Meet Our Team……
Kara Stonehouse
Vision Holder, Core Team Lead
I started the Spirit of Canada Dialogues project from a calling deep in my bones. I have a connection with the Spirit of Canada and I love the community of Art of Hosting Meaningful Conversations practitioners who bring the gifts of better dialogue to the world. It breaks my heart to see Canada becoming so divided on issues such as oil and gas, climate change, pandemic measures and lacking a visionary future for Canada. We sense that meaningful dialogue is a big part of the healing. I have a career as a design thinker, sustainability executive leader, professional strategic facilitator, and graphic recording entrepreneur (www.ahagraphic.com). I am most proud of my work for collective impact for sustainability in Ottawa. I am a recognized Evolutionary Leader and a meshworker with The Hague Center for Global Governance, Innovation and Emergence.
Diana Claire Douglas
Core Team Member, Guardian Circle
Diana Claire Douglas, www.knowingfielddesigns.com systemic facilitator, coach, and consultant. My purpose: attuning to the Sacred, to participate in the movements for humanity to be in our rightful place in relationship with All-Life. I am lead Constellator for The Hague Center for Global Governance, Innovation and Emergence and Integral City. I am co-founder of The Hague Center for Field Inquiry (action research using a phenomenological approach). I enjoy bringing to my facilitation my love for Life as an artist, author, researcher, and grandmother. My most recent book on facilitating Collective Constellations, Whole Systems Design: Inquiries in the Knowing Field, was published in 2022.
I care about the Spirit of Canada and the wonderful potential we have as peoples — living on this beautiful Land — to live beyond division.
Pamela Schreiner
Core Team Member
I am a grandmother of 4 who is exploring ways of being and doing together that is more fun and healthy for all of us, including all creatures and the earth. I’m happy to continue that exploration with the Spirit of Canada team. My particular interest is in our many different types of systems & structures. They are so ubiquitous and yet many of us are not seeing them and the impact that they are having on us. I’ve worked with massive computer systems, with human systems (organizations) and more recently I’ve studied complexity science, which taught me the common principles underlying some types of systems & structures. I have been amazed to see how much we can learn by simply observing nature and allowing ourselves to be guided.
Danielea Castell
Core Team Member, Guardian Circle
I am a nature singer, mentor and social artist living on the ancestral lands of the Lheidli T’enneh nation in northern BC Canada. I identify as an eco-sexual human. My primary bonds and relationships are with Mother Earth and her kin. For the past 12 years I have been building relations and studying interbeing ethics and communication with Waters, Trees and Mountains around the world. Six of these beings are members of a new nature consulting team that I recently formed called dcastell & company. You can find some of my work here on YouTube and Soundcloud.
I joined the Spirit of Canada team to help bring Nature’s individual voices directly into the Dialogues. www.dcastell.com
Richard Schultz
Core Team Member
I resonate with Gandhi’s statement, “Be the change that you wish to see in the world.” For the last 20+ years, I have studied, taught and worked with hundreds of individuals to elevate their lives from the inside -> out. I especially love doing “Shadow integration work” which is at the core of most limiting behaviours and responsible for the polarization we are experiencing in our world today.
I am also passionate about working with organizations to expand their capacities for authentic connection, leadership, collaboration and innovation. I’ve had the pleasure of facilitating several peace conferences for Rotarians, co-founded the PeaceLeaders Collaborative and facilitated Greater Moncton, Canada becoming an International City of Peace. On a regular basis, I also host open, online Leadership Dialogues and Peace Cafés using the Bohm Dialogue method.
Valerie Yersh
Core Team Member
I love to remind all of us that we can choose a positive future. My passion for future weaving, guiding people and groups to journey and connect to visions of positive futures, began in 1997 when a future vision coach connected me to my most luminous future and my life radically changed. I spent the next 20 years exploring, studying and facilitating future work. I wanted my son to experience the benefits, so I created a CD with future visions to fall asleep to, for him and all kids. The Dreamer of Canada event in February 2022 launched my role into the Spirit of Canada Core Team. I am gratefully and joyously fulfilled knowing The Spirit of Canada Project is a beautiful part of a positive future for our New World. I also contribute to transformation as a professional Change Management Practitioner.