VILLAGE
So, how does the community part of this work? Aletheia Springs is a community of residents and nonresidents alike. In our learning laboratory we’re exploring and learning to embody ways of living and working together which build trust, mutual support, meaning and belonging, and which foster creative resilience and coherence around common purpose–namely, to live in deep relation with these unique waters and incredible bit of Earth where we are located; relating to it as its own intelligence–its own being– and within the greater context of what is happening in our bioregion and with the planet.
The form which best describes the structure of both our residential village and our wider community is that of a spiral. Akin to our solar system, or (to use a water metaphor) a whirlpool, our Community Spiral is made up of concentric and interrelated spiraling rings, or orbits.
So far, we’ve discerned four distinct rings: the Core Team, the Stewardship Circle, the Communitarian ring, and the Ally or Friends of Aletheia ring. All of the rings share belonging and mutual support, but they differ in their rhythms or frequencies of participation and responsibility. The closer to the center of the spiral you move, the more frequent the rhythm and the more gravity of responsibility and creative power you carry.
The Community Spiral is an ever-evolving road map in our research towards becoming a more fully coherent, creative, resilient, and effective self-organizing group body. Arising from a foundation of earned trust, a self-organizing group body is an embedded living system with fluid and distributed leadership that invites us to bring our inner wholeness into all aspects of village life. Instead of trying to predict and control the future, village members are invited to observe, sense and listen deeply in order to understand what is needed and what the organization is drawn to become, where it optimally wants to go. For this to happen, information must be transparent throughout the system. Governance must not be dependent upon financial investment, and roles must be dynamic, not static, and directly related to our areas of expertise, interest and care.
Furthermore, each villager's location within the spiral is not fixed, but changeable year over year. Someone may nominate themselves to step into deeper participation, or take a step back from where they were the previous year. This happens during a renewal process each year to loosen and compost the structure of last year’s spiral in order to reform it anew for the coming year's journey. This rhythmic cycle supports us to unfold our individual purpose in dynamic alignment with our living village and greater community. And, as we grow in our own leadership, the whole becomes more leaderful, creatively resilient and better able to respond to these complex times in which we live.
The Community Spiral
Core Team & Stewards
(The Residential Village)
Sean Wadsworth | Glen Ellen, CA
Core Team 2015-present – Operations, Springs Systems, Facilities, Grounds, Guardian
Laurie Hobbs | Glen Ellen, CA
Core Team 2015-present – Operations, Café, Guardian, Facilities
Since graduating from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Sean has cut his chops helping to build several startups from the ground up. During the years of 2013-2016, he served as the Director of Operations at Muir Wood Adolescent & Family Services, a 10-bed residential addiction recovery center for boys. Now he works full time at Aletheia Springs (including Morton’s Warm Springs and Sonoma Springs Water Company) and is a devoted father to his young daughter, Aura. Sean’s passion is in creating powerful organizational structures which leverage alternative models of capital and governance, and building teams that can tap into the motivating forces of autonomy, connection, wholeness, and evolutionary purpose. For over 15 years, Sean has been focused on understanding creative group processes and how they support and potentiate ethical business practices, holistic wealth and personal development. He also has a strong dedication to spiritual practice and was a student of the Diamond Approach for over 10 years.
Laurie's life is devoted full-time to being both a mom to her daughter, Aura, and to the Aletheia project. She's also slowly working toward her PhD in clinical psychology at Meridian University. After earning a BFA from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo in Art & Design, she plied her trade as a graphic designer, photographer and web marketer. Laurie’s also a certified yoga instructor and taught movement classes for many years.
Previously Laurie's worked as a counselor and mindfulness teacher at a residential addiction recovery center, before coming to be in service full-time here on the land. Laurie currently serves as Co-director with a primary focus on staff and community development, as well as outreach and communications. Laurie has been a student of the Diamond Approach for over 16 years, and her life passion is to facilitate and bring transformative learning, regenerative healing and therapeutic depth practices into the culture more fully through their integration into our daily lives and into the systems and structures of our local, everyday communities.
Hank Wadsworth, MS | Glen Ellen, CA
Steward 2017-present – Guardian, Operations, Grounds, Facilities
(Communitarian 2015-2017)
Hank’s life is expressed in music. With degrees in music and education, he has worked as a music therapist, music educator, music arranger/composer and performing musician (guitar) for most of his life. This has included extensive work with incarcerated youth. A strong current focus for him and his wife Carole is the use of music in end-of-life care and transition. He believes that music speaks to the deepest parts of us as it nourishes, enlivens, and connects us. Hank finds inspiration in the beauty and balance of the natural world, the deep community that has developed on the Aletheia land, and the healing power of a good belly laugh.
Larry Mathews | Glen Ellen, CA
Steward 2015-present – Springs Systems, Facilities, Grounds
Community Member Impact Investor
Larry grew up playing free-range in the creeks and wilds of 1950’s San Luis Obispo where he developed a deep respect for the natural world. He also grew up learning to tear apart, build and fix just about anything and everything. Larry has worked as a facilities manager, professional artist, welder, craftsman, philosopher and community builder. Had you been on the playa in the early years of the Burning Man Festival you would have seen Larry helping to build and erect the Man, and he has since brought interactive art pieces and sculptures out to the Black Rock desert for most of the last 15 years. Larry’s life passion has been in exploring and tinkering with new models of healthy personal and sociocultural habitat that are based on and support our true nature and inherent creative potential.
Carole Wadsworth, MS | Glen Ellen, CA
Steward 2017-present – Café, Garden, Grounds
(Communitarian 2015-2017)
Community Member Investor
Carole has spent a lifetime hopscotching between two passions: music and psychology. She met Hank in the music department at CSU Sonoma, and they have performed together for the last 40 years. Her career as a therapist has been just as long, from a BA in developmental psychology at Scripps College to music therapy certification at CSU Long Beach to an MA in counseling from CSU Northridge. She began her career as an LMFT in private practice, with a specialty in treatment of trauma. For the last 25 years, she has also been Director of Counseling at Camarillo Hospice, where she has supervised MFT interns and provided training for the community. Most especially she has enjoyed the chance to collaborate with and nurture many fine counselors, and she has been proud to provide cutting-edge training in death-and-dying as well as grief issues.
Carole views returning to Sonoma as a homecoming, and the chance to participate in the residential community of Aletheia as golden. Through her studies in an Anamcara Apprenticeship as well as a Celtic Christian order, she has deepened her awareness and appreciation for the ways that all are truly interconnected, and the deep need we have as humans to live in harmony with and draw sustenance from the natural world.
Residential Immersion & Fellowship Program
• NOW ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS for 2024–2025 •
In 2019 Aletheia Springs launched a 1–3 month Residential Immersion program for those wishing to to experience village life and get a taste of the values, philosophy and service we hold sacred here at Aletheia. Beginning in 2023, we introduced the addition of an Aletheia Fellowship offering– a 3-month to 1-year residency for those wishing to go deeper after successful completion of a shorter term Residential Immersion or equivalent. Aletheia Residential Immersion guests and Fellows participate alongside the Stewards in daily village rhythms as well as in our embodied research and practice field that is re-embedding personal wellbeing within the context of a healthy and purposeful village working on systems change. (Please read the full description of our mission, vision and orientation.)
Aletheia Residential Immersion guests and Fellows participate in an experiential program of participatory research, service and gift. Room and board is partially subsidized and we all share in a service work component of between 6-10 hours/week. Participants engage in a program of transformative learning for personal and social change consisting of weekly group practice as well as occasional training intensives and retreats (optional) which are curated and offered along various lines of study (see Example Practices, Workshops & Retreats below).
In our culture here at the Springs, we relate to our service work as our sacred karma yoga, tikkun olam, seva or spiritual life practice. Everyone living here and being supported by this place in turn serves the land, waters, village and project in some way. For us, service is as much an integral part of our way of life as it is a direct expression and extension of our hearts' vision for bringing about a healed, more beautiful world. We also recognize it's a supported privilege to have the capacity to serve something we love in this way. A big part of our prayer here with our work is that it may in some way contribute to the larger cultural shifts necessary for this to change. Service here at the Springs looks like supporting in a few basic spheres here on the land that help everything hum (see Service Work Spheres below).
As we are a learning community, we are always continuing to refine the structure and systems of the or residential immersion offerings with active participant feedback. Those who enjoy being part of a hands-on cohort of village-based learners will find themselves a wonderful fit. We encourage folks to enter with a ‘beginner’s mind,’ as students along side us in this exciting research field. Having patience and good humor for self reflection, interpersonal communication, village processes, self-care and a willing-to-plug-in attitude will all be beneficial for this immersive journey.
L I V E
• 20 acres of oak woodlands, meadow, year-round
Sonoma Creek, organic farm & garden, Aletheia
hot springs tubs, and, from late April to early
October, two large geothermal warm pools, too!
• Rustic personal accommodations (canvas Bell tent,
yurt, or private room in shared house) with shared
kitchen, bathroom, common room & cowork space.
• $500 deposit + $400-$600 monthly contribution
(includes utilities, WiFi + shared household items)
• Collective kitchen with some shared bulk basics and
consumable supplies. During high season, all front-
end staff also enjoy 1 fully-prepared shift meal/day
for lunch or dinner from Cafe 108° (June to August)
L E A R N
• 3~5 hours / week of Group Practice
• Occasional Community Days, Intensives or Retreats (optional)
• See the Example Practices & Areas of Study list below...
P R A C T I C E
• 6~10 hours / week of Service Practice
• Engage in daily life practice alongside others who are also working to
embody their gifts, purpose and learning edges in daily life, in work, in relationship, and in service to the Great Turning of our planet.
• See the example Service Spheres list below…
Who This Program Is For
As Aletheia is a multigenerational village welcoming of all ages, genders, ethnicities, sexual orientations, aptitudes and abilities, our hope is that our residential immersion and fellowship guests may also reflect the diverse nature of a whole and healthy village. To that end, we have specifically designed and intended our residential offerings for people coming from a diverse array of life stages, backgrounds and ages. So whether you are a mature person, retired or perhaps seeking a sabbatical from your usual career, or whether you're a young adult between jobs or educational chapters, or if you're a part-time professional working locally or online, we hope you may find yourself a wonderful fit for this village immersion.
We do recommend, however, that due to the rustic accommodations and the highly collaborative and physical nature of much of what we do here, that anyone who applies be moderately physically healthy and able to lift at least 25 lbs, as well as be strongly psychologically healthy, with developed self-awareness, mindfulness and mature communication skills.
Living in Aletheia Community
We are a village with spiritual ecology at our center and we are working to create a new culture that redefines how we live, work, share, serve, play and create together. We are also a village of applied praxis–meaning that we engage and explore key theories by way of lived practices every day to enable us to gain insight into our experiences and support unfoldment both as healthy, autonomous individuals, and as communitarian beings (being part of a collective). Our key practices are specifically curated to help us develop along certain lines of capacity and awareness, and are described in The Tenets of Aletheia Springs Community on our Orientation page.
Depending on the season, the village gathers together regularly between 1-5 times a week for various practices and optional gatherings. During our off-season of October through April, we also host a monthly Community Day for our wider community network. While participation in all but Weekly Council and personal check-ins are optional they are also highly encouraged and valued. Our community practices and shared time together are deeply informed by and often include various forms of: meditation and mindfulness, self-inquiry, council, nature connection, service, land-based/restoration work, gestalt and family systems-based practices, ancestral healing, racial and social justice work, nonviolent communication, self-managing and non-traditional decision-making approaches, and ad hoc topic/book study and discussion, to name a few.
From our combined experience of more than a half-century of village living, we see that having regular practice and gathering rhythms that support growth and increase our capacities as human beings is foundational to village health and key to any group's unfoldment towards shared purpose. Thus, in this immersion you'll get to learn and work alongside us with the evolving praxis of Aletheia in support of both your own personal development and our work towards actualizing a common vision. We've also found its very helpful to already have some sort of personal experience of, and love for, transformational work– perhaps from your own meditation, contemplative, somatic, therapeutic and/or spiritual practices, or from simply being passionate about self-awareness and systems change work. Last, but not least, having a love of soaking in hot geothermal waters is, of course, a plus!
For applicants accepted into a Residential Immersion spanning any part of our public guest season (May through September), there are several additional considerations. First, it's important to know that, during the summer guest season, the year-round village residents here are 100% fully involved in running the guest season while it is happening! We welcome over 25,000 visitors during this time, most of them families and children, and we train and manage a small staff of between 12-15 people in multiple departments or spheres. Another consideration for the guest season is that paid shift work is additionally available to all Residential Immersion guests and Fellows. If you'd like to consider joining in the fun working alongside us, let us know. (Also, see Program Economics & Reciprocity on this page below below for more details.)
There is so much to see and do here in beautiful and beloved Sonoma County, California -most notably world-class hiking, biking, parks, and incredible local farm-fresh cuisine all within a few miles in almost any direction. We are about 15 minutes away by car from the city centers of Sonoma and Santa Rosa (which also has an airport), and occasional excursions to either the ocean, or to the vibrant cultural hub of the San Francisco Bay Area are about 1 hour away by car.
Program Economics & Reciprocity
We're developing new economy practices here at Aletheia that center around the healing of money and fostering a regenerative system of mutually beneficial exchange. This happens with our exchanges across three interrelated domains: financial, service and gift. The
reciprocity of this Residential Immersion is designed to support each of us in this research and practice of applied post-capitalist, gift and new economy models. (For more information on our philosophy and approach, see The Tenets of Aletheia Springs Community on our Orientation page).
Community residency and participation is supported by both a modest monthly financial contribution (currently $400-600/month) as well as a service contribution (currently 6–10 hours/week). Some, or all, of the service hours may be converted into a cash contribution, or vice versa, where needed. Additionally, with the monthly financial support we each contribute, we vote on various Commons Funds that support basic village functioning, shared household consumables, maintenance & repairs, as well projects and improvements we wish to see happen. Our cash and service contributions are then further buoyed by the free play and fun ad hoc experimentation we do with gifting. For example, it's part of our culture here where often someone enjoys making a meal for others or for everyone simply as a gift. Or perhaps we might contribute more labor or expertise somewhere, or just lend our personal support to one specific villager without expectation of return simply because we feel moved, caring or inspired to do so. We ask for what we need, and we offer what we can.
Program participants are supported with all expenses covered for their furnished living space, all utilities, some food, occasional community retreats, as well as enjoyment of all land-based amenities including the hot springs. Everyone's personal time is scheduled ahead and protected so all residents can rely on a regular rhythm for personal time away or time for part-time income-generating work, which can be either online, offsite in our local area, or, in some circumstances, onsite at the Springs.
Lastly, for anyone in residency May through September, there is the additional option to be a part of our front-end guest season operations! We offer competitive pay for front-end shifts in either our organic cafe/coffee shop or as a Gate Guardian. This opportunity is only available during the summer and shifts usually fall between Thursdays through Mondays (including weekends). While joining our front-end team is not part of our Residential Immersion program, it is a fabulous opportunity to apply the culture and practices we're developing at Aletheia while making extra money onsite doing work that is simple, fulfilling, well paid, and, honestly, a ton of fun (think: summer camp).
For more information or specifics about any of our program fees, economics or opportunities, please reach out to us with any questions.
For More Information & To Apply...
For those seeking more information or an application, please reach out to us by contacting us at: inquiries@aletheiasprings.com. Interested applicants, in your email please include your answers to the following initial questions below.
Once we receive your interest email, we’ll send you the program application to complete. And finally, the last step in the application process is to have either an online or in-person interview. Please allow at least four weeks for this entire process before the start of your desired program month.
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Please provide your full name, age, preferred pronouns, home address, email and the best phone number where you can be reached.
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Where did you first hear about Aletheia Springs (and this program in particular)?
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Which month(s) are you interested in participating in our program?
1st choice month(s): _________________
2nd choice month(s): _________________
3rd choice month(s): _________________
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What draws you to want to participate in this program at this particular time in your life?
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Are you able and genuinely excited to live in rustic community accommodations, offer a $500 deposit, a $400-$600/month financial contribution, and be fully engaged at the Springs for at least 9–15 hours/week (service + group practice time) for all of the program month(s) in which you are applying? (If not, please describe any requested modifications...)
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What do you hope to take away from your participation in this program?
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What do you hope to contribute through your participation in this program?
Thank you for your interest in being a part of Aletheia Springs’
Residential Immersion and Fellowship program!
Example Days at the Springs
Summer High Season:
7am ~ Free time / breakfast
8am ~ [Optional] Meditation Practice
9am ~ Service Practice: Garden
12pm ~ Free time / Cafe lunch
3pm ~ [Optional] Paid Shift: Gate Guardian
6pm ~ Free time
7pm ~ Show Up 'n' Chew Dinner
8pm ~ Free time / hot spring soak
Fall / Winter / Spring Seasons:
8am ~ Free time / breakfast
10am ~ Weekly Council + Tuning
1pm ~ Service Work: Grounds
4pm ~ Free time
6pm ~ Community Potluck Dinner
8pm ~ [Optional] Movie Night
Residential Immersion
Service Spheres +
Summer Hourly Wage Positions
• YEAR-ROUND •
Farm & Garden
Grounds / Land Tending
Facilities & Maintenance
• SUMMER ONLY •
(Hourly wage positions)
Gate Guardian
Cafe / Kitchen
Additional Spheres
For Long-term Fellows
• YEAR-ROUND •
Children’s Sphere
Community / Operations
Outreach & Communications
Retreat Host / Guest Liaison
Springs Systems
• SUMMER FELLOWS •
(Hourly wage positions)
Gate Guardian
Lifeguardian
Cafe / Kitchen
Office / Administration
Example Practices
& Areas of Study
Meditation, Mindfulness
& Self-Inquiry
Nature Awareness & Connection
Evolutionary Partnership &
Relational Consciousness
Embodied Movement & Dance
Early Attachment & Trauma Healing
Conscious Parenting &
Raising Children In Village
Yoga, Self-care & Bodywork
Soul, Essence, Ego & Self-Awareness
Music, Sacred Song & Voice
CURRENT OPEN STAFF POSITIONS
(ALL ARE PAID, SEASONAL & NON-RESIDENTIAL)
CAFE ASSISTANT MANAGER FACILITIES TECHNICIAN OPERATIONS SPECIALIST (Admin./Mktg.)
LIFEGUARDIAN CAFE STAFF / BARISTA GATE GUARDIAN
For information or to apply for any open position:
Please visit our Morton's Warm Springs visitor-serving website at www.MortonsWarmSprings.com/open-positions
Community Member Investors
(Non-residential Community)
Tara Marchant | Oakland, CA
Ally – Guardian, Café, Grounds
Guest Steward – Garden, Grounds 2021
Community Member Investor
Forest Fein, MA | San Rafael, CA
Ally - Operations
Community Member Investor
Tara sees her soul path as an agent for change. Since graduating from Yale University, Tara has been an artist and voice for creating stories that inspire us into a deeper wholeness of self. As a woman, and a person of color, she found however that success through performance, hard work and diligence was limited. Seeing that deeper system change was needed for new voices, innovations and other cultures to be equitably included, she has dedicated her life to work for equity, social, environment and economic justice.
Tara has lived in Oakland for 18 years. The past decade she as worked with Emerald Cities Collaborative, and their initiative Anchors in Resilient Communities (ARC), which seeks to leverage the power of public institutions to disrupt and reimagine existing value/supply chains of food, energy and waste, etc. that also prioritize the local economic development of those with barriers to ownership and jobs. Currently, this work looks like rebuilding a local, sustainable food system supporting small farms, and farms led by traditionally marginalized communities of color and women.
Yet landing and building community deeply embedded within nature is where Tara’s heart and soul are pointed. She has always found great solace in nature and indigenous wisdom, and Permaculture has played a big role in her life drawing her to participate in the reimagining of our human community in partnership and service with the natural world. In this reweaving, Tara is grateful for her Aletheia communitarian role and her ability to offer investment support for the vision and mission of this project. She looks forward to deepening her communication with the elder Oaks, the animate beings and the sacred waters.
Scott Davidson | San Geronimo, CA
Ally – Operations 2016 - 2019
Guest Steward – Operations, Grounds 2019, 2020
Community Member Investor
Scott Davidson is a deep nature guide who cultivates an ecology of belonging through a unique weaving of wildlife tracking, tending and questing in community. As a lifelong guide, he nurtures the genius in each of us, one relationship, curiosity and threshold at a time. Scott deeply listens to the truth of the moments, helping people learn from all of wild life, both surrounding us and within us, and our inherent ability to live fully in balanced connection and service with all of life.
As a gifted council and quest guide, Scott collaborates with and serves many, locally and internationally, including the School of Lost Borders, Wilderness Reflections, Wilderness Guides Council, Tracker Academy and several local schools. Scott mentors boys into young men through wilderness adventures and skills, councils and quests, with the Stepping Stones Project in the SF Bay Area. With the Wilderness Guides Council, he coordinates annual gatherings nationally and intimately engages with the rites of passage guides community, including in South Africa and Europe. As a wildlife ecologist and tracker, he earned his Track & Sign III certificates from CyberTracker Conservation, a BS in Plant Ecology from UC Santa Cruz, and his Permaculture Design Certificate through the Regenerative Design Institute. He is a leader within the Art of Mentoring – Deep Nature Connection community with the 8 Shields Institute, co-founder of the Tracking & Nature Connection Series, and many programs for deep nature connection and healing for people of all ages, all designed to re-weave people in service back into the landscape while celebrating this gift of life in community.
Scott is stoked to live in the wild coastal hills of Marin County, CA. His wise and playful presence and his sound commitment to his work for future generations radiates Aloha into everything he does.
Forest Fein left a successful career in advertising, where he designed award-winning projects for clients such as Nike and Capitol Records, to pursue his interest in personal and social transformation in service of creating a just, generative and fulfilling world for all beings. While a resident-student at the Esalen Institute, he spent two years training in ancient and modern systems of the healing arts. He went on to receive his Masters degree in Counseling Psychology with a concentration in Mindful Awareness and then on for post-graduate training at the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA to become a mindfulness teacher.
Forest is the founder of Wise Up, offering mindfulness consulting, classes, and one-on-one training for youth and adults, organizations and corporations. He is also the Curriculum Director of the Youth Mindfulness Programs at UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Medicine. Through community partnerships, Forest designs and teaches Mindfulness-based programs for resilience, empowerment and peace to at-risk and homeless teens, young adults and to those who serve them. As of 2017 his programs have touched the lives of over 1200 youth. All of his work is rooted in teachings and practices that support compassionate awareness and care for oneself, one another and our planet. Forest is a member of the Spirit Rock Teen Council and a student of the Diamond Approach. He is a poet, a lover of the Truth, True Nature and the Natural world.
Paul Valenti | Larkspur, CA
Ally - Operations
Community Member Investor
Paul has had a successful career in corporate sales for over 35 years. He is father to two grown children and enjoys a wonderful relationship with his former wife and business partner. Lately, he is spending time listening and taking time to simply be, allowing curiosity to guide the next steps of his soul's journey into the not-knowing. Paul has always been drawn to waters, natural land settings and finding a sustainable path of inclusion in his life. Paul is a long time student of the Diamond Approach and meditation, and practices Qi Gong and biodynamic cranial sacral bodywork.
Paul is in the phase of his life where's he's taking time to investigate all those curious things that he had put aside until I had the time to explore. Aletheia Springs is one of those things. After meeting Laurie & Sean, coming to the land, meeting their friends, experiencing the springs and seeing how they were living their vision, he knew he wanted to be a part of it. "I feel that Aletheia Springs is possibly the grand that I have been waiting/preparing for my entire life. Providing them a Community Member Investor Loan seemed like a simple, natural next thing to do."
In February 2020, Paul moved to a large property of 13 acres in Novato that he has been visiting for over 25 years. He lives there now in community with 8 other people. The Novato ridge is a beautiful place with many majestic old oak trees, families of birds, deer and awesome views. He shares how he's been looking to what has been discussed and applied to Aletheia to see what could be put into practice at his home, both with his friends and on the land. Since the past springs he's been awakening to this time we are living in that is calling for me to listen, be curious, kind, humble and allow not-knowing to answer as I sense for guidance and insight.
Mario Tapia & Meike Grundmann | Santa Rosa, CA
Allies - Operations
Community Member Investors
Peter Sterios, ERYT-500 &
Tawny Day Sterios | San Luis Obispo, CA
Allies - Facilities, Healing Arts
Community Member Trade Investors
Bio coming soon...
Peter has been part of the global yoga community for over four decades as a teacher, writer, and entrepreneur based in San Luis Obispo, California. He is the creator of Manduka, a leading eco-yoga products company based in Los Angeles. In 2009, Yoga Journal selected his first DVD, Gravity & Grace in their “top 15 yoga videos of all time” and his popular LEVITYoga Show appears on YogaAnytime. He is an award winning architect, specializing in green yoga studios and retreat centers; co-founder of karmaNICA, a charitable organization for impoverished kids in western Nicaragua; and for three years, taught yoga at the White House for Michelle Obama’s anti-obesity initiative (2011-2013). Peter’s influence through his teaching, writing and innovative design has been felt worldwide, and his lighthearted approach with LEVITYoga offers unique insight to the evolving art of yoga.
Tawny is a mother, yoga teacher, doula, circle guide and nature enthusiast. She is a co-founder of mBODY Yoga in San Luis Obispo, CA and has been teaching yoga since 2003. Certified in both kundalini and hatha yoga, she also has a very personal experience in prenatal yoga. Tawny was featured in Yoga Journal in 2010 and 2011. She brings her passion for yoga and her lighthearted presence to all of her classes. In addition to teaching weekly classes in hatha, prenatal and postnatal, she teaches in LEVITYoga’s 200HR Teacher Training Programs. Tawny has been sitting in circle with women for the past 15 years, where women hold sacred space for the unfolding of life and the quiet inner knowing that bond us. Nurturing sisterhood and the ability for women to uplift and uniquely honor one another is something she values and has seen heal countless times.
Rob Walker & Chrisandra Fox Walker | Novato, CA
Allies - Facilities, Healing Arts
Community Member Trade Investors
Rachel Kaplan, MFT | Sebastopol, CA
Ally - Operations
Community Member Investor
For nearly 40 years, Rachel has been engaging with humans, animals, plants, landscapes, fungal networks and sacred waterways to support regenerative & collective change. She works with diverse groups of people at home & around the world, in classrooms & counseling rooms, in the forest & the garden, collaborating on practices for emergent awareness, nervous system regulation, social justice direct action & whole system re-design on personal, family and community levels.
With a Masters degrees in Counseling Psychology & Interdisciplinary Arts, her work in dance, gender studies, myth & ritual are deeply relevant for these times. She is a permaculture designer & deep ecologist, an activist since her teen years, and drawn to projects tending to gender, racial & class disparities. In her work as a psychotherapist with an expertise in trauma recovery for the past 25 years, she is currently shifting her focus from individual work to group work to co-create a more efficient and effective way to live with & through this opportune time.
Her decades-long training in the somatic healing paradigm includes generative somatics, Strozzi Bodywork, the Halprin Life/Art Process, Hakomi Body-Centered psychotherapy, Authentic Movement, the Work that Reconnects, Soul Motion, and relational EMDR. She is a Master Reiki practitioner and brings her decades-long practices in yoga, mindfulness, performance art & conscious movement to the change process. Rachel is also the co-author of numerous books & articles about somatics, dance & permaculture, including Making Dances that Matter (with Anna Halprin, 2018); Urban Homesteading: Heirloom Skills for Sustainable Living (with K. Ruby Blume, 2009), Moving Toward Life (with Anna Halprin, 1998); Diaspora: Stories from the Cities (1998), and The Probable Site of the Garden of Eden (1992).
Bio coming soon...
David Hobbs | Fremont, CA
Ally - Operations
Community Member Investor
David is proud to support his sister, Laurie and brother-in-law, Sean in this long-term endeavor. His daytime profession is in IT. His evening avocation is live theatre where he has designed sound for countless plays and musicals all over the Bay Area. He serves as a member of the Board of Directors for Stage 1 Repertory Theatre and won a Theatre Bay Area award for their 2016 production of Ragtime. He also dabbles as an actor and has appeared onstage in the roles of Hamlet, Einstein and Salesman #1. "Hail, poetry, thou heav'n-born maid!"
Bruce & Linda Hobbs, MEds | Fremont, CA
Communitarian - Grounds, Facilities
Community Member Equity Investor
Bruce has a degree in Mathematics from San Jose State University and a Masters in Math Education from Florida State University. He spent his first 10 years after college as a high school math teacher. The highlight of that period was meeting his wife, Linda. He spent the next 30 years in IT, working for IBM for over 20 years and then as an independent contractor for the next 10. He is now retired. Linda has a Mathematics degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Masters in Education from California State University, Hayward. Linda, now retired, was a teacher of High School Mathematics for 43 years. She especially liked teaching Geometry. She was always an advocate of students, setting high expectations, but always with compassion. Bruce and Linda have dedicated much of their lives to the love and support of their children. To that end they are doing what they can for their daughter, Laurie and son-in-law, Sean and the community at Aletheia Springs. Sean and Laurie’s passion and hard work for this project is inspiring and is worthy of that support.
Key Partners, Supporters & Allies
Kari Stettler, CMT, SEP
Sebastopol, CA
Ally 2016-present – Operations
Erin Selover
Berkeley, CA
Ally 2020-present – Operations
Kari Stettler is passionate about helping people reconnect with their natural rhythms and interconnectedness in the web of life. Kari is a Rites of Passage guide, Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, Soul Motion Movement Teacher and Land & Community Tender/Steward. She has worked with clients and groups with yoga, dance, bodywork and transformational integration and healing since 2008. In 2005, Kari met teacher, mentor and friend, Joanna Macy and has been facilitating The Work That Reconnects & grief ritual in various frameworks and settings for over 12 years. She is co-guide and co-director of the nature based Tree of Life Women’s Adulthood Initiation in the North/East Bay. Kari is a 17-year member of Polcum Springs, a wild land sanctuary community in Northern Mendocino County. Kari currently lives, partners and farms with John on Wild Blue Ranch in Paso Robles, California and sees clients, runs workshops, retreats and groups through her private practice, Somatic Resiliency. Kari loves supporting and being in solidarity with the vision of Aletheia and its growing community.
Seiji Ohno, SEP, MA, MA, MFT | Oakland, CA
Ally 2018 & 2021 to present – Operations
(Core Team 2015-16, Communitarian 2016-17)
Seiji has always believed that real transformation is possible; that our health, our blueprint for healing, and our true selves are waiting to be rediscovered and to be listened to. With a Masters in Counseling Psychology from JFK University, and another in Mythological Studies and Depth Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute, Seiji has worked in private and clinical practice as a therapist for the past eight years. Most recently he was an Associate Professor in the Counseling Psychology department at the California Institute for Integral Studies (CIIS) in San Francisco while seeing clients part-time in clinical practice. Seiji specializes in personal growth, trauma resolution, attachment-individuation issues, relationship challenges, healing early imprints and cross-cultural couples therapy. He has been a student of the Diamond Approach since 2005 and has been training to become a Diamond Approach teacher.
Christine Nota | Santa Rosa, CA
Ally & Volunteer 2016-present – Guardian
Christine is a retired forester living in the Valley of the Moon. She has 40 years of experience working in both field and leadership positions for the United States Forest Service. When she retired she was the Pacific Southwest Region’s (California and Pacific Islands) Regional Forester’s Representative. Christine helped the Region develop its Leadership Intent for Ecological Restoration, which guides all restoration activities and daily management on the 20 million acres of National Forest lands in California. Christine also helped provide region wide leadership for large-scale initiatives and partnerships that helped move the Leadership Intent for Ecological Restoration forward. She represented the Forest Service in its coordination and collaboration with state legislators, state and federal agencies, and non-government organizations. Earlier in her career she was District Ranger on the Sierra National Forest where she oversaw recreation management, forest management, planning, design and implementation of watershed restoration, wildlife habitat improvement, safety programs (risk management) and fire risk reduction.
Erin is a Strategic Coach, a Teachers Council member at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, a Consultant with Courageous Leadership and a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. One of Erin’s missions is to empower women to boldly envision the world they want to live in and then accompany them in co-creating it. Erin specializes in collaborative-based leadership and creating systems that allow the insight of our mutual inter-dependence and belonging to be realized. As a meditation teacher, Erin integrates systemic and cultural factors of oppression into teachings on mindfulness and compassion that are often only taught from an interpersonal and intrapersonal lens. With a passion for systemic change, Erin’s teachings broaden the field of mindfulness to look at how Buddhist teachings can help us understand systems of oppression such as patriarchy, white supremacy and modern economics.
As a student of the body for the past 20 years, Erin views the tension held in the body as a potential doorway to liberation when we have the courage to engage it. She regards self-care and listening to the body as essential to sustainable skilful action in the world. She is a practitioner of Biodynamic Cranial Touch and integrates it into her teaching and individual work. As a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, Erin works part-time in private practice integrating Buddhism, Somatic Experiencing and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy. She was also a core team member of the group that co-founded Inward Bound Mindfulness Education, IBME and is a long time trainer and mentor for the Stepping Stones Project.
Erin was introduced to the Aletheia project and community in 2019, just prior to the pandemic and everything beginning to shut down. She came for a season of Guest Stewardship on the land in 2020 while we were closed to the public during the early pandemic and has been a strong reflector and vision-champion supporter and ally for us ever since.
Michelle Dench, CFP | Sonoma, CA Communitarian 2017-present – Café, Guardian
(Core Team 2015-16)
After earning her Bachelor’s in Business Management and Marketing, Michelle spent nine years in corporate banking and investments and started her own company, Sustainable Financial, with the mission to help her clients build a financial future based on their own personal values. Michelle also worked as a Financial Advisor, Relationship Manager and CFP for Sebastopol-based Abacus Wealth Partners. Michelle has also led workshops around the Bay Area on themes such as “Money & Spirit: creating a harmonious relationship with money.” Her passion is in integrating sustainable practices into our lives, businesses and financial plans so that we may transform our relationship with money and create true wealth.
Michelle is also a very active student and practitioner of both yoga and the art of astrology, and these days has been enjoying life as both a part-time astrology teacher and a full-tome mom for her three kids, Dylan, Ellah Rose and Emunah.
Special Thanks
The following people have played important and sometimes crucial contributing roles in the birth and development of the Aletheia project. While they have since shifted focus elsewhere to other worthy projects and endeavors, each will always hold a deep place of honor and appreciation in our hearts for their contributions to the journey of Aletheia Springs.
Janne Campbell | Port Townsend, WA
Steward Candidate 2019-2022 – Garden, Children's Sphere; Communitarian & Key Ally 2017 & 2018 – Café, Garden, & Children's Sphere
Tobias Weinberger | Port Townsend, WA
Communitarian 2019-2022 – Facilities & Children's
Matt Gates | Glen Ellen, CA
Steward Candidate 2020–2022 – Guardian, Grounds, Facilities, Children's Sphere
Summer Staff 2018 & 2019 – Guardian
Kate Bunney | Sebastopol, CA
2018 Guest Steward – Guardian, Cafe, Operations
Emmett Brennan | Occidental, CA
2017 Steward – Operations, Facilities, Guardian, Garden, Grounds
Caiius Clark | Barnard, VT
2017 Steward – Garden, Grounds, Operations, Facilities
Gabriel Remliel | San Francisco, CA
2016 Steward – Operations, Facilities, Grounds
Chaitanya Foux, MS | Cotati, CA
2015–2017 Impact Investor / Bridge Lender
Cole Meeker | Glen Ellen, CA
Steward 2018 – Guardian, Springs Systems, Facilities
Communitarian 2017 – Guardian
Daniel Ghiglieri | Glen Ellen, CA
Steward 2018-2019 – Guardian, Grounds, Facilities, Springs Systems, Café
Communitarian 2017-2018 – Guardian
Anastasia Emmons | Glen Ellen, CA Steward 2017-2019 – Café, Grounds
Community Member Investor 2016–2019
Grace Kiki LeSeed | Glen Ellen, CA
Steward 2019 – Café, Guardian
Communitarian 2017-2018 – Café, Guardian
Community Member Investor 2017–2019
Juliana Birnbaum | Woodacre, CA
Ally - Operations
Community Member Investor 2017–2020
Jeanric Meller, MBA, MS | Middletown, CA Ally 2016–2019 - Springs Systems, Facilities
Shaunda Whitworth | Los Osos, CA Ally – Guardian, Grounds
Community Member Impact Investor 2016–2020
Marie Winter &
Troy Carter | Honokaa, HI
Ally 2017-2020 - Operations
Sharon Shay Sloan &
Brendan Clarke | Ojai, CA
Ally 2017-2020 – Operations
Kat Steele | Fairfax, CA
Ally 2016-2019 – Operations
Nihar Shah, PhD | Emeryville, CA
Ally 2016-2020 – Operations, Grounds
Alaya Babineau | Sebastopol, CA
Ally 2016-2020 – Healing Arts
Claudia Meglin | Glen Ellen, CA
Ally 2017-2020 – Guardian, Operations
Core Team 2016 – Guardian, Operations
Nichole Proffitt | Oakland, CA
Ally 2016-2019 – Operations, Grounds
Misha Miller | Sebastopol, CA
Community Member Impact Investor 2019–2020
How You Can Participate
There’s so many ways to participate in this learning adventure with us. A meaningful first step is always just to reach out and introduce yourself–share what resonates and a bit about yourself. Join our Friends of Aletheia list to follow along with our progress, and to hear about occasional happenings and volunteer opportunities. Perhaps later you'll be drawn to experience Aletheia via our residency program. Or perhaps you're the one who beneficially alters someone else’s life by connecting them to this project. Either way, we invite you to feel into any part you may have to play in weaving this fabric with us– be it with time, skills, money, love, co-visioning or simply a witnessing listening presence.