Susan Livingston

member of Humanity, citizen of Earth

I’m delighted and excited to be included in multiple collaborations, both virtual and face-to-face, that are building community-level bridges of connection, communication, and personal and social transformation. It is my belief that the foundation of each of these collaborations is the embodiment of the Hopi Prophesy: "The time of the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves!"

It's not important to come up with fairsolutions or theright solutions. Nobody has access to fair and right in advance; if were possible, it would already have been done! What's important is that we move forward together because no one of us can move forward alone. What's important is that we use the resources at hand without relying on scarce resources (e.g. money) or going into despair about resources we've lost or used up (e.g. specific people's energy).

I have been a peace and environmental activist since the early ‘70s when my two sons were very young, and I have been active in the performing arts since grade school, mostly on the production side. My academic background is in developmental, environmental, and experimental psychology with graduate research in perceptual and cognitive psychology and developmental psycholinguistics; I hold a teaching certificate in my minor, biology.

The pinnacle of my teaching career was as program coordinator, resident director, and biology teacher at an international boarding school in Denmark. My second career was as the sole proprietor of the only cotton diaper service in western North Carolina, which I ran as a collective.

Now I am a Transition Towns activist, and my family includes two beautiful daughters-in-law and five grandsons. The personal gifts I bring to my virtual communities are writing and editing skills, ease with using on-line tools, and a passion for organizing and facilitating meetings, events, and other gatherings including teleconferences, telepractice groups, and internet forums.