Non-affiliated

Erin LaFaive is passionate about plants and the vital role they play in our health and will-being, and she shares her passion and knowledge in several ways, including through Full Circle Herbals. She also works days as horticultural educator with Eau Claire County UW Extension. Combining science nerd inclinations with Earth-based spirituality, Erin delivers the best of both worlds.

Words like innovate, change, and adapt can be inspirational or the agent of doom for our well-being, depending on your perspective. In Trees on Mars: Our Obsession with the Future, Hal Niedzviecki takes us on a ride through the technology & ideas which promise that we can "win the future", giving us a penetrating look at the consequences of our mad rush "forward".

Through the OurHighestWork.com community, George Kao helps folks work toward doing the best work they can, in tune with their ethics and leadings, and effectively. Having made his own transition from a "more, more, more" ethic to a "better, better, better" purpose, he coaches people, especially solopreneurs, in selecting their work and doing it wisely.

In his memoir, Not From Here, sociologist & author Allan G. Johnson takes us on an odyssey of introspection about our unrootedness and the symptoms of that dysfunction in our personal and national identities, things like the native genocide, slavery, but also the holes in our lives because we don't belong.

Matt Southworth was a wrestler in high school, fought as a U.S. Army intelligence analyst in Iraq after graduation, and now conducts legislative battles for peace on Capitol Hill.

Steve McIntosh is author of Evolution's Purpose: An Integral Interpretation of the Scientific Story of Our Origins, an insightful & carefully reasoned study of the big WHY driving creation. With a worldview peering beyond the beliefs & practices of traditionalists, modernists, & post-modernists, Steve leads us to an outlook which promises dramatic improvement, inner & outer, for our culture & world.

Jeremy Gragert tackles the climate/environment crisis at home by working on the ways we travel, including his activism with the Chippewa Valley Transit Alliance, Eau Claire Climate Action Now, and the Bicycle Federation of Wisconsin (WisconsinBikeFed.org).

David Massengill paints a griping and moving picture of the USA through his music - of race, immigrants, adoption, and much more. Instead of speechifying about politics, David brings change by involving listeners in real stories that move our hearts, all the more powerful because of his Tennessee vernacular and accent.

Sandy Bishop & Rhea Miller were the 2012 Lopez Spirit Award winners for many of their works, including very notably their work with the Lopez Community Land Trust which nurtures the island in myriad ways, like producing net-zero-energy housing developments and the Seed Library. Rhea hosts a home church, drawing on, and continuing beyond, her training in Episcopal seminary.