Vincent Martinez Grieco (previously Vinn Arjuna Martí) melds philosophy, deep body awareness and unique dance to create a conscious awareness of body and soul. A master of movement ritual, he supports his students in listening to their bodies as a pathway to understanding their inner critics and inhibitions. Arjuna created Soul Motion Conscious Dance Practice.

Vinny Ferraro is a leader in the field of mindfulness specifically working with educators and incarcerated populations. He’s been empowered and teaches in the Buddhist insight tradition, leading a weekly sangha in San Francisco since 2004. His open hearted teachings have touched many. And he doesn’t like talking about himself in the third person.

Vipin Thekk founded Parenting Changemakers and co-founded the Wellbeing Project, an initiative to support social entrepreneurs to create well-being in their personal and professional lives. He is also a director at Ashoka, where he leads Changemaker School Districts in working to integrate empathy and changemaking skills in the district’s mindset, curriculum, systems, and culture.

Vivien Sansour is an artist, storyteller, researcher, and conservationist who uses images, sketches, film, soil, seeds, and plants to enliven old cultural tales in contemporary presentations and to advocate for seed conservation and the protection of agrobiodiversity as a cultural/political act. She founded the Palestine Heirloom Seed Library and her art has been showcased internationally.

Wade Davis is a Colombian-Canadian anthropologist, ethnobotanist, author and photographer whose work has focused on worldwide indigenous cultures, especially in North and South America and particularly involving the traditional uses and beliefs associated with psychoactive plants.

Wallace J. Nichols, MEM, PhD, is an innovative, silo-busting, entrepreneurial scientist, movement maker, renowned marine biologist, voracious Earth and idea explorer, wild water advocate, best-selling author of Blue Mind, sought-after lecturer, and fun-loving dad. He also likes turtles (a lot).

Dr. Warren Farrell has taught couples’ communication nationwide for the past 30 years. His “Role Mate to Soul Mate” course also appears as an online video and will be published as a book in July, 2024. 

Dr. Farrell was chosen by the Financial Times as one of the world’s top 100 thought leaders. See www.warrenfarrell.com.

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The Web of Change Board of Directors uses a highly participative model to produce a conference that supports participants in evolving. Board members are leaders in some of the nation’s most progressive organizations: technology and engagements experts at ACLU, NARAL Pro-Choice America, and Greenpeace, and digital campaigners at organizations like Digital Democracy and 18MillionRising.org.

Wendy Palmer holds a sixth-degree black belt in aikido and has practiced mindfulness for more than 40 years. She is the founder of Leadership Embodiment and works with organizations and leads groups in Africa, Europe, Canada, and the U.S.

Wes Nisker is a Buddhist meditation teacher, radio commentator, and performer. His books include Essential Crazy Wisdom, Buddha’s Nature, and Crazy Wisdom Saves the World Again! Wes teaches at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California. He founded and co-edits the journal Inquiring Mind.

Wes Jackson is president emeritus of The Land Institute, which he co-founded in Salina, Kansas in 1976 after establishing one of the country’s first environmental studies programs in California. He is the author of New Roots for Agriculture, Consulting the Genius of the Place, and Nature as Measure.

Will Kabat-Zinn brings mindfulness and meditation to diverse populations, from neuroscientists to incarcerated youth. He co-developed a mindfulness curriculum for parents at UCSF. He leads retreats at Spirit Rock and at meditation centers around the country. He is a member of the Spirit Rock Teacher's Council.

Willa Blythe Baker, PhD, is a meditation teacher, a Buddhist scholar, and the author of The Wakeful Body and other books. She is the founder of Natural Dharma Fellowship and its retreat center, Wonderwell Mountain Refuge, in Springfield, New Hampshire.

William Donius was a left brainer for most of his life. Twenty-five years ago, however, he discovered how to tap into his right brain and it revolutionized his life. Bill is  New York Times best-selling author and ideation facilitator.

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William Keepin, PhD, is a founding director of Gender Equity and Reconciliation International, which has organized over 100 trainings for transformational healing between women and men on six continents. He is a physicist and transpersonal psychologist, and author most recently of Belonging to God: Spirituality, Science, and a Universal Path of Divine Love.

William Padilla-Brown is a Multidisciplinary Citizen Scientist practicing social science, mycology, phycology, and molecular biology. William founded and is the current CEO of MycoSymbiotics, a permaculture research and production business based in Central Pennsylvania focused on innovative practical applied biological science.

Wilma Wyss is an award-winning mosaic artist whose work features unusual materials and nuanced colors and textures. Wilma designed Esalen’s mosaic mural in the Lodge’s restroom foyer, which was created in a workshop.

WisdomWomen is an international community that meets in person and virtually in devotion to our collective vision of a thriving world.

WisdomWomen is a place where we are beginning to bring a new vision – a society co-existing in harmony as people and planet – into form. In our membership community, we support one another in birthing our visions and practice embodying our wisdom through radical co-creation. Our convening team encompasses a variety of backgrounds, experiences, and expertise, but most importantly holds devotion to our collective vision of a thriving world.

Wu De is a writer and teacher of the ancient practice of serving tea. His monthly magazine, Global Tea Hut, connects thousands of tea lovers in more than 66 countries. He has authored four books, including The Way of Tea and Tea Medicine.

Xiao Qiang is director and research scientist of the Counter-Power Lab, a research group focusing on technology and free flow of information in cyberspace based at UC Berkeley. Xiao teaches at both the School of Information and the Graduate School of Journalism, and is the founder and editor-in-chief of China Digital Times, a bilingual China news website. Xiao received the MacArthur Fellowship in 2001.

Xochitl (So-chil) Ashe is a trained herbalist with deep indigenous roots. Initiated at the age of sixteen in her Peruvian healing traditions, she has been a conduit for sacred medicines and herbs for twenty years. She works with transformational cacao and mushroom ceremonies in Mexico, especially attending to generational trauma.

Xoli Redmond, PsyD, serves as clinical faculty in Yale University’s psychiatry department. He is a licensed clinical psychologist specializing in Truth-Oriented Therapy, which incorporates mindfulness-based, cognitive, existential, contemplative, and spiritual approaches. He has practiced and taught insight-based, non-dual, and contemplative practices since 2004.

Yang Yang, PhD, is the author of Taijiquan: The Art of Nurturing, The Science of Power. A traditionally trained taiji/qigong master, he is director of the Center for Taiji Studies in New York, and a researcher and taiji/qigong instructor at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

Ya’Acov Darling Khan has been recognized by elder shamans from the Sami, Achuar, and Sappara peoples of the Amazon. He is the co-founder of Movement Medicine and has led workshops around the world since 1989. He co-wrote Movement Medicine: How to Awaken, Dance and Live Your Dreams and wrote Jaguar in the Body, Butterfly in the Heart (Hay House, 2017).

Yingzhao Liu is a lecturer at Stanford and has recently been design director for international markets at LinkedIn. She integrates deep spiritual practice with our complex modern life, drawing from Buddhism as well as the Native American path. Ying has also led experiential education for over a decade, and loves to facilitate group processes in nature.

Yolanda Sealey Ruiz is a poet, professor at Columbia University, and scholar-activist. She works with school districts, colleges, universities, and organizations across the country helping individuals build their racial literacy.

Ysaye Barnwell, a former member of the African-American female a cappella ensemble Sweet Honey in The Rock, is a composer, arranger, author, and actress. A vocalist with a range of more than three octaves, she appears on more than 30 recordings with Sweet Honey and other artists. She is the curator and composer for The Fortune's Bones Project®.

Yuval Ron is a musician, educator, and composer for film, television, dance, and theater. He worked with the Dalai Lama, Sufi leader Pir Zia Iniyat Khan, Sufi master Omar Faruk Tekbilek, Zen Buddhist priest Hirokazu Kosaka, neuroscientists Mark Waldman, Andrew Goodman, and others. In 2006, he won an Oscar® for West Bank Story.

Zak Dychtwald is the author of Young China: How the Restless Generation Will Change Their Country and the World. He is also the founder of Young China Group, a think tank and consultancy. At 28, Zak has spoken at forums and summits across four continents. He grew up coming to Esalen with his dad.

Zaya Benazzo co-founded Science and Nonduality, a community that honors and nurtures the exploration and experience of nonduality as a pathway to greater wisdom and well-being in the context of the unique challenges of the 21st century.

Zev Felix is the co-founder and creative director of Camp Grounded. As a graphic designer and web developer he spends a lot of time behind his computer for work, so he finds balance with meditation through analog crafts like crochet, face-paint, and calligraphy.

Zhen Dao is the founder of MogaDao and the philosophy of Post-Daoism and director of SACRA: Immanence Theater. A transgender woman, she is a playwright, poet, novelist, and master innovator in the arts of qigong, yoga, and spiritualized martial arts.

Zuza Engler has been on the spiral path of kinesthetic investigation into consciousness for close to three decades, through motion, stillness, and process inquiry. She is a teacher of Soul Motion® and Open Floor Movement, creatrix of Embodied Inquiry, and a long-term Buddhism and Gestalt practitioner.