Council

Patricia Becker

Patricia Bland Becker, Ph.D., LCSW is a psychotherapist working in Berkeley, California. She and Leon (below) have know each other for decades. Her involvement in the Pea Soup Community and other efforts toward co-housing and the building of Community are only the beginning of her willingness to engage The Process, not to mention the care she takes with her clients. She has just completed long term executive service on staff at the Center for Independent Living and is deeply, personally engaged in working with issues involving disability.

Marilyn Madsen

roams the western hemisphere on mission trips and personal excursions for the growth of her spirit and work in the world.

She worked as Director of Administration for Bayer Inc. (yes, the asprin people) for years - keeping them on the financial straight and narrow.

Iris McGinnins

iris may mcginnis (me) is a humanbeing trying to stay human.

I began looking for and trying to build sustainable community in the Back-to-Land and anti war movements in the 1960's and in the Women's Movement in the 1970's. I began support groups for working class women, started working with Reclaiming on the first Spiral Dance in 1979 at the beginning of that community and participated in a long term affinity coven involved in direct action politics. I worked in various direct action and social justice movements through the 1980's, often living collectively. In the 1990's health issues caused me to slow down and move back to the country where I was involved for a number of years in the Mendocino Environmental Center and Parents For Peace. In 2004 I became involved with the Association Building Community Council and moved to the San Francisco Bay Area to be more accessible to trainings in Nonviolent Communication, class, social action, race, etc.

Leon Regelson

was born near Cleveland as the Great Depression was getting underway. His family moved to Palestine for several years but in 1936 returned to settle in The Bronx. At age 17 Leon entered the military for a short tour. He has worked and made his home in the San Francisco Bay Area since the early 1950's. When Berkeley was becoming known for growth of the  counter-culture he was drawn further into meditation, activism, and the campus milieu. He entered the conscious search for a way of being in the world that accepts the individual and invites loving co-creation of relationship and has been a part of personal and collective transformative efforts ever since, including:  the Community Liaison Group (1967-1968), the Cultural Integration Fellowship (1971-), the Pea Soup Community (1972-), the World Citizens Assembly (1974-), the International Cooperation Council (1975-1977), Communal Grapevine (1981-), PeaceMAP (1984-1985), Peace and Environment Coalition (1984-1985), ongoing Community Building circles, and the Dedicated Weekly Group (1997-1998). Not belonging to organizations but exploring individual paths of growth developed his sense of the necessity for inclusivity and the individual in co-creation. Through all of these things Leon was looking for something and becoming disappointed. A longing for "something really decent, without all the skeletons in the closet," and disinclined to unravel as a result of relational glitches. Trying to find peace happening within peace-making organizations seemed more and more unlikely, activists displaying an inclination to "fight like cats and dogs" within their ranks. The foregoing resume suggests some "flashes of glory" but misses a central theme from Leon's life - the longing for deeply rewarding relationships, community, and the co-creation of a more decent world.

Nick Walker

. His innovative approach to the art draws upon his training in a number of different Aikido styles and in a wide range of other disciplines, including Somatic Psychology, zen, yoga, butoh, and physical theatre. He is the founder and most senior instructor of Aikido Shusekai, and the chief instructor of the Aikido Shusekai dojo in Berkeley, California.

Nick holds a degree in Interdisciplinary Studies from California Institute of Integral Studies, and is currently doing graduate work there in Somatic Psychology. He is a speaker and activist for the Neurodiversity and Autistic Rights Movements. In addition to his regular Aikido classes, he conducts trainings in Aikido-based conflict resolution strategies for various groups, particularly marginalized and at-risk populations and the people who work with those populations.

Nick is a longtime member of the transformational physical theatre group Paratheatrical Research, and appears in the group's documentary films Crux and Orphans of Delirium, and in various indie feature films, including The Greater Circulation and The Invisible Forest.

Brandon WilliamsCraig

was born and raised in Dallas TX. He brought his desire and the idea for ABC to California in 1995, following a transformative martial art called Aikido. After two years of martial apprenticeship, living in a dojo and training for hours every day, he founded Beamish Process Arts Consultancy and began connecting with other individuals and organizations in order to gain experience and form a co-created non-profit. Several of the founding Beamish folk met through the extension of an ongoing community building circle following a Community Building Workshop by the  Foundation for Community Encouragement. The Consultancy made a successful transition into a mutual, creative environment and supports the work of process oriented individuals and organizations.

Brandon is a professional facilitator and teacher, now finishing his dissertation on the community building that happens at the crossroads of mythology and psychology. It is near this crossing where he became co-founder of Association Building Community. In the 90's he coined and we developed the term " Process Arts" now used widely by Peggy Holman, Tom Devane, Steven Cady, (see this entry for the text from their The Change Handbook), John Abbe, and  several others in Organizational Development, psychology, and social justice fields, to refer to the participatory practices which build cultures of peace able to work with and through conflict.

He is a  Culturesmith and  Guardian of Peace, a  community builder, mythologist, psychologist,  peace activist, performer/demonstrator, facilitator,  academic, writer and public intellectual, teacher of Aikido and martial nonviolence,  student of "progressive" media, non-profit director, and critic/ synthesizer/ transmogrifier of ideas. After assisting Kendra and Huston Smith for some time, the latter brought him into the Pacific Coast Theological Society in hopes that he would " make trouble".

For more please visit bdwc.net

Michael Mansfield

B.A., St. Louis University, M.Div., Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, Post-graduate Diploma in Theatre Arts, Arts Educational Schools, London, D.Min., University of Creation Spirituality.  Michael is an experienced educator, ritual director, dance teacher, and served as a chaplain for eight years. He has also facilitated programs with inner city youth bringing ritual and interfaith awareness into liturgical expression. He has directed theater productions in local community colleges and taught for over 15 years on various faculties including Naropa University-Oakland, University of Creation Spirituality, Chabot College (Hayward), The  Graduate Theological Union, (Berkeley), Holy Names College, and LEAP (Learning through Education and Arts Program). He draws on his experience as a writer, curriculum author, college teacher, high school teacher, grade school teacher, dancer, actor, and transformational change conference facilitator to address the intergenerational ramifications of mystical and artistic justice work. He is a writer for Ministry and Liturgy Magazine, Liturgical Catechesis Magazine, and Logos Publications' new curriculum, Seasons of the Spirit. He speaks nationally and internationally on the intersection of education, theatre, ritual, and justice making. His background as cultural worker and justice advocate has consistently drawn him into youth work, the men's movement, the feminist movement, arts activism, environmental activism homelessness activism, disability activism, GLBTQ activism, Central America, Africa, and AIDS education.

Levi Mason

is a, M.A. graduate of the Sacred Cinema program at  University of Creation Spirituality in Oakland.

He is a maker of documentary films and cinema projets related to many non-profit and service projects.

He is also a building contractor, composer, and concert pianist, as well as owner of Feel Good Recordings http://www.feelgoodcds.com/about.html.

Christine Paris

While serving as Secretary of our Board, in 2000 Christine was privileged to begin a friendship with a beautiful and courageous African-America woman who is incarcerated in Dublin Federal Correction Institution, CA.  She has 3 life sentences and 20 years for a first time non-vicopyolent drug offence.  Through knowing her, we become more aware of the tremendous injustices within the US penal system and felt called to participate in prison reform. Christine consulted for several years at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, CA as a Project Manager in Kaiser’s National Human Resources group, managed several different projects while at Kaiser.  Some these involved organizational assessment and implementing new organizational structures, as well as implementing new information systems.  

Dan Rosenthal

is an entrepreneur, author of amazingly successful ad campaigns, successful businessman, devoted father, and  Aikido student both in Berkeley and abroad. Conducting business in both the United States and the Philippines, Dan Rosenthal and Associates is one of the most prominent, privately owned ad-copy writing concerns in the world.

Angela Sevin

helped create and hold space for those who want to learn in a creative, meaningful way that accepts the inner growth and spirituality of self, others and the communal spirit of all beings.  While working with us she completed a master's program in Experiential Education through Minnesota State University, Mankato, which led her to help start a local democratic school while integrating coursework related to transformative learning and research. Her work and training in community building and co-facilitation with the Foundation for Community Encouragement brought her to an active leadership role as Vice President in the formation of Beamish Process Arts as a non-profit corporation. As a deep thinker and philosopher she pursued many interests in social change on personal and world levels. Angela welcomed people's stories and ideas on authentic learning and knowing and the effects of these real-life experiences on their well-being and their life goals. Weaving this research in with a study of social infrastructures provided her jumping off point for pursuing collective ideas on sustainable living. In evaluating what is essential for a transition to a “Life Sustaining Mind" (a term coined by one of my teachers, deep ecologist, Joanna Macy), the parallels in her personal shift from doctrinal approaches in religion and spirituality (my inner life) to dynamic, practical approaches, point to a deeper understanding of the necessity to witness the same comprehensively on all levels- political, ecological and social. The key to reinforcing this learning is to nurture and practice this shift experientially. That is, make the choices of living these newfound principles, through acting simultaneously and in coordination with others in recognition of the dynamic function and relationship of beings and the world.
...she works with LEAP now (among other initiatives) and continues to write poetry as part of her process...