Gail Brenner, Ph.D.

President

Gail Brenner is a clinical psychologist, speaker, and author—and a lover of truth with a fire that burns brightly.

For over 20 years, she has met with clients individually and in groups, bringing laser-like clarity and loving care to the confusion of common problems, such as reactive emotions, feelings of inadequacy, and relationship struggles. She is passionate about her work, inviting people to untangle personal identities that are the source of suffering, revealing the possibility of embodied living in harmony with all of life.

Gail  has special expertise working with older adults and their families and brings clear seeing and compassion to the transitions of aging, death, and dying.

Gail was an assistant clinical professor at the University of California San Francisco where she trained physicians and maintained a clinical practice. She has published numerous professional articles on coping with stress and chronic medical illness. More recently, she is the author of the award-winning The End of Self-Help: Discovering Peace and Happiness Right at the Heart of Your Messy, Scary, Brilliant Life and At the Core of Every Heart: Reflections, Insights, and Practices for Waking Up and Living Free.

At first involved with the Buddhist community, Gail eventually discovered the direct path of nondual teachings—and her true home. She lives happily in Santa Barbara.

Cameron McColl

Treasurer

Cameron McColl was born and brought up in Edinburgh, Scotland. Over the years he’s lived in Australia, the UK, the US and the British Virgin Islands, with spells in France. Originally an electronics designer with an engineering degree from Edinburgh University, he’s started and grown several large companies, leading to IPO’s in the UK and US.

For many years Cameron lived two lives – one as a CEO, entrepreneur and public company director, with a busy family life and two growing kids, and the other as a student of Francis Lucille, a teacher of Advaita, whom he lovingly followed round the world for twenty years. In-between times he pursued his passion for sailing and the ocean.

With kids grown and a life that now flows between Sebastopol, his boat in Florida, and the British Virgin Islands he’s loving dedicating time to SAND to help it grow and mature without losing any of the laughter or spontaneity.

Bayo Akomolafe, PhD

Bayo Akomolafe, rooted with the Yoruba people, is a celebrated posthumanist thinker, poet, and author. His books, These Wilds Beyond our Fences and We Will Tell our Own Story, reflect his unique perspectives. Founder of The Emergence Network and host of ‘We Will Dance with Mountains,’ he lectures at Pacifica Graduate Institute and University of Vermont. Akomolafe sits on boards including Science and Nonduality (US). He’s the inaugural Global Senior Fellow at UC Berkeley’s Othering and Belonging Institute and Senior Fellow at The New Institute, Hamburg. Recent honors include the New Thought Leadership Award 2021 and Excellence in Ethnocultural Psychotherapy Award 2022.  BayoAkomolafe.net

Chris Fields

Chris Fields explores the consequences of treating all interactions as observations, and hence regarding the world as composed entirely of observers observing each other.  He is interested in how observers draw boundaries around parts of their experiences to separate out “entities” including themselves, that they then regard as having properties, structure, locations in space, and identities through time.  Answers to these questions about observation and the construction of bounded entities with identities, however tentative and partial, suggest approaches to open problems in cosmology, developmental biology, and cognitive science. 

Biographical details and recent publications

Advisory Board

Mays Imad, PhD

I am a neuroscientist, educator, student, and seeker. My journey from philosophy to neuroscience reflects my fascination with consciousness and the brain’s complexity. As a neuroscientist, I appreciate the field’s integration of information from behavioral profiles to molecular structures. I believe life is bound by both quantifiable physical laws and less-understood metaphysical ones. This perspective drives my approach: combining scientific methodology with relational and phenomenological epistemology to understand life’s intricacies.  My work focuses on educational innovations that help students reach their potential while enriching our community. I advocate for practices that advance democratic ideals of opportunity, empowerment, truth, and justice. Through this interdisciplinary approach, I strive to deepen our understanding of the brain and foster societal progress.

Pat McCabe (Weyakpa Najin Win, Woman Stands Shining)

Pat is a Diné (Navajo) mother, grandmother, activist, artist, writer, ceremonial leader, and international speaker. She is a voice for global peace, and her paintings are created as tools for individual, earth and global healing. She draws upon the Indigenous sciences of Thriving Life to reframe questions about sustainability and balance, and she is devoted to supporting the next generations, Women’s Nation and Men’s Nation, in being functional members of the “Hoop of Life” and upholding the honor of being human.

Her primary work at the moment is:
— The reconciliation between the masculine and feminine, Men’s Nation and Women’s Nation
— Remembering, recreating or creating a new narrative for the Sacred Masculine
— Addressing the Archetypal Wounding that occurred in our misunderstanding and abuse of technology in prayer, ceremony and science

Aviaja Sanimuinaq

Aviaja Sanimuinaq is an Inuit woman who comes from a shamanic lineage in Greenland. Aviaja returned to her pre-colonized traditional beliefs after a long journey of intergenerational trauma healing. She holds a deep respect for ancient teachings, connection and healing in a modern world.

Tiokasin Ghosthorse

Tiokasin Ghosthorse is a member of the Cheyenne River Lakota Nation of South Dakota and has a long history with Indigenous activism and advocacy. Tiokasin is the Founder, Host, and Executive Producer of “First Voices Radio” (formerly “First Voices Indigenous Radio”) for the last 30 years in New York City and Seattle/Olympia, Washington. In 2016, he received a Nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize from the International Institute of Peace Studies and Global Philosophy. Other recent recognitions include the Indigenous Music Award Nominee for Best Instrumental Album (2019) and the National Native American Hall of Fame Nominee (2018, 2019). He also was recently nominated for “Nominee for the 2020 Americans for the Arts Johnson Fellowship for Artists Transforming Communities.” Tiokasin is a “perfectly flawed human being.