ᎠᏇᏥ ᏚᏙᎥ ᏇᏗᏂ ᎷᏆᏗᏂ. (My Mother’s name is Bettye Hopkins)

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O nome do meu pai é Bob Gomes (My Father’s name is Bob Gomes)

 

Моја мајка се зове Бети Новаковић (My Mother’s name is Betty Novakovich)

 

Dave Deasey is ainm do m’Athair (My Father’s name is Dave Deasey)

 

To introduce myself is to share the lineages that have nourished and shaped me.

 

I begin with my parents, all four of them, introduced in ancestral languages. The fact that I have four parents rather than two (I’m adopted), and that their ancestral roots are from such wide-ranging cultures, is an important part of my life experience. (The languages, in the order listed, are Cherokee, Portuguese, Serbian, and Irish. As far as I know, none of my parents spoke these ancestral languages, but my many of my great-grandparents, and some of my grandparents, did.)

 

I was born in Brooklyn, NY, and although I relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area as a young adult, I still feel those New York roots vibrantly alive within me. I’m happiest when in the Redwoods of Northern California or at Jones Beach or the Great South Bay of Long Island. I’m bicoastal to the depths of my soul.

 

In addition to these family and geographical lineages, I’ve been shaped and nourished by a range of intellectual and spiritual influences, including Tibetan Buddhism, the Reclaiming tradition of paganism, Bioregionalism, Rites of Passage work as taught by Steven Foster and Meredith Little of the School of Lost Borders, and the Grateful Dead. Writers and activists such as Robin Wall Kimmerer, Helena Norberg Hodge, Barbara Ehrenreich, Jerry Mander, Rebecca Solnit, and Malcolm Margolin (to name a few) have been pivotal to my understanding of the world we find ourselves in, and the world we could create.

 

I’ve been teaching in the Psychology Department at Sonoma State University for over 25 years.  In my courses, I especially enjoy sharing material that engages the mind and supports well-being and transformation. My favorite moments as a teacher are when students have epiphanies – when something from the class helps them make sense of their lives in a new way.

Over the years, I have developed several bodies of work in my courses. In Ecopsychology, I focus on the relationship between human flourishing and the well-being of the Earth. I’ve been involved with the field of Ecopsychology from its beginnings in the 1990s, as the co-editor of the book Ecopsychology: Restoring the Earth, Healing the Mind. In my Dreamwork courses, I teach students how to delve into the science and soul of dreaming, learning to listen closely to their own dreams. And in my Self-Compassion classes, I share ways of cultivating self-kindness in the midst of life’s challenges.

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I offer this work to you here, for free, in order to educate, enlighten, and support you on your path of living with depth and integrity in these times.