Báyò Akómoláfé, PhD, rooted with the Yoruba people in a more-than-human world, is the father to Alethea Aanya and Kyah Jayden Abayomi, the grateful life-partner to Ije, son and brother. A widely celebrated international speaker, posthumanist thinker, poet, teacher, public intellectual, essayist, and author of two books, These Wilds Beyond our Fences: Letters to My Daughter on Humanity’s Search for Home (North Atlantic Books) and We Will Tell our Own Story: The Lions of Africa Speak.

Báyò Akómoláfé is the Founder of The Emergence Network, a planet-wide initiative that seeks to convene communities in new ways in response to the critical, civilizational challenges we face as a species. He is host of the postactivist course/festival/event, We Will Dance with Mountains. He currently lectures at Pacifica Graduate Institute, California. He sits on the Board of many organizations including Science and Non-Duality (US) and Ancient Futures (Australia). In July 2022, Dr. Akómoláfé was appointed the inaugural Global Senior Fellow of University of California’s (Berkeley) Othering and Belonging Institute. He is also the inaugural Special Fellow of the Schumacher Centre for New Economics and the Inaugural Special Fellow for the Aspen Institute. He has been Fellow for The New Institute in Hamburg, Germany, and Visiting Critic-in-Residence for the Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles (2023).

Nuno da Silva is co-founder of LUCIDA, resourcing people and organisations to think from a living systems perspective and work with regenerative development processes. He is also an educator in regenerative development at the Regenesis Institute for Regenerative Practice, a trainer for the Council of Europe, and part of the pool of trainers for the Transition Network. He is a co-founder of The Emergence Network.

Nuno has a pre-Bologna degree in Economics. He dedicated the first decade of his career to being an educator, trainer of trainers and youth workers in experiential, collaborative and participatory learning methodologies in Portugal, Europe and around the world, on topics such as Participation and Citizenship, Global Education, Peace Education, Intercultural Learning, Human Rights, Diversity and Inclusion, Organizational Development and Project Management.

He has worked with various national, international and intergovernmental entities from the public, private and civil society sectors, such as: National Youth Council, Secretary of State for Youth, North-South Center, European Commission, Council of Europe, Asia Europe Foundation, World Bank, United Nations Development Program.

Links:

• LUCIDA: www.lucidathinking.com/en
• Regenesis Institute: https://www.regenerat.es/

Karen aspires to serve life through her life and death. Karen loves toddlers and hates writing her own bios.

Sofia is a graphic designer by training, a teacher by chance, a writer by visceral need, and an independent (re)searcher by natural curiosity. Mammal, author, unschooling woman-mother, and question weaver one day at a time. Awkward prose-poet with no grammatical knowledge. Pilgrim through inner and outer landscapes of wild Iberian Mythology, re-membering ancient earth practices, in radical presence, active listening, ecopsychology, eco-mythology, art, ecstasy, and writing.

Author of eleven books, including The Sanctuary: Essays on Eco-Mythology. Editor of the free online magazine, Wind and Water  – questioning extractivist and phallo-anthropo-centric narratives through ecosystemic perspectives {we tentatively speak, write and feel outside the violent illusions of control and perpetual economic growth.}; Re-member of the Bones Podcast; Beyond the Sea Conversations, – all in Portuguese. Organizer of the first Eco-Mythology Gathering in Portugal (here with English subtitles).

Links:

• Website in Portuguese: https://www.serpentedalua.com/
• Substack in English: https://sofiabatalha.substack.com/

Manish Jain is deeply committed to regenerating our diverse local knowledge systems, cultural imaginations and inter-cultural dialogue. Inspired by MK Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore,  Ivan Illich, his illiterate village grandmother, his unschooled daughter, indigenous communities and Jain spiritual philosophy, he is one of the leading planetary voices for deschooling our lives and reimagining education. He has served for the past 25 years as Chief Beaver (ecosystems builder) of Shikshantar: The Peoples’ Institute for Rethinking Education and Development based in Udaipur, India and is co-founder of some of the most innovative educational experiments in the world: Swaraj University, Jail University, Complexity University, Tribal Farmversity, Creativity Adda, the Learning Societies Unconference, the Walkouts Network, Udaipur as a Learning City, the Families Learning Together Network, and Berkana Exchange.  He co-launched the global Ecoversities Alliance with 500+ members in 50 countries. He is a senior advisor to the Economics of Happiness network for localisation. He has worked as a facilitator with Social Labs, Art of Hosting and World Cafe.

He has served as guest faculty for Schumacher College (UK), National School of Drama-Theatre in Education (India) and for the Peace Boat (Japan). Manish has been invited to give inspiring public keynote speeches on Reimagining Education in many countries such as the United States, England, Portugal, Brazil, Mexico, India. He has edited several books on Vimukt Shiksha (liberating learning) on themes such as hacking education, learning societies, unlearning, gift culture, community media, and tools for deep dialogue. Prior to this, Manish worked as one of the principal team members of the UNESCO Learning Without Frontiers global initiative in Paris Headquarters. He has also been a consultant to UNICEF, World Bank, USAID in Africa, South Asia and the former Soviet Union. Manish worked as an investment banker with Morgan Stanley. He has been trying to unlearn his Master’s degree in Education from Harvard University and a B.A. in Economics, International Development and Political Philosophy from Brown University. He and his wife Vidhi have been unschooling themselves with their 21 year old daughter, Kanku, in Udaipur, Rajasthan. Manish is passionate about masti yoga, urban organic farming, filmmaking, simulation gaming, bicycling, ultimate frisbee, trekking, compassionate clowning and slow food cooking.

Links:

• Shikshantar: https://www.shikshantar.org/
• Swaraj University: https://www.swarajuniversity.org/
• Jail University: https://www.jailuniversity.org/
• Ecoversities Alliance: https://ecoversities.org/

Toni is an artist, educator and facilitator working across multiple disciplines. Her work explores how drawing together the personal, political and poetic can offer new ways of being together. She is the founder of ‘the pause’ which brings embodiment, presence and deep ecology together as “…a radical act, an invitation to stop in the midst of action, to disrupt our normal modes of being, to collectively fall silent and become aware of the moment we’re in.”

She is a curator with The Emergence Network, weaves Deep Adaptation and decolonial thinking through her work alongside inquiry based exploration including Living Deep Adaptation and Kissing The Void; Deep Adaptation and the Creative Spirit.

Toni has taught on the faculty of Schumacher College (Educational Practice, Ecological Facilitation as Leadership, Embodied Eco-literacy, Sacred Activism, Ethical Entrepreneurship) and at Goldsmiths, University of London (EcoDesign) as well as hosting The Work That Reconnects and other work in activist and community spaces. She is a tutor, trainer and mentor on Call of the Wild with Schumacher Collage/Wildwise.

She has an Action Research based MSc in Responsibility and Business Practice and has trained in a diverse range of awakening practices, creativity and facilitation modalities, alongside many years of dancing, wild food foraging and ‘living life as inquiry’. She is a Trustee at ProcessworkUK.

Links:

• About Toni: http://www.tonispencer.co.uk/

Born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1985, Suélen Brito has an art degree from the Escolas de Belas Artes da UFRJ and currently works as visual artist, art educator, cultural producer and social activist. Suélen also has a postgraduate degree in Cultural Management from the Centro Universitário SENAC. She has focused her skills as artist to help change realities in urban areas of high social vulnerability such as Complexo de Favelas da Maré, on the north side of Rio de Janeiro, where she was born and has lived during most of her life.

Suélen coordinates the Escola de Cinema Olhares da Maré – ECOM (Visions of  Maré Cinema School), a project developed with children, young people and local women for creating new audio-visual narratives within the community networks of the neighborhood (Redes da Maré). She has been involved with the Redes de Maré since the project’s founding as a student, staff member, art educator and project coordinator.

She is also a partner in the Laboratório Experimental de Artes Visuais de Favela (Experimental Laboratory of Visual Arts in Favelas) which reflects life experiences in the area of informal education, especially in the Maré slum. This partnership has provided Suélen with the opportunity to co-create intense and innovative processes of transversal art education. Within the Laboratório, learning grows from the experiences, narratives and desires of each participant, planted and cultivated collectively within the context of the community. Suélen believes that each person is a potential seed and when we see ourselves as part of a whole, our local culture and memories can catalyze social transformation.

Owólabi Aboyade is a father, an MC, editor, life coach, and multidimensional culture worker from Detroit. He is a poet, essayist, and critic, a regular contributor to Riverwise, Geez, Therapeutic Edgelands, and Against The Current magazines. He collaborates frequently with AWE Society Press: as text editor of Bullet*Train and as author of the upcoming chapbook (2024), Lee, Young Lee (edited by Sherina Rodriguez-Sharpe). Owólabi is currently enrolled in Pacific University’s MFA program (nonfiction). 

Owólabi is also a member of Motor City Mobile Wellness, a holistic abolitionist healing collective. He found that his patterns of “keeping feelings held back” magnified all his health challenges; now he works to express himself freely and creatively. He carries 20+ years of cultural facilitation and organization practice focused on environmental justice, disability justice, and New Afrikan sovereignty against material and spiritual modes of colonization. 

Owólabi is a New Afrikan citizen and an Orisha priest with a passion for bringing the liberation lessons of Detroit to global audiences. He is allergic to genocide, but making the best of the hands we were dealt.  

Owólabi Aboyade stands on the shoulders of those who came before. 

Free Palestine.

Links:

• Creative Calabash (writing hq): https://creativecalabash.substack.com
• Detroit Bullet Train: https://detroitbullettrain.com/

 Links to Sample Work:

• Mutation Mixtape: https://audiomack.com/will-see/album/mutationmixtape
• Take tha House Back: https://vimeo.com/171211732
• Writing and our Craft of Black Family: https://geezmagazine.org/magazine/article/writing-and-our-craft-of-black-family

Penélope is Colombian. Magnolia, Acacia and Yarumo trees, Cattleya orchids, Andean condors and hummingbirds whispered in her dreams while she learned to be a human among middle class families from Bogotá who trained her to be a good girl. She became one indeed. She followed the paved road for a bit and earned a degree in International Relations during the day but at night, she unraveled her weaving to nurture her inner myth of connecting with ancestors, human and other-than-human. At age 17 the call to get lost moved her to make her way towards the furthest possible places, starting with the Amazon. From then on she followed el camino con corazón and devoted herself to allowing the messages of synchronicity and Pachamama. She has lived in seven countries. She has been a teacher, a theater person, a painter, a DJ, a gardener, a writer, a builder, a mother, a spouse, a dancer, a healer, an organizer, a founder, a director, and now, she is sculpting a dream of dispelling the myth of separation at the intersection of art, science and spirituality. She has been immersed in postactivist ideations and explorations in the Báyò-sphere since 2020.

Links:

• About Penélope: www.ecosapienevolution.org
• Current employer: www.turningthewheel.org/missoula
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/penelopebaquero/

Some labels that capture Gayathri’s many selves: certified urban permaculture gardener and design-consultant; trained scientist (PhD, Biology) who chose to exit the formal halls of academia; resonant healing practitioner certified through Sarah Peyton; former ten Dung Beetle; member of the Vunja DJ crew and Care Team co-lead  for We Will Dance with Mountains 2023; avid, almost-militant, compost-maker; zero-waste lifestyle aspirant, asymptotically-approaching the ever-receding goal of a fully-circular lifestyle; Kolam maker; earth-worshipper; Yoga practitioner of the Krishnamacharya school; daughter; sister; engaged in ongoing anchoring and rooting in the multiple, diverse spiritual streams of the Indian sub-continent, as a lifelong student of India’s indigenous wisdom and mythic traditions.

On a daily basis, Gayathri cooks delicious arusuvai meals with her mother, eats those meals with family, takes short/long luxurious naps, meditates, prays, reads, makes compost, tends her garden, greets tree kin, watches and converses with crows and squirrels, delights in the birds that seasonally-visit, works with clients and the help desk at Sarah Peyton’s organization, listens to a textured musical landscape and sings-aloud for some songs, and dances, as per her body’s whispered needs, as one way to process emotions. Languages Gayathri speaks – that bring the formless into form – include English, Tamil and Hindi.

Austen Smith is a spirit-forward visionary artist, writer, social researcher, and founder of Our Lunar Intelligence (OLi), a black-centered organization focusing on spatial justice and spiritual creativity. The ImaginationDoulas, an OLi project, uses ancestral reverence and dreaming techniques to restore the imaginations of systemically disempowered peoples.

Links:

• Our Lunar Intelligence: http://www.ourlunarintelligence.org

Photo by Kay Williams.