Kalliopeia Foundation

10/14/2026

Explore myth, God, despair, joy, and the transformative power of stories in this conversation between mythologist, storyteller and cultural activist, Martin Shaw, and actor, comedian, podcaster and chat show host, Tommy Tiernan, recorded at this year's St Ethelburga's Centre for Reconciliation and Peace Spiritual Ecology Festival.

“Each bringing depth, wit and wild imagination to the discussion, this is a rare and memorable encounter, alive with mystery, humour and insight.”

↘︎ Listen to the full discussion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJWc6HW8GTg

↘︎ Learn more about St Ethelburga's Centre for Reconciliation and Peace: https://kalliopeia.org/grantee-partner/stethelburgas/

Martin Shaw (mythologist, storyteller and cultural activist) and To...

10/12/2026

Theresa Harlan, founder of grantee partner Alliance For Felix Cove, will be a featured presenter at the International Center for MultiGenerational Legacies of Trauma’s webinar that will be held on tomorrow, October 13th at 10:00 on Zoom.

“Held a day following Indigenous People’s Day (October 12th), this session brings together presenters from the New Mexico pueblos and the California and Oregon coastal tribes. Listen in to the conversation exploring the past and ongoing traumatic experiences of American Indigenous relatives. They will share tribal trauma histories, their intergenerational consequences and the rematriation movement to heal and protect future generations.”

↘︎ Register for “Healing Multigenerational Wounds: Reimagining What Will Be” here: https://bit.ly/476DNZb

↘︎ Learn more about this grantee partner: https://kalliopeia.org/grantee-partner/alliance-for-felix-cove/

10/11/2026

“I’ve been thinking about spiritual practice. The core of my practice is to walk in those woods…and simply say with voice or with heart or with the rest of my body: You’re so beautiful. I love you. …that’s the essence of it—just to walk through a wounded world saying: You’re so beautiful. I love you.” —Stephen Blackmer

A collaboration with Shambhala Publications, this Spiritual Ecology: Emergence Magazine podcast episode features a conversation between practitioners from Sufi, Christian, and Buddhist traditions who come together to examine how the values of spiritual ecology are embedded within their different faiths. Drawing upon the themes within Remembering Earth, the new book by Emergence founding editor Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee, they explore how restoring embodied practices of ecological reverence can help us cultivate a space where divinity becomes expansive.

Listen to “Communion Is Alive: A Conversation on Spiritual Ecology with Stephen Blackmer, Susan Murphy, Bonnie Nadzam, and Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee” here: https://emergencemagazine.org/conversation/communion-is-alive/

Photograph by Amy Woodward, Connected Archives.

Four practitioners from Sufi, Christian, and Buddhist traditions come together to explore the necessity of allowing faith practices to evolve to meet the ecological needs of our moment.

10/09/2026

Soil and Shadow is a coaching and consulting firm helping social and environmental entrepreneurs cultivate more impact in their work and joy in their lives. Kalliopeia Foundation and Soil and Shadow co-hosted “Spiritual Ecology and Culture,” an emergent gathering of leaders of color from across the United States, who came together to build community, listen to the land, and ask soul-provoking questions, such as: How do we create space to be “human” together? How does mysticism show up in environmental justice work? And, what can decolonized relationships to land look like for people of color in practical—rather than political or ideological—terms?

Soil and Shadow and Kalliopeia have also collaborated on a twelve-part audio-visual exhibit, The Living Altar, hosted by the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Art (MoCADA). The Living Altar is a return to oral tradition, a winding tale of spirit, ecology, and culture, offering audiences the experience of sitting at the feet of elders.

↘︎ Learn more about this grantee partner: https://kalliopeia.org/grantee-partner/soil-and-shadow/

10/06/2026

Listen to grantees Dr. Lyla June Johnston and Margo Robbins, Executive Director of the Cultural Fire Management Council in conversation on the Mother Earth Medicine Podcast.

In Episode 6, Reclaiming Fire: Cultural Burning with Margo Robbins, they talk about the importance of cultural burning, and how it can restore water, renew habitats, and strengthen relationships with the land.

Mother Earth Medicine is a podcast “designed to bring valued listeners potent and inspiring content that ushers in Ancestral Intelligence—the real AI needed in these trying times. It seeks to honor Indigenous cultures and values as the co-hosts, guests, and listeners collectively dream and co-create a future of mutual flourishing for all. Ancestral Intelligence—rooted in Indigenous cosmovisions, traditional knowledge, and values—embodies the antidote to Artificial Intelligence and the extractive ideologies currently destroying our planet.”

↘︎ Listen: https://www.culturalsurvival.org/mem

↘︎ Learn more about this grantee partner: https://kalliopeia.org/grantee-partner/cultural-fire-management-council/

10/04/2026

Located along a ridgetop in North Central Massachusetts, Pequoig Farm is advancing Nipmuc food sovereignty by building a healthy, robust farm ecosystem that provides food, medicine, land-based education, and cultural connection for Nipmuc people. Pequoig operates on 181 acres of land that was returned to the Nipmuc Tribe from The Farm School in the Summer of 2025. With experienced farm managers, Pequoig Farm is helping to create a food system that supports and feeds Nipmuc people from their homelands, restoring both people and the land. Pequoig means “the clean, clear place.”

↘︎ Learn more about this grantee partner: https://kalliopeia.org/grantee-partner/pequoig-farm/

10/03/2026

Grantee partner Alliance For Felix Cove has created a beautiful dedication song for their ancestral home waters—a healing meditation created from ancestor voices carried through ceremony in the winds and waves to their descendants.

“Our song represents our beliefs in ancestral guidance rooted in our relationship with the land, water and living beings. As medicine, ‘Tamal Liwa’ is a call to and from our ancestors to our relatives and all future generations to come home. We dedicate it to the ‘Tomales Bay Indians’ who once lived and fished on Tamal Liwa—the descendants of nearly 800 generations of Támal-ko People. Come back.”

Poem by Theresa Harlan
Spoken Word by Jasha Lyons Echohawk
Guitar, Jeffer Giang
Vocals, Elissa Simons, Desirae Harp, Bernadette Smith
Drums, Aja Couchois Duncan
Produced by Alliance for Felix Cove, a project of Movement Strategy Center, with Tiśina Parker and ARWN.

“This song exists because Relatives answered their call.”

↘︎ Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beNdDSCgBow

↘︎ Learn more about this grantee partner: https://kalliopeia.org/grantee-partner/alliance-for-felix-cove/

10/02/2026

Congratulations to Spiritual Ecology: Emergence Magazine contributor Layli Long Soldier, who is among this year’s winners of the prestigious MacArthur Foundation Fellowship.

A member of the Oglala Lakota Nation, Layli explores how language can be either a tool of oppression or a means to reshape the world around us. Her experimental prose and poetry both interrogate colonial violence and honor the beauty and resilience passed across generations.

In celebration of Layli’s recognition, read her essay from Emergence Magazine Volume 5: Time, which interrupts a legal narrative of the treaties that diminished Lakota homelands by invoking the ancestral story of Mniconjou Lakota elder and warrior Iron Hail.

↘︎ Read: https://emergencemagazine.org/essay/an-essay-of-knots-and-footnotes/

Poet Layli Long Solider tells the story of Iron Hail—a Mniconjou Lakota elder and warrior—and interrogates how the language of law can be a creative force in reclaiming lands and rights for Native people.

09/30/2026

“What happens when we give the birds our attention?

Research suggests that even a few minutes of listening to birdsong can reduce anxiety and paranoia. And studies have found that spending just 20 minutes in nature can significantly lower cortisol, one of our primary stress hormones. The word attention comes from the Latin attendere: to extend toward. And when we extend our attention toward the birds—listening to their songs, noticing their movements, becoming curious about their lives—we nourish our own nervous systems.”

Grantee partner Weaving Earth is hosting a Bird Kinship series this October: a four week virtual program that you can attend from your home base. This experiential dive into the practices of Bird Language and Mindful Birding will gather via Zoom for four weekly educational webinars and eight guided practice sessions with course facilitators. All webinars will also be recorded to explore on demand.

↘︎ Learn more: https://weavingearth.org/bird-kinship/

↘︎ Learn more about Bird Kinship: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQUDSs9-y3U

↘︎ Learn more about this grantee partner: https://kalliopeia.org/grantee-partner/weaving-earth/

Photograph by Tom Bradley.

09/29/2026

“Tule isn’t just a plant, it’s woven into our stories, homes, and futures. Used for canoes, baskets, clothing, and much more, tule is a living connector among land, water, and people. This sacred plant relative cleans our waterways, shelters birds and animals, prevents erosion, and has long provided refuge and protection for humans in times of need.”

During the late summer harvest of this sacred reed plant, participants learn about California Indigenous lifeways and honor land and water through Traditional Ecological Knowledge by learning how to use tule for basketry, canoes, clothing, food, ceremony and more.

“We honor and celebrate Tamal-ko language, ceremonial practice, knowledge of plant science to harvest food and medicine, and more–allowing the next generation to carry our traditional ways into the future.” —Theresa Harlan, Alliance for Felix Cove founder and director.

Alliance for Felix Cove aims to re-Indigenize the ancestral homelands of the Felix family, the last Tamalko family to live on the western shores of Tamal-liwa (Tomales Bay) at what is known as Laird’s Landing. Felix family members would call this Felix Cove to recognize their ancestral Coast Miwok home. The Alliance envisions establishing a living history center and garden at the cove, to honor the lives of the Felix family, teach visitors about how they lived sustainably on Tomales Bay, and to promote an awareness of Indigenous ecological knowledge and practices.

Photography by Vita Hewitt

↘︎ Learn more about this grantee partner: https://kalliopeia.org/grantee-partner/alliance-for-felix-cove/