My spiritual/social justice/community building/healing lineage includes the teachings of the following people:
bell hooks – critical consciousness, racism, feminism, education, love and community
adrienne maree brown – emergent strategy, liberated relationship, & transformative justice
Audre Lorde – racism, intersectional oppression, and social justice
Octavia Butler – philosophy of change and visions of the future
Sarah Schulman – conflict is not abuse
Starhawk – community building, collaborative leadership, sacred activism & Witchcraft
Sera Beak – feminine and rebel spirituality
Christina Baldwin and Anne Linnea – circles, self awareness
Heather Plett – holding space and circles
Caroline Myss – self awareness, shadow work & archetypes
Martin Luther King, Jr. – Beloved Community
Leo Buscaglia – Love
Andrew Harvey – queer and feminine mysticism, sacred activism
Andrew Solomon – identity and inclusion
William Ury – transformative justice, mediation, The Third Side
Charles Eisenstein – sacred economics and gift economy
Lewis Hyde – gift economy
St. John of the Cross – the dark night of the soul
Thomas Moore – the soul
Peter Block and Paul Born– community building
M Scott Peck, MD – self awareness & psychology of community
Parker Palmer – belonging & circles of trust
John Welwood – psycho-spirituality and relationship as spiritual practice
Frances Weller – grief and ritual
Carl Jung – self awareness, shadow work and archetypes
Hamish Sinclair and the Alive Program for reducing violence and nurturing intimacy in relationships and conflict (utilized in kink and poly communities in the San Francisco Bay area). We adapted his program to a transformational justice process that healed the fracture in our adoption triad where mutual harm had been caused.
Jesus – Although I no longer consider myself a Christian, Jesus is still my favorite spiritual teacher among the world’s religions. He was radically inclusive in his relationships, he spoke against spiritual corruption, and based on the gospels released in the 20th century, he taught that we are all made of the divine. I believe he would be horrified to know what politicians, violent pro-lifers, and mega-church pastors do and say in his name.