Belonging to Each Other: Ecodharma Retreat for People of Color

Leaders

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  Kritee Kanko Co-Leader
  

  Kritee Kanko

  Co-Leader

  Kritee (dharma name Kanko) is a Climate Scientist, Buddhist Zen priest, Educator & Founding Spiritual teacher of Boundless in Motion. She is an ordained teacher in the Rinzai Zen lineage of Cold Mountain and a co-founder of Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center. She has served as faculty for courses or retreats at the intersection of climate crisis, racial justice, trauma healing and spirituality for many organizations including One Earth Sangha, Al Gore’s Climate Reality, Stanford University, World Council of Churches, San Francisco Zen Center, Mind & Life Institute and Lama Foundation. She has served as a leading scientist in the Climate Smart Agriculture program at Environmental Defense Fund for 12 years.

  Kritee‘s experience is that identifying and releasing our personal and ecological grief in presence of a loving community is necessary; that helps us unlock our gifts and serve our communities. Her articles and interviews have appeared in the New York Times, BBC, Washington Post, Harvard Health, Yale Climate Connections, California Public Radio. Please see her personal website here</a.

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  Kaira Jewel Lingo Co-Leader
  

  Kaira Jewel Lingo

  Co-Leader

  Kaira Jewel Lingo is a Dharma teacher who has a lifelong interest in blending spirituality and meditation with social justice. Having grown up in an ecumenical Christian community where families practiced a new kind of monasticism and worked with the poor, at the age of twenty-five she entered a Buddhist monastery in the Plum Village tradition and spent fifteen years living as a nun under the guidance of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh. She received Lamp Transmission from Thich Nhat Hanh and became a Zen teacher in 2007, and is also a teacher in the Vipassana Insight lineage through Spirit Rock Meditation Center.

  Today she sees her work as a continuation of the Engaged Buddhism developed by Thich Nhat Hanh as well as the work of her parents, inspired by their stories and her dad’s work with Martin Luther King Jr. on desegregating the South. In addition to writing We Were Made for These Times: Ten Lessons in Moving through Change, Loss and Disruption, she is also the editor of Thich Nhat Hanh’s Planting Seeds: Practicing Mindfulness with Children.

  Now based in New York, she teaches and leads retreats internationally, provides spiritual mentoring, and interweaves art, play, nature, racial and earth justice, and embodied mindfulness practice in her teaching. She especially feels called to share the Dharma with Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, as well as activists, educators, youth, artists, and families. Visit kairajewel.com to learn more.

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  Imtiaz Rangwala Guest Teacher
  

  Imtiaz Rangwala

  Guest Teacher

  Imtiaz Rangwala has been practicing meditation for ~20 years and is a lay meditation teacher in the lineage of Cold Mountain Zen. He is also one of the founding members of Boulder Ecodharma Sangha. Professionally, he is a Climate Scientist at the University of Colorado in Boulder where he provides climate science support to people managing our land, water, and wildlife.

  He loves to nurture community through his love for cooking, gardening, and sharing songs and stories. He also greatly loves the outdoors and considers nature to be a very important teacher. Imtiaz was raised in the Islamic tradition of progressive Dawoodi Bohras and remained influenced by Sufism. He will primarily serve as the chef and kitchen logistics manager for this retreat.

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  Ramon Gabrieloff-Parish Guest Leader
  

  Ramon Gabrieloff-Parish

  Guest Leader

  Ramon Gabrieloff-Parish is a lifelong star gazer, Afrofuturist philosopher, dancing mythologist and storyteller, practicing astrologer, social artist and creative ceremonialist. His current project is to utilize the many outer planetary alignments of the 2020’s as occasions to create new holidays and festivals that open spaces for alternative futures and social realities. He serves as an assistant professor of Interdisciplinary Studies Naropa University, focusing on the intersections of equity and sustainability through courses on food and environmental justice. He also teaches foundations in contemplative learning and theory, embodiment, social identity, and conflict transformation. Ramon is committed to community, cultural and cosmic regeneration, through his consulting work with Once and Future Green and with organizations like Golden Bridge, Youth Passageways and Frontline Farming.