The Garrison Institute Presents: The Common Good

In this conversation recorded not long before her death in 2025, activist and systems thinker Joanna Macy joins Jonathan at a Garrison Institute Pathways to Planetary Health forum to discuss how we can stay present and purposeful in a time of ecological and social crisis. Drawing on Buddhism, systems theory, and decades of activism, she shares insights on interdependence, non-linear thinking, and what she calls “the Great Turning”—the shift from a destructive industrial growth society to a life-sustaining world. Macy speaks candidly about despair, climate grief, gratitude, and the courage to feel deeply without becoming paralyzed. We’d love to hear your thoughts about the podcast, please send us a note at podcasts@garrisoninstitute.org to let us know what you think. Produced by The Garrison Institute and The Podglomerate.

In this episode, Judy Lief—a longtime student of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche and a leading voice in bringing Tibetan Buddhist teachings to the West—reflects on a life shaped by curiosity, unexpected turns, and deep contemplative practice. She shares her early search for meaning, her transformative path into Buddhism, and decades of work editing and preserving Trungpa Rinpoche's teachings. Judy explores how practice shows up in real life—from ordinary moments to end-of-life care—helping us stay present, face uncertainty, and connect with others more genuinely. We’d love to hear your thoughts about the podcast, please send us a note at podcasts@garrisoninstitute.org to let us know what you think. Produced by The Garrison Institute and The Podglomerate.

What would it mean to redesign capitalism so it works like a living system? In this powerful conversation, John Fullerton—former Wall Street executive and founder of the Capital Institute—shares his journey from high finance to becoming a leading voice in regenerative economics. Drawing on ecological science, systems thinking, and ancient wisdom traditions, he explains why today’s economic model—rooted in mechanistic, reductionist thinking—is driving climate breakdown, inequality, and social fragmentation. Fullerton outlines the core principles of regenerative economics, including holistic wealth, empowered participation, resilient systems, and the vital role of the commons. We’d love to hear your thoughts about the podcast, please send us a note at podcasts@garrisoninstitute.org to let us know what you think. Produced by The Garrison Institute and The Podglomerate.

In this seven-minute guided meditation, Sharon invites you to turn a kind and gentle attention toward any suffering you may be experiencing—meeting pain with compassion, connecting to our shared human experience, and returning to bodily presence and phrases of self-compassion with kindness and acceptance. This meditation was originally recorded for The Garrison Institute's Contemplative-Based Resilience initiative. We will be bringing you smaller practices in your feed each month. You can find more meditations and contemplative resources like this at ⁠GarrisonInstitute.org⁠, along with information about our Contemplative-Based Resilience initiative and other programs supporting those who serve our communities. Follow the podcast at ⁠https://www.garrisoninstitute.org/podcasts/⁠ Sign up for the newsletter to receive upcoming show previews and special resources heard on the podcast ⁠here.⁠

In this expansive conversation, Daniel Goleman—author of Emotional Intelligence and a pioneer in the science of wellbeing—explores how inner awareness shapes leadership, systems change, and the future of our shared world. Drawing on neuroscience, contemplative practice, and decades of research, Goleman explains why emotional intelligence, empathy, and compassion are no longer soft skills, but essential capacities for ethical leadership and resilient societies. Together with host Jonathan F.P. Rose, he examines mindfulness as attention training, the social contagiousness of emotion, and how individual transformation connects to collective responsibility, economics, and climate action. We’d love to hear your thoughts about the podcast, please send us a note at podcasts@garrisoninstitute.org to let us know what you think. Produced by The Garrison Institute and The Podglomerate.

What if the way we respond to crisis is part of the crisis itself? In this wide-ranging conversation, philosopher and post-activist thinker Bayo Akomolafe invites us to step beyond binaries, solutions, and moral certainty into a deeper encounter with ambiguity, relationality, and becoming. Drawing on Yoruba cosmology, post-humanist philosophy, and lived experience, Bayo explores fugitivity, post-activism, the role of the trickster, and why “being good” may no longer be enough in an age of climate collapse, inequality, and systemic exhaustion. Together with host Jonathan F.P. Rose, Bayo theorizes the limits of the common good and imagines what it means to live sideways—attentive to the present rather than chasing arrival. We’d love to hear your thoughts about the podcast, please send us a note at podcasts@garrisoninstitute.org to let us know what you think. Produced by The Garrison Institute and The Podglomerate.

In this five-minute guided meditation, Sharon invites you to anchor your awareness in the breath while practicing the gentle art of letting go. When thoughts arise, whether pleasant or difficult, you're guided to recognize them as "not breath," release them, and return your attention to the present moment. You can find more meditations and contemplative resources like this at GarrisonInstitute.org, along with information about our Contemplative-Based Resilience initiative and other programs supporting those who serve our communities.

Visionary activist and spiritual teacher Konda Mason joins The Common Good to explore how healing the land is inseparable from healing ourselves. In this powerful conversation with Jonathan F.P. Rose, Konda shares the story of Jubilee Justice, a cooperative reclaiming Black agricultural wisdom through regenerative rice farming and community ownership across the American South. She traces rice’s deep African roots, the resilience of its farmers, and how cooperative economics can restore both soil and spirit. Konda also introduces her transformative Journeys Program, where truth-telling, ancestry, and compassion bridge divides of race, land, money, and faith. The episode closes with a grounding practice of ancestral connection—reminding us that joy and reverence are essential tools for justice. We’d love to hear your thoughts about the podcast, please send us a note at podcasts@garrisoninstitute.org to let us know what you think. Produced by The Garrison Institute and The Podglomerate.

In this illuminating conversation, science writer and Biomimicry Institute co-founder Janine Benyus joins Jonathan F.P. Rose to explore nature’s universals—the deep design patterns that guide all living systems. Benyus, known worldwide for pioneering biomimicry, reveals how life creates the conditions conducive to life through cooperation, self-organization, and elegant networked intelligence. From coral reefs and forests to economic and social systems, she shows how natural principles such as right-sizing and distributed abundance can guide human innovation and ethics. Together, they examine how re-embracing our biological literacy can reshape industry, culture, and Western spirituality—inviting us to see the world not as a collection of parts, but as a living, interdependent whole. We’d love to hear your thoughts about the podcast, please send us a note at podcasts@garrisoninstitute.org to let us know what you think. Produced by The Garrison Institute and The Podglomerate.

This episode features Dr. Monica Gagliano, pioneering researcher in plant acoustics and author of Thus Spoke the Plant. Recognized alongside Jane Goodall and Rachel Carson as one of the world’s most inspiring women in science, Gagliano challenges us to reconsider plants as sentient, intelligent beings. From her early work on the Great Barrier Reef to groundbreaking experiments showing that plants can learn, remember, and respond with discernment, she invites us to imagine science not as a tool to control the world around us, but as a forum for dialogue with it. Gagliano reflects on animism, relational science, and how ecosystems self-organize for resilience—even in the face of climate change. The conversation calls us to trust life’s intelligence and embrace a perspective that honors the deep connections among all living systems. We’d love to hear your thoughts about the podcast, please send us a note at podcasts@garrisoninstitute.org to let us know what you think. Produced by ⁠The Garrison Institute⁠ and ⁠The Podglomerate⁠.

Join a fascinating discussion with Suzanne Simard, visionary forest ecologist and author of Finding the Mother Tree. Simard reveals how forests thrive not as plantations but as diverse, interdependent communities. From the “wood wide web” of fungi communicating underground, to mother trees nurturing their kin, her research shows that cooperation, not just competition, sustains forest resilience. We explore how Indigenous management practices once aligned with ecological cycles, and how today’s clearcuts and monocultures leave forests vulnerable to disease and wildfire. Drawing, too, on her family’s century-long history of responsible woodcutting in British Columbia, Simard offers hope: ecosystems are regenerative. By restoring reciprocity with the land through forest management or even balcony gardens, individuals and communities can participate in the ongoing global reorganization of the human relationship to the earth. This episode calls us to reimagine our relationship with nature as one of kinship and mutual care. We’d love to hear your thoughts about the podcast, please send us a note at podcasts@garrisoninstitute.org to let us know what you think. Produced by The Garrison Institute and The Podglomerate.

Join us for a transformative conversation with Paul Hawken, visionary environmental thinker, author of Carbon: The Book of Life, and co-founder of Project Drawdown. Together we learn how stepping beyond a human-centered perspective can reveal the profound interconnections that bind all living systems. Along the way, Paul invites us into a richer awareness of complexity, carbon, and consciousness, and explores how life and mind are deeply entwined. What emerges is a call to unlearn outdated ways of knowing and to cultivate new practices of attuning to the intelligence of nature. This episode offers profound insights into regenerative action, ecological resilience, and how shifting our perception can help us live in reciprocity with the planet and one another. We’d love to hear your thoughts about the podcast, please send us a note at podcasts@garrisoninstitute.org to let us know what you think. Produced by The Garrison Institute and The Podglomerate.