peoples and the Environment
Dr. Kimmerer is a mother, plant ecologist, writer and SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, New York. She serves as the founding Director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment whose mission is to create programs which draw on the wisdom of both indigenous and scientific knowledge for our shared goals of sustainability. Her research interests include the role of traditional ecological knowledge in ecological restoration and the ecology of mosses. In collaboration with tribal partners, she and her students have an active research program in the ecology and restoration of plants of cultural significance to Native people. She is active in efforts to broaden access to environmental science education for Native students, and to create new models for integration of indigenous philosophy and scientific tools on behalf of land and culture. She is engaged in programs which introduce the benefits of traditional ecological knowledge to the scientific community, in a way that respects and protects indigenous knowledge.
Dr. Kimmerer has taught courses in botany, ecology, ethnobotany, indigenous environmental issues as well as a seminar in application of traditional ecological knowledge to conservation. She is the co-founder and past president of the Traditional Ecological Knowledge section of the Ecological Society of America. Dr. Kimmerer serves as a Senior Fellow for the Center for Nature and Humans. Of European and Anishinaabe ancestry, Robin is an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation.
ESF (Environmental Science and Forestry, Syracuse, New York) is one of the nation’s premier colleges focused on the study of the environment, developing renewable technologies, and building a sustainable future. We work to address the Earth’s most pressing problems — and students come here because they want to be part of the solution.
The New School at Commonweal is a community of inquiry exploring topics in health, the arts and sciences, the environment, and the inner life. We present conversations, book readings, performances, art shows, and other events with thought and action leaders who are changing our world. The events, more than 300 since 2007, are recorded and then offered as podcasts and videos on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify, YouTube, Amazon Music, and our website. Most of our events are offered free of charge as gifts to the Commonweal community—and you are part of it—giving forward into a circle of generosity.
Bioneers is inspiring and realizing a shift to live on Earth in ways that honor the web of life, each other and future generations.
Bioneers is an innovative nonprofit organization that highlights breakthrough solutions for restoring people and planet. Founded in 1990 in Santa Fe, New Mexico by social entrepreneurs Kenny Ausubel and Nina Simons, we act as a fertile hub of social and scientific innovators with practical and visionary solutions for the world’s most pressing environmental and social challenges.
With dynamic programs and initiatives focus on game-changing initiatives related to Restorative Food Systems, Biomimicry, Rights of Nature, Indigeneity, Women’s Leadership and Youth Leadership.
Don Miro Quesada
The Heart of the Healer Shamanic Mystery School
Our human relationship with Mystery underlies all Self-discovery and cultural creativity. The experience of awe and reverence felt as witness to the majestic miracle that is our living Cosmos has inspired our human quest for truth and wisdom since time immemorial. This yearning for an enlightened understanding of The Ineffable is the raison d’tre for the existence of all mystery schools. The Heart of the Healer Shamanic Mystery School offers both the earnest aspirant and adept initiate of the Great Work a nonpareil community of pioneering souls dedicated to love-empowered deep transformative practice as a means of reawakening human divinity upon Gaia-Pachamama.
Our Wisdom Paths are The Pachakuti Mesa Tradition, Divine Feminine Consciousness, and Ancestral Star Wisdom.
Minority Rights Group
Minority Rights Group is the leading human rights organization working with ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities, and indigenous peoples worldwide.
Millions of people miss out on basic rights because they are different. We support minorities and indigenous peoples in the defence of their rights – to the lands they live on, to the languages they speak, to the beliefs they practise, to the cultures they enjoy, to equal opportunities in education and employment, and to full participation in public life.
Crow Canyon Archaeological Center
The mission of the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center is to empower present and future generations by making the human past accessible and relevant through archaeological research, experiential education, and American Indian knowledge.
He has started orchestras in the most unimaginable places in the world and has students all over the globe. A musician, teacher and conductor who loves skype and zoom and everything that can bring us humans together. A leader who loves to see others grow. A dreamer? Absolutely not. Under Ron’s baton, dreams come true. You can become a conductor too.
