Hoy Kersh, author of “Suitcase Full of Dreams” is my special guest on this podcast. She shares her courageous story of growing up in the Jim Crow South in the 1940s and early 50s just prior to the Civil Rights Movement. Her book talks of the horrors as well as the joys of her childhood. She had a deep connection with nature and trees finding the healing aspects of nature at an early age. Nature was the entertainment in her humble beginnings. Her mother was an herbalist preparing and selling tinctures from the wild herbs she and her siblings collected.

Listen to this fascinating woman share her story and insights of how to stay healthy naturally…

Hoy Kersh, author of Suitcase Full of Dreams, is a songwriter and Reggae music performer who lives part-time in Jamaica where she had an organic farm and taught reading and writing to adults at the local night school. Now living in the woods of Northern California, Kersh works with students at a rural Pacific Northwest school on a video documentary about logging and the regional water crisis, issues close to her heart. A lifelong antiwar activist and environmentalist, Kersh is active in local and regional peace movements. She continues to write and promote music and is at work on her second book and is the mother of three grown children.

To order Hoy’s book, go to Amazon.com.

What do you remember about your relationship with nature as a child?

John Crowley is an entrepeuner, local cafe owner, past Moose lodge president, author of wildly successful local newsletter, husband, father, and self-described Social Capitalist. He is my guest on this …minute podcast. From a bored and lethargic place behind his TV set 8 years ago, he created a community event that now brings over 200 people out to connect, share and dance the night away in Petaluma, CA.

Listen in to his amazing energy and vision, and learn how he changed local perceptions to create community mindedness from the inside out.

John was born and raised in Dublin, Ireland. After receiving a degree in Computer Science, he spent the next 8 years working in Frankfurt, Germany where he met his wife, Anne-laure a native of Lyon, France. In 1993, they immigrated to Petaluma, California where John worked as a software engineer. He now owns his own company that provides air transportation logistics and management systems for cruise lines and wholesale tour operators.

His community minded undertakings include the Aqus Café Foundry Wharf, a vibrant community watering hole that provides the much-needed “third space” that is so often lacking in today’s world. John, always the connector, has helped create the many conversation groups that happen at the café. He sees the café not unlike the Public House where he grew up in the outskirts of Dublin, a place that was the real center of the community, a multi-generational space where people connect with each other to discuss important issues and to have fun.

He has created the wildly successful Aqus Crawl, another exciting way to connect with others in the community. The Crawl is a progressive party that goes from location to location visiting galleries, showrooms, pubs and restaurants. Each night has a theme designed to easily get people into conversation. For example, one theme might be “Bring a book that changed your life and give it away” and another one might be “Bring a photograph of yourself as a teenager”, essentially anything that will start a conversation.

John has also created Aqus News, a weekly e-newsletter, which is like a combination of a local “craigslist” and an online magazine. Again, this is designed to bring people together in a trusted virtual community.

In every way, for years, John’s efforts have been directed towards supporting the community he loves, creating new and innovative ways of bringing people together and encouraging community involvement.

John’s focus on “Social Capital” has over these past years brought Petaluma significant positive achievements. His theory that as individuals of a town are provided more opportunities to interact and connect, the entire town benefits, has proven remarkably successful.

Check out his website and newsletter at Aqus Cafe, and be inspired!

One of John’s amazing insights… No matter where you live or for how long…act as if you are going to spend the rest of your life there!