CIIS Public Programs

CIIS Public Programs

This is a podcast for people who are curious about the world and themselves featuring talks and conversations presented by the Public Programs department of California Institute of Integral Studies, a non-profit university in San Francisco. Listen here or on your favorite podcast app to a diverse array of visionaries, artists, and scholars sharing compelling experiences, offering new perspectives, and expanding creative horizons.

Episodes

On Somatics and Creative Leadership with Alfonso Montuori and Nick Walker

August 26, 2026 • 58 mins
What is creative leadership? It could mean leadership that’s distributed and collaborative, rather than top-down and authoritarian. It could mean leadership that’s flexible enough to continually reinvent its structures and approaches to meet emerging circumstances. It could mean leadership that views diversity and difference as opportunities for learning, growth, and creative synergy rather than as problems to be manage...
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On Understanding Luminosity of Consciousness in the Tibetan Bön Tradition with Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

August 13, 2026 • 56 mins
Bön is among the oldest indigenous spiritual traditions in the world. It originated in Central Asia thousands of years ago in what is now Tibet and is still being practiced globally today. Rooted in ancient cosmology, visionary practices, and ritual technologies, the tradition of Tibetan Bön offers a distinctive and sophisticated understanding of mind, embodiment, and awareness that speaks directly to contemporary questions in psyc...
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Filipino Indigenous Wisdom for Personal and Shared Wellbeing with Carl Lorenz Cervantes

July 30, 2026 • 64 mins
For centuries, Filipino lifeways were presented to outsiders through the distorted lens of colonization—and the oppression, exploitation, and denigration suffered by Filipino ancestors are well-documented. In his work, psychologist and author Carl Lorenz Cervantes draws from Filipino folklore, language, and culture to reorient toward an Indigenous worldview: one that rejects being seen as a passive object in history. * In t...
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Centering Connection and Creativity for Health and Wellbeing

July 16, 2026 • 62 mins
Around the world, practitioners are rediscovering what artists, cultural workers, and community healers have long understood: that creativity and human connection are powerful forces for wellbeing. * In this episode CIIS faculty Dr. Christine Brooks and Dr. Elizabeth Markle discuss how arts-based practices, dynamic community experiences, and connection-centered programming are reshaping the landscape of health. Together they exam...
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On the Intimate Animal with Dr. Justin Garcia

July 2, 2026 • 65 mins
Why do we love who we love? Why do we stay in unfulfilling relationships, and stray from rewarding ones? Is it ever a good idea to open a relationship? And why do some long-time couples crash and burn while others stay madly in love? Evolutionary biologist, author, and Executive Director of the world-renowned Kinsey Institute, Dr. Justin Garcia examines these questions and more in this conversation on modern mating. * In this ep...
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On Sustaining Your Creative Life with Cindy Shearer:

June 18, 2026 • 64 mins
With rejection and intense commitment being such integral parts of any artist’s life, many struggle to stay with the creative process. Author and CIIS Faculty in the Interdisciplinary Arts program, Cindy Shearer has spent decades helping artists stay with their craft. In her book, Stay with Writing, Cindy encourages writers to understand themselves as artists, and for artists across all mediums to learn about themselves from ...
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Awakening Your Roots with the Medicine of Nature with Lorena Saavedra Smith

June 4, 2026 • 64 mins
Many of us feel disconnected from our family stories and traditions, which can create a sense of loss of home and belonging. Pacha philosopher and ecopsychologist Lorena Saavedra Smith believes reconciling with our ancestors’ traditions and weaving ourselves back into our history is a therapeutic endeavor that deserves to be embarked upon with respect and authenticity. * In this episode, Lorena is joined by Susana Bustos, fa...
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Who We Are Becoming Matters with Norma Kawelokū Wong

May 21, 2026 • 63 mins
In her book Who We Are Becoming Matters, Zen teacher and Indigenous Hawaiian leader Norma Kawelokū Wong asks “Who do we need to become to move forward in togetherness and mutual responsibility?” Norma invites us to reckon with 4 essential inner capacities—courage, compassion, aloha, and strategic wisdom. We must cultivate and embody these capacities, not just to survive, but to shepherd ourselves through an age of...
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Richard Tarnas: On Psychedelic Initiation in Postmodern Culture

May 7, 2026 • 89 mins
The 20th century’s discovery of LSD and subsequent use of various psychedelics in both therapeutic practice and popular culture has been a deeply transformational event in modern civilization. It has carried the power of a collective initiatory rite of passage, yet often without an adequately containing ritual structure, indigenous wisdom tradition, or clinical knowledge to mediate that transformation. * In this episode CIIS...
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Jonathan Mathias Lassiter: Notes from a Frustrated Black Psychologist

April 23, 2026 • 63 mins
In his latest book, How I Know White People Are Crazy and Other Stories, psychologist Jonathan Lassiter pulls back the curtain on the mental health system and reveals the hurdles that Black psychologists and students are forced to endure in the field. * In this episode, Dr. Lassiter is joined by CIIS Expressive Arts Therapy core faculty Chevon Stewart, for a thought-provoking conversation exploring his experience as a Black gay ma...
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Rowen White: On Indigenous Seedkeeping and Food Sovereignty

April 9, 2026 • 64 mins
Seedkeeper, author, mentor, and founder of Sierra Seeds, Rowen White is a passionate activist for Indigenous seed and food sovereignty. With the increasing industrialization of our food and the erosion of biodiversity within cultural contexts, Rowen works to guide and mentor mindful eaters and food/seed sovereignty leaders in their capacity to lead, vision, and nourish a deep-rooted transformation. For Rowen and many others, cultiv...
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Elizabeth Gilbert: On Love, Loss, and Breaking Free

March 26, 2026 • 64 mins
What if your most beautiful love story turned into your biggest nightmare? And what if your most devastating heartbreak opened a pathway to your greatest awakening? * In her critically acclaimed novels and immensely popular works of nonfiction including Eat Pray Love and Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert expands our understanding of creativity, spirituality, and love. This episode features a powerful conversation between Elizabeth and ...
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Sundari Johansen & Anjali Rao: On Tantra, Yoga, and Embodied Resistance

March 12, 2026 • 66 mins
Tantra and Yoga are practices rooted in Indic spiritual traditions that share long, intertwined and complex histories. Often, we encounter tantra and yoga as forms of exercise, self-care, sex, or as pathways to personal wellness. However, these powerful, multifaceted practices are much more than that. * In this episode, Dr. Anna Corwin, Chair of the CIIS Women’s Spirituality Program facilitates an illuminating conversation be...
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Dr. Lucie Fielding: On A Pleasure-Centered Approach to Trans Sexualities

February 26, 2026 • 57 mins
In her work, sex therapist and author Dr. Lucie Fielding seeks to move trans sexualities from the margins of gender-affirmative clinical practice to centering pleasure and sparking creativity and empathic attunement within the client-provider relationship. In the latest expanded second edition of her groundbreaking book, Trans Sex, she offers new concepts such as gender-pleasure and solidarity to bring theory to practice and featur...
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Alka Arora, Jeanine M. Canty, and Sara H. Salazar: Multicultural Women’s Voices on Ecological and Social Healing

February 12, 2026 • 61 mins
This is the CIIS Public Programs Podcast, featuring talks and conversations recorded live by California Institute of Integral Studies, a non-profit university located in San Francisco on unceded Ramaytush Ohlone Land. * It is possible to heal ourselves and our planet if we are open to the power of integrating multiple and often conflicting views. In their lives and work, authors and CIIS faculty members Alka Arora, Jeanine M. Cant...
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Ann Tashi Slater: On Embracing Impermanence

January 29, 2026 • 64 mins
Life is perpetually, endlessly filled with change: new jobs and new loves, unfamiliar places and faces. And entwined in that change is loss: loss of what was or is, or what could have been. Amid this shifting landscape, author Ann Tashi Slater has found power in embracing impermanence through the Tibetan Buddhist belief in the intermediate state of bardo. * In this episode, Ann is joined in an illuminating conversation with CIIS Pr...
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Francis Weller: On Caring for Our Souls in Uncertain Times

January 15, 2026 • 62 mins
In this episode, CIIS Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness professor Sean Kelly has a deep and fortifying conversation with psychotherapist and author Francis Weller. * Together they explore ways of moving together through the anxieties, difficulties, and sacred transitions of 21st-century life. Featuring insights from Francis’s latest book, In the Absence of the Ordinary, this conversation frames our current era as a ro...
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Dr. Britt Frank: On Personal Transformation With Parts Work

January 1, 2026 • 63 mins
Some podcast apps may not display links from our show notes properly, so we have included a list of links at the end of this description. * Parts Work, also known as Internal Family Systems, developed by Dr. Richard Schwartz, is a transformative tool that conceives of every human being as a system of protective and wounded inner parts led by a core Self. Parts Work allows you an all-access pass to wholeness by understanding, befrie...
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Dr. Rhaina Cohen: On the Power of Friendships

December 4, 2025 • 65 mins
Some podcast apps may not display links from our show notes properly, so we have included a list of links at the end of this description. * Why do we assume romantic relationships are more important than friendships? In this episode, clinical psychologist Margaret Boucher has an illuminating conversation with NPR journalist Rhaina Cohen on the power of platonic partnerships and how the thrill, intimacy, and commitment we seek is of...
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Dr. Manvir Singh: Understanding Shamanism

November 6, 2025 • 66 mins
Some podcast apps may not display links from our show notes properly, so we have included a list of links at the end of this description. * This is the CIIS Public Programs Podcast, featuring talks and conversations recorded live by California Institute of Integral Studies, a non-profit university located in San Francisco on unceded Ramaytush Ohlone Land. * Harvard-trained anthropologist and author Manvir Singh has traveled from I...
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