Alvin AA Rosales (he/they)

Bay Area FVN Stewardship Circle Member

Greetings! I am. Alvin Akira Alinea Rosales. Filipino-Japanese descent brown skin eyes thin. Long flowing hair cis male body oxymoron spirit #STiLLALiVE. Words are fun, roll off the tongue, at times they get in the way. I'm excited for us. I've read about us. I'm a curious person who captures questions like how will we hold tension together? What will we learn from the patterns that appear? What creativity will we alchemize? When will we disagree? With the handbook? With each other? With self? What fears do we share? How will humanity boldly show up amidst our experiment? I met someone 11 months ago and everything in my existence since then just feels so surreals. He is my son. I am a first time parent. Bout to be a stay at home parent. Taking a quick step away from 20 years of being an institutionalized educator to experience life with him in a way that I've never experienced with anyone else. My son is half-Filipino, bi-racial and may very well grow to be white passing. I'm very much so invested in what lessons, re: race, might appear and be held, while we pursue radically vulnerable ideas and concrete realties together. At the intersection of racial justice and climate change. LET'S GO! I'm excited! I'm scared. I'm humbled. I'm open. I'm skeptical. I'm optimistic. I let go. I'm excited! I trust. I'm home.

Chase Hommeyer (they/them)

Hi everyone! My name is Chase and am so excited to be a part of this FVN network. I want so deeply to build Beloved Community because we need a loving community to face and heal our personal and collective traumas, to fight against injustice, and to grow together. A loving community is a powerful tool to dismantle racial capitalism and other forms of domination because a loving community proves in an embodied way to prove to people that justice and love in public is realistic and exists, thereby helping people feel more safe to imagine and create more loving worlds. Aspects of my identity that feel meaningful to me that I want to mention is that I am queer, white, nonbinary using they/them pronouns, AFAB (assigned female at birth), a person who holds US citizenship and class privilege, a survivor of abuse, raised atheist but am very spiritual, an artist, educator, and an Aries sun Scorpio rising hehe. I have been involved in labor organizing, college campus organizing to support survivors of interpersonal violence, and racial justice work. I really care about rebuilding a beautiful relationship with the land I’m a part of and doing work to support indigenous sovereignty. I like to laugh a lot and dance. I definitely have a lot to learn and unlearn, and am always practicing working through trauma lovingly so I am looking forward to learning from giving and receiving feedback. There’s so much more I could share about myself but hopefully that’s a start! Nice to meet you.

Chris Moore-Backman (he/him)

East Point Peace Academy Core Team Member

Hi friends, I'm Chris and I'm looking forward to sharing this experience with you. Some of my deepest loves: my family, backpacking, soccer, music, this magical beautiful planet. I give thanks that I'm continually connected with an amazing array of wonderful human beings. I'm scared about the future, but so thankful to be alive. I long for deeper companionship as we head into the unknown.

Cole Rainey (they/them)

cole (they/them) is a seed keeper, farmer, agroecologist, and educator. as a 6th generation Californian and the descendent of colonizers, cole is committed to the lifelong practice of rematriation and reparations. cole’s Gaelic ancestors from the lowlands of Scotland and Ireland are calling them into the study of seed, soil, and ceremony. they believe in the radical power of Earth stewardship to heal communities, reclaim ancestral traditions, and lead us into collective liberation.

Erika Ramirez (she/her)

Hi All. I'm pretty new to this work formally. I joined my first org in 2020 so most of my time has been virtual when building with folks. I'm most excited about learning in a group setting but also nervous about sharing details. I feel honored that we’re being led by great facilitators but I also find that it’s each of you that become some pretty awesome teachers for me too.

Jesse Marshall (he/him)

I'm a 32 man with Ashkenazi Jewish and western European lineage. I grew up in SF, and just moved back to the Bay Area last summer after a bunch of years on the East Coast. I feel most alive when cooking and laughing with people I love and when floating in the ocean and lakes and rivers. I co-parent a 20-year-old young woman who I've been in chosen family with for a decade now. I spent most of my 20s working in grassroots economic organizing, including co-founding an intergenerational, multiracial urban intentional community and developing worker co-ops. I spent 2019 and 2020 organizing civil disobedience around the climate crisis, and teaching sociocratic governance and organizational design. I just finished a yearlong program in somatics, and am seeking my place at the intersection of healing, culture change and collective action. I've made a lot of mistakes and learned a some hard lessons through failure, burnout and unhealthy ways of relating to myself and others. I'm still grieving the version of myself that believed and strived for linear change, and figuring out how to live with the terror and loss of control that the linear change me was taking care of. I'm joining this cohort to be in community around those questions, to learn from all of you about vocation and beloved community, and to be part of exploring what emerges from culture and relationship and belonging rather than "strategy." I feel excited and humble and curious.

Jihan McDonald (they/them)

Hello everyone, I'm Jihan and I always have a hard time with these introductions! A short version of my story is that I'm an Oakland native, nonbinary, womxn, teacher/spaceholder, dismissive avoidant attacher, mountain-goat wanderer, scifi/fantasy binge-reader, catnap connoisseur, and so very interested to see what we'll get up to together over these 6-months :-)

junice uy (she/her/siya/they)

​Junice is a landscape designer who now works at a state transportation agency. Her work dances with integrating ecological health and design thinking with anti-oppressive practices. She is listening to the call of beauty, truth, wisdom, silence, and play. She was born in an island called Cebu in a nation state known as the Philippines, born of ancestors whose lives centered around the sea. Her other known ancestors come from Fujian province (China), Scotland (by way of Kentucky), and her family tells her she has ancestors from Spain (though she suspects her ancestors most likely came from Mexico).

Katie Loncke (they/them)

Hello, dear ones! Katie here, born and raised on Nisenan and Maidu lands, colonially known as Sacramento, California, to a Black Caribbean-American father and a white refugee Jewish mother — also blessed to be close with my Austrian Oma, who just turned 97! I'm a bit of an introvert and a bookworm, but if you get me playing a game or sharing about wisdom philosophies, I'll open right up. I identify as non-binary, appreciating gender abundance, though I usually present pretty femme and often pass as a cis woman in our binary society. One thing about me is that I'm very interested in sexuality and intimacy! I'm a relationship coach, working with wonderful clients nationally and internationally, and I love helping people bring compassion and self acceptance to fully embrace, honor, and enjoy the erotic power of life, however that looks for them. Aligning with adrienne maree brown's approach of Pleasure Activism, I hope our liberation work will always be fulfilling, caring, creative, and as much fun as possible.

Kazu Haga (he/him)

East Point Peace Academy Core Team Member
FVN Bay Area Stewardship Circle Member

Hi! I'm Kazu. Born in Japan, raised mostly in Massachusetts and have been living on Ohlone land for the past 16 years. In terms of my work, I think I identify mostly as a trainer and practitioner of nonviolence. Everything I do grows out of that foundation. I'm newer to Climate work, but have been realizing the need to address this more and more as we look ahead to our future. Working with FVN over the last couple of years has been such a humbling honor and an eye-opener and I'm looking forward to continuing to be humbled by this process. I truly believe that we are living in times of mass transition/transformation/crises/opportunity, and I am scared and hopeful at the same time, and am looking to be scared and hopeful in community! I'm very much still a work in progress, but looking forward to learning with you all!

Kimberley D.C. Schroder (she/her)

My desire in this life is to feel well-utilized. It's a continual practice to grok my interconnection with all beings, know my place within this organism of the earth, & feel the flow of life moving through me. From there, sustainability, regeneration, & justice are inevitable. Also, I am starting grad school this fall: an MBA in Design Strategy at California College of the Arts in SF — so systems thinking for meaning & values :D

Kwame Eason (he/him)

Kwame Eason, black male Christ follower. Married ~ 25 years, 2 adult kids. Work as engineer, have volunteered extensively in children’s ministry (through church and local non profit).

laura ann coelho (she/they)

East Point Peace Academy Core Team Member

hi everyone! i'm looking forward to building with each of you and feeling into what emerges when we are together. i've felt pretty disconnected the last couple of years not being in person much and, though cultivating the capacity for solitude has been important, i'm especially grateful to be able to do some of this work in person. i identify as mixed Indi-Pilipina, kid of immigrants, queer auntie, learner of healing arts, navigating how to live responsibly as a settler born on stolen Ohlone land, with class privilege.

Lauren Chinn (any pronouns)

I get stressed out trying to decide the most important things I want to share about myself to sum up who I am in a brief intro! I'll just say I'm super excited to share this journey with you all, and I look forward to getting to know each of you and for you to get to know me through this cohort!

LiZhen Wang (they/she)

Hi cohort, I'm excited to become friends and comrades with you. About me: I have been many things in my life, from community organizer to restaurant server to labor organizer to dominatrix to my current work as a social justice astrologer. What has persistently led me through it all: Buddhism and being a reverent lover of mystery. The current mystery I am walking with is death and dying. My mother was diagnosed with aggressive terminal cancer at the start of the pandemic, and I partially moved to Taiwan to tend to her. Things I am learning in the process: how much vitality there is in death, how death can soften ossified layers and open the way for forgiveness and love. How entrancing and exquisite it is to be alive in the body... and how decay, illness, and disability in the body are inevitable. These are my teachers as I walk with my mom, and these are my teachers for walking the planet in a time of disaster and crisis. What dying has shown me so far? Endings are inevitable, but we can make them beautiful with our love, care, and grace. I also want to share with the cohort that depending on my mom's condition, my availability may shift. I am 100% intending to be in the cohort, and, there is always the possibility my schedule can shift depending on my family's needs.

maegan willan (she/her)

Hey new community/friends! I am a 46 year old white, queer, Canadian born and raised therapist and Restorative Justice facilitator. An introverted community lover. Curious, excited and a little nervous about this undertaking.

Melanie Gin (she/they)

I’m Melanie Gin, a Zen Buddhist poet, writer, and peacebuilder. I am a person of Chinese and Japanese descent, born and raised in the SF Bay Area. For my day job, I work within local governments to dismantle oppressive ways of thinking and acting. My deep commitment to my spiritual practice has given rise to an interest in building spaces of social justice and activism that are rooted in healing, holding others and ourselves accountable with soft and loving hands. Breathing in, I know that I am here Breathing out, I touch the tenderness of my own heart, the excitement and fear of joining you

Nakachi Clark-Kasimu (she/they/fam)

I am a poet, a kindergarten teacher, an auntie, a humble student of abolition and a jazz head. I stan for biomimicry, trans kids, milk chocolate, public libraries, afrofuturism and the ancestors. My bodhisattva vow is to alleviate the suffering of children and in the process I have stumbled into the healing of my personal history. As much as I am able, I use my overthinking powers for good. I got a smart mouth and a mean streak that have been essential for my survival but can make my self-talk painful and hard to bear. My favorite prayer is may all beings know they are loved and the source of all love.

Niki Klaymoon (she/her)

Niki Klaymoon relates to poems as living beings that she seeks to set free through her body. She identifies as a choreo-poet, dance-maker, freestyle house dancer, eco-feminist, and is devoted to internal and social transformation. She comes from a lineage of female artists and carries her grandmother's commitment to the force of the feminine through artistic expression. In 2008 she initiated Embodiment Project (EP) a Bay Area Performing Arts Organization that began as a hip hop healing collective of street dancers. We honor and express Black social dances and street dance forms and recognize them as healing modalities. We draw on other dance traditions including modern dance and use choreo poetry, documentary theater, live song, and video art to articulate and hold the whole stories of liberation. Our work uplifts Black Indigenous and People of Color narratives, the voices of survivors of sexual violence, and commuities impacted by the carceral system. We are a diverse team that centers the experience of BIPOC through our leadership, Sociocratic organizational model, performances, community partnerships, and educational programming.

Olivia Barber (she/her)

Hello! My name is Olivia (she/her). I grew up in the mountains west of Boulder, Colorado and have been living in the Bay Area for the better part of the last decade. Professionally, I work in healing centered education and specialize in embodied emotional literacy training and program design. I am deeply fascinated by the impact of trauma and resilieince on the body and nervous system and have been a student of yoga and somatics for 20 years. I love mountains, hotsprings, working in my garden and can usually be found curled up with a book or writing under a tree. I am so excited to learn, grow and connect with you all!

Oren J. Sofer (he/him)

So honored to be joining this cohort and building community together. I love to cook, walk, dance and share focused, intentional connection. I feel humbled & excited to be joining this community and learning, building, exploring, challenging, an co-creating together. I identify as cis male white Jewish & Buddhist. My livelihood right now is found through teaching Buddhist meditation, Nonviolent Communication (don’t worry, not dogmatic about it!), and writing. I’m married to a Chinese American Buddhist woman and we are expecting the birth of our son within a week of our first meeting. I'm looking forward to meeting each of you!

Patricia Moore (she/her)

I’m 80 years old—that’s a fact. However many years (weeks, days or hours) I have left I want to contribute to the healing and repair of the earth, including our own fractured society. I hold Martin Luther King’s Beloved Community as a central aspiration. To be honest I have learned more about what it takes to live toward that community as a mother, spouse, partner, grandmother, mother-in-law, aunt, and sister-in-law than in my more public life. I believe FVN offers concrete ways for me to grow in practice personally and corporately toward that vision. I have much to learn, and I commit to listen deeply, ponder, and to let go as called to do so. Much of my activism in the past was focused on what Gandhi called the constructive program. More recently I have participated in the Reparations Procession and in the Rebel Brigade—both of which sought to silently express the grief and cost of our destructive and unjust systems and ways of life. To be honest, I am more interested in being focused on the beckonings of the future than the past. Opening to the future for me always involves facing, grieving and letting go of the “what is.” I’m a retired Episcopal priest and in my tradition the desert mystics had a saying, “Keep your death always before you.” Not in a morbid frightening sense I think—rather in the sense of helping us value and cherish each moment of life. At my age death is always before me. It seems to me that the climate crisis which brings our corporate death before us all (if we dare to look at it) can perhaps serve us—not just terrify us. Joining the FVN cohort is one way for me to celebrate how precious life is and how it is very much worth my devotion to the work of building the Beloved Community.

Rama Mahesh Hall (he/him)

I grew up in a meditation community in a small town in the Midwest, moved to the Bay in 2008 to work for a non-profit that teaches students in San Francisco Transcendental Meditation in public schools, and found my journey in dance and theater in 2009 where I’ve been a core member of Embodiment Project for the past 13 years. Always eager to learn, I’m excited to grow in the trainings of FVN and implement that foundation thru art and community building.

Sandhya R Jha (they/them)

I've lived in and loved Oakland since 2006. My father is from the village of Tildanga in West Bengal, India, and my mother is from the town of Airdrie (near Glasgow) in Scotland, and when we moved to the US I was shaped by growing up in Akron, Ohio. I do consulting work, a little bit of faith rooted organizing (especially around labor justice) and sometimes teach seminary students. I love black tea with milk, QTPOC community, and the cartoon Avatar the Last Airbender. (I even have a podcast about it cuz I'm that nerdy.)

Sapho Flor (they/them)

Hi everyone, I'm Sapho (pronounced Sah-foh). I’ve been living on Ohlone land for several years. I grew up on Tongva land (Los Angeles) where my parents settled, immigrating from the so-called Philippines. I spend my days helping folks with chronic pain move towards embodiment through using acupuncture and herbs and bodywork. It has been a big part of my life to witness stories and pain transform into healing and growth. I prioritize rest and nourishment, knowing that the more I allow and receive care, it will ultimately benefit everything around me. I'm feeling tender as I write this because I feel my heart opening (and contracting in nervousness) thinking about the space and time we will be sharing together. I'm feeling more ready to step into the unknown, rather than fearing it, because this is where we can create and form new possibilities. My ancestors have been silenced in so many ways. There is an inherited fear of speaking up and being honest. As I listen and listen, they want me to use my voice, which has been the most vulnerable thing. I know healing in community will bring up a lot of pain, and also I’m looking forward to the intimacy and connection built on trust and love. I commit to deepening and learning with you all.

Sarah Herrera (she/her)

FVN Bay Area Stewardship Circle

In a way, I’ve been looking forward to this experience all my life and am humbly eager to learn and grow and see what life brings forth through this experiment.

Tiff Lin (they/them)

Y’all, we made it! Yay!!! I’m so excited to deepen with you in practice and in relationship! My name is Tiff Lin. I am a 1.5 gen Taiwanese American, non-binary queer, Yang Earth Dragon. I’m a shapeshifting multipotentialite, disruptor/kinesthetic storyteller, big on creation through catharsis, deep down tender heart, oftentimes socially awkward and quiet in large movement spaces, but overall committed to showing up as all parts of my selves for the collective r(evolution), knowing fundamentally the first step is remembering wholeness and dismantling the inner patriarchal forces within my own ancestral lines. I am leaning in towards what it means to be in communities of care and movement, how to be a good friend/ally/comrade, how to be in joy and pleasure versus obligation, how to participate as well as foster safe authentic deep pathways towards more trust, courage, vulnerability, how to thrive in collaboration versus competition, how to learn and collectively heal in community and stay heart-centered and open. FVN feels like home already. I am so excited, nervous, and commit to showing up for this unraveling moment to moment.

Vickie Chang (she/her)

Bay Area FVN Stewardship Circle Member

The daughter of Chinese immigrants, Vickie Ya-Rong Chang (she/her) was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. In her work as a psychologist and group facilitator, she is dedicated to personal = collective liberation. A core team member of East Point Peace Academy, she also supports API activists by offering awareness and somatic practices, which are fundamental to her individual and group counseling work. She is strengthened by her connection to the Chinese ancestral lineage including Wudang Mountain; to Sangre de Cristo in New Mexico; and to Arunachula in Tiruvannamalai. 

wei li king (they/him)

Hi! My name is wei li, I'm a community weaver, shapeshifter, student of play and pleasure on a path towards more land reconnection and reciprocity. I delight in exploring edges, wandering the unfamiliar, exchanging stories and food. I was born on Lenape land, known as New Jersey of two Taiwanese/Chinese immigrants. Currently work with the East Bay Meditation Center as their operations and IT lead. Excited to meet all of you and share more 💙