OWL Jan. 5 Newsletter

Dear Subscriber,

I hope your new year is off to a great start! Would love to have you join us for either or both of our upcoming wisdom circles. 🙂

The OWL Global Wisdom Circle with Nigerian social activist Usman Inuwe is this Sunday, Jan.10.

The Interfaith Wisdom Circle with Sant Mat spiritual teacher Andrew Vidich is on Sunday, Jan. 17.

You can check out the details, and RSVP, at the newsletter below.

I’ve also included a brief video from our newest OWL global citizen, Kunal Chalwa, who will be spending a year traveling through India and making short videos for children — to explore interesting science questions of local interest.

Please let me know if you have any questions, or anything you’d like to add to our calendar or next newsletter.

In gratitude.

Aryae

You can also read this newsletter online at OWL Newsletter.

Upcoming Wisdom Circles

Jan. 10 OWL Global Wisdom Circle: Usman Inuwa

Making Peace in Nigeria

Usman Inuwa is an environmental peace activist and social innovator who connects the dots on multiple issues that affect people’s lives where he lives and works in north-eastern Nigeria. He facilitates dialogues in communities where there is violent conflict between warring Muslims and Christians.

Since 2009 Usman has partnered with Len and Libby Traubman on dialogue projects in Nigeria that include:

New Muslim-Christian Interfaith Dialogue
Dialogue for Relationships & Sustainable Farming
Growing Food, Building Relationships ~ Bauchi State, Nigeria
Youth Interfaith Golden Rule Training
Muslim-Christian Climate Change Education

Usman currently works as a project supervisor at Ehealth Africa. He holds a B.S. in Zoology from Bayero University in Kano, Nigeria. He has done multi-disciplinary work in aids prevention, women’s health and women’s empowerment, environment and food sustainability, and inter-faith peace-making, for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, UNESCO, and several NGOs.

Usman was born in 1979 into a Muslim family as one of 17 children. His father decided to adopt two young Christian girls. The impact of that experience helped steer Usman onto his current path. He lives today as a devout Muslim with his wife and their three young children.

Sunday, January 10, 2016, 9:00 – 10:30 AM Pacific Time.
You can find your corresponding local time at Time and Date.
If you’d like to participate in the videoconference, please RSVP and we’ll get back to you with details!

January 17: 6th Interfaith Wisdom Circle

Opening to spiritual wisdom — a global video conference circle of people who seek to share the sacred and serve the world.

Guest Spiritual Leader:

Andrew Vidich, Ph. D, — educator, spiritual teacher, author, editor, international speaker — has spent decades bringing together people from diverse religious backgrounds to share the common experience of unity that underlies all spiritual traditions.

Andrew was one of the early U.S. students of Kirpal Singh, a spiritual master born in Punjab in 1894 who founded the of Ruhani Satsang school of Sant Mat (Surat Shabd Yoga) in Delhi, and subsequently became president of World Fellowship of Religions and traveled to found Satsang communities in many nations of the world. Andrew now conducts talks and meditation sessions for the successor organization, Science of Spirituality, which is headed by Kirpal Sing’s grandson, Rajinder Singh, whose teachings emphasise the fundamental unity and harmony of all religions.

A resident of New York, Andrew has taught religion at Manhattan College and Iona College, and is a founding member of the NY Interfaith Council.
He has authored and co-authored a number of books about spirituality and meditation including Love is a Secret, Light upon Light: 5 Master Pathways to Awaken the Mindful Self, and his most recent, co-authored with Arthur Stein: Let There Be Light: Experiencing Inner Light Across the World’s Sacred Traditions. He co-edited The Spiritual Path: An Anthology of the Writings by Sant Kirpal Singh.

Sunday, January 17, 2016, 9:00 – 10:30 AM Pacific Time.
You can find your corresponding local time at Time and Date.
To participate in the videoconference, please RSVP and we’ll get back to you with details!

OWL News

Newest OWL Global Citizen, Kunal Chawla, Leaves U.S. for India

Kunal Chalwa, our newest OWL global citizen, has an M.A. in Learning, Design and Technology from Stanford, and recently worked as an online course developer from for Udacity. He’s just left the Bay Area in California to return to Delhi, India. His plan: to travel through India, and at each place he visits, develop a brief video science lesson for children that is relevant to people at that place!

A member of the ServiceSpace community and a regular, while he was here, at the Wednesday evening Silicon Valley Awakin Circle, here’s what he recently posted on his ServiceSpace feed:

At the risk of sounding immodest, I want to give you all a personal update. Next week I will be moving from California, back to Delhi, India. Over the next year, I hope to tell science stories on video. I used to teach middle school in India and found that the science textbooks did not promote curiosity amongst students. My hope is to change that; for each chapter in the science textbook, I will investigate interesting questions like, “Can shadows be colorful?” and create 2-3 minute videos exploring the answer. As a sample, here is a video detailing how to convert seawater into drinking water:

I feel scared to leave a predictable job and lifestyle behind, but am taking good energy from all of you on this journey. Please do let me know if there is anything I can do to be of service as I pursue this dream.

Kunal