a collective
experiment in co-creation
Our “church of everyday aliveness” begins with just three agreements:
To trust our felt sense of alignment and aliveness,
To listen deeply to ourselves & each other, and
To know that (seen or unseen) we are not alone.
We live in a time of deep yearning for full-throated aliveness. The dominant, western myths of endless acquisition, increasing control, and individual separation are crumbling. There are macro-catastrophes and geopolitics and revolutions at play. But at some basic level, we simply know in our bones that we can be more fully alive in ways our current paradigms don’t support.
The Joysong Collective is a place to re-discover our fundamental joy, including and especially in the everyday places (like livelihood, parenting, grief) where we are often amnesic to remembering our already-wholeness.
First and foremost, we are a sangha, listening and creating in circle.
Who we are
Our Joysong Collective is both tapped into the effervescence of global consciousness and rooted in local soil and embodied reality. Our first local “node” is in Sebastopol, California.
Emergent Leadership
Matt Jorgensen - General Coordinator
Matt's sacred work is focused on how we come home to ourselves, both internally and externally. Externally, he has been a social entrepreneur, founding home-cooked food platform Josephine.com and nonprofit COOK Alliance and helping to innovate new "commons-based" legal & financial structures (e.g. Purpose Economy, Zebras Unite). Internally, he's gratefully (if not always gracefully) falling down the rabbit-hole of not-knowing and greater aliveness. He's supported by long periods of meditation, the grace of good teachers, and the gentle power of nature (especially the wild ocean and forests of Northern California).
Matt serves our universal evolution towards remembering our wholeness in practical, day-to-day contexts. How can deepening into self-awareness and collective sensitivity allow us to serve/lead as fully integrated humans, from a place of rootedness, care, and authentic power? Listen to a recent podcast episode: “Collective Ownership, Intentional Businesses, and Healing Capitalism through Healing Ourselves.”
Xio Bender-Oceano - Global Learning Community Director
Xio has a Master's degree in Clinical Psychology and 20+ years working in psychology, neuroscience and technology. Magic and mathematics have been a passion of hers for many years. She is a wellness entrepreneur interested in how we architect our emotional realities. She built and dissolved a mental wellness tech startup to help humans explore their feelings and feel less lonely, Kilo.app.
In the past few years Xio has lived in countries such as Mexico, Guatemala and Norway where she gained knowledge of shamanic healing, reiki, heart-centered communities and the art of wild play and slow productivity. Currently she is pursuing a vision for a wellness hostel while supporting Joysong Collective.
Cole Rosner - Sebastopol Space Director
Cole Rosner is an Intuitive and international Immersive Experience Director and Programmer/Producer with extensive experience in cross-medium collaboration and live arts venue creation.
She is Founder of play collaborative arts, a 501(c)3 non-profit that blends the performing and healing arts for transformational experience and spent over a decade as Artistic Director and venue manager of community spaces in London, NYC, and LA.
Most recently Cole served as Director of Immersive Experience and Programming for AWA Oasia, a 14k sq. ft arts venue and wellness center in the DTLA Arts District. She is also a collaborator on Soft Medicine, Facilitator of wellness retreats, a Sacred Sexuality and communication teacher, a Curator of Children’s Arts Programming, and an Eco-village designer with over 5 years of experience learning and teaching within intentional communities around the world.
Collective Members
Jun Jun Li paints as she lives and travel, with an intention to show that life is about realizing possibilities. Her work is a dynamic encounter with nature, perception, and challenges that lead us towards a place of insight and learning.
Born and educated in China, her paintings reflect the unique cross-cultural journey she have taken from China to California. She recently built a Tiny House in the deep woods of Sebastopol and enjoys painting in her outdoor studio. She teaches expressive art at Juvenile Hall and private classes. She frequently travels to immerse herself in inspiring cultures and landscapes, explore different expressions of the humanity.
Mer al Dao
Mer is a multidisciplinary artist from Argentina based in California, weaving peoples & cultures throughout the Americas. Her focus is on video art as process, ritual and relationship. Outside of the margins of capitalistic industrial filmmaking and through a decolonial approach, she creates original stories that support imagination liberation. Some of her pieces have been internationally awarded by Black Star film festival, Earth Day SF Film Festival, PrideArts Film Fest and many more. Her passion is holding space for creative processes grounded in collaboration, uplifting intuition & soulful exchanges.
Chaise Levy (he/him) is of mixed European descent, hailing mostly from Italy, France, Scotland and Wales. He is married, and the father of a 3 year old wild creature. Chaise is a performance storytelling in the oral tradition, ritualist, witch and high school teacher. He is profoundly committed to the power of image, story, and magic as great gifts for the griefs of our time. Chaise's work with story centers reckoning with ancestral legacies of both blessing and harm, nourishing the imagination as a partner for liberation, and feeding this wild-wonderful earth with eloquence.
Jochen Raysz Jochen combines 25 years of experience in executive coaching and teaching meditation in supporting leaders to develop deeper presence, greater resilience, and the power to attract and align high-performing teams who share and fully support their vision and mission. Jochen has a Masters in Psychology, Neuroscience and Management and has been facilitating leadership development and cultural change programs since the late 1990s.
In 2005, Jochen began teaching Dzogchen meditation in the US, Europe, Asia as well as online.He brings the essence of meditation into his work with leaders and executive teams through practices that seamlessly integrate into day-to-day life at home and at work.
Adam Bulbulia is founder and leader of Heart-Centered Revolutions® (HCR), is a board-certified behavioral analyst and empath with an uncanny ability to help others discover how to follow one’s heart. He discovered that his unique gifts were able to bridge the divide between his developmentally disabled clients, and the non-disability-friendly world they had to navigate. He started a company to serve them and their families, and Bridging Worlds Behavioral Services was born. In the process, Adam realized that the very same process used with clients needed to be used with the business as a whole. The healing work of the heart that was at the center of client care moved to the center of the company culture.
Aaron Kahlow
Aaron, a seasoned teacher, mentor, and facilitator, has over two decades of experience in holistic healing practices such as mindfulness, Yoga, and somatic energy healing. He's renowned for his values-based approach and is a certified master in several fields, including emotional health and trauma practice. Currently, Aaron facilitates various wellness and empowerment programs, blending wisdom and playfulness to create an accessible and humble atmosphere. In his past, Aaron made his mark as an entrepreneur and organizational leader, establishing five pioneering companies. He is recognized worldwide as a keynote speaker and author, contributing significantly to discussions on social health, emotional well-being, and human connection.
Kenan Azam
Kenan is an interdisciplinary thought-leader who has taken his decade-long experience as an academic engineer into new realms of creativity and philosophical exploration. As a Steward at Potential Paradigms Media, he spearheads a range of innovative projects such as Spirited Conversations and panel discussions, fostering dialogues on diverse topics, from consciousness and ecology to technology and spirituality. Recently, he has facilitated a workshop on meaningful living at the High Vibes Festival, and is actively engaged in producing communal inquiries including 'The Myth of Money' and 'A Play of Words'.
Uniquely blending tech acumen with artistic sensibility, Kenan's diverse skills span video podcasting, creative writing, concert production, audio recording, and poetry. He's a progressive voice at the junction of technology and the arts, dedicated to inspiring a paradigm shift towards a future that embraces wisdom, creativity, and a deeper, more conscious connection with the world around us.
Lindsey Frischer (she/they) is a lawyer, coach, social justice organizer and facilitator committed to being the change we want to see in the world in service of individual and collective transformation, healing and justice.
Tirza Dawn Naramore
Tirza Dawn Naramore is a yogi, mother, artist, ceremonialist and lover of life. She has been practicing and teaching yoga and meditation for 30 years and offers yoga retreats and trainings that center on optimum health, self realization and self love. Tirza is deeply devoted to community building and is honored to have created a number of community supported non profits including Mystic Family Circus and The AWAKEN Project, which serves families with children on the autism spectrum. Tirza is proud to be the mother of 3 wild teenagers, including her incredible son who is diagnosed with autism.
Kathryn Robinson is a yoga teacher, grief doula, and curator of experience. For the past decade Kathryn has combined her passion for healing with music, sound, breath, movement and stillness to curate group and personalized healing experiences.
Daniel Swid is an accomplished product designer, engineering leader, and collaboration expert. He is dedicated to accelerating the social and technical capacity of teams addressing the root causes of climate change and biodiversity collapse. This dedication has led to technical leadership positions across numerous domains including: mangrove forestry (globalmangrove.org) and cedar tree reforestation (UNDP Alt Finance Lab), data sovereignty and commercial fishery management (NOAA and California Department of Fish and Wildlife), and blockchain-based carbon and biodiversity registry design for agriculture (regen.network). Daniel has over 2 decades of experience working with organizations in the private, public, and non-profit sectors.