Together on the 9th: A Candlelight Vigil
We will be joined by world-renowned epidemiologist Dr. Larry Brilliant, Rabbi Sydney Mintz of Congregation Emanu-El in San Francisco, and sound alchemist Laura Inserra who will share a guided sound bath. This will be an evening of ritual, music, community, and hope.
Larry Brilliant, MD, MPH
Founder and CEO of Pandefense Advisory, epidemiologist, philanthropist
Dr. Larry Brilliant is a physician and epidemiologist, CEO of Pandefense Advisory, and Chair of the Advisory Board of the NGO Ending Pandemics. He is also a senior advisor to Jeff Skoll and serves on the board of the Skoll Foundation. Dr. Brilliant was previously the president and CEO of the Skoll Global Threats Fund, vice president of Google, and the founding executive director of Google.org. He also co-founded the Seva Foundation, an NGO whose programs have given back sight to more than 5 million blind people in two dozen countries. He also co-founded The Well, a progenitor of today's social media platforms. Earlier in his career, Dr. Brilliant was a professor of epidemiology and international health planning at the University of Michigan.
Dr. Brilliant lived in India for nearly a decade where he was a key member of the successful WHO Smallpox Eradication Programme for SE Asia as well as the WHO Polio Eradication Programme. More recently, he was chairman of the National Biosurveillance Advisory Committee, which was created by presidential directive of President George W. Bush, he was a member of the World Economic Forum's Agenda Council on Catastrophic Risk, and a "First Responder" for CDC's bioterrorism response effort. Recent awards include the TED Prize, Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People, "International Public Health Hero," and four honorary doctorates. He has lectured at Oxford, Harvard, Berkeley and many other colleges, spoken at the Royal Society, the Pentagon, NIH, the United Nations, and some of the largest companies and non-profits all over the world. He has written for Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, the Guardian, and other magazines and peer-reviewed journals. He was part of the Global Business Network where he learned Scenario Planning and is the author of a memoir about working to eradicate smallpox “Sometimes Brilliant” and a guide to managing vaccination programs in a book “The Management of Smallpox Eradicati
Rabbi Sydney Mintz was ordained in 1997 by the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York City. She is the founder of the award-winning Late Shabbat Young Adult Program at Congregation Emanu-El where she has served as Rabbi for the past 22 years. Rabbi Mintz became a Senior Rabbinic Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem in 2004 and serves on the National Board of Bend the Arc: A Jewish Partnership for Justice. She serves on the 360Advisory Council of the Reimagine End of Life Festival. In 2018, Rabbi Mintz’s one-woman show “You May Think I’m Funny, But It’s Not” premiered and sold out at the Marsh Theatre in San Francisco.
Laura Inserra is a sound alchemist. She lives and creates at the confluence of music from around the globe, wisdom practices, and cutting edge technology.
Her career has been multifaceted — multi-instrumentalist, music teacher, sound therapist, composer of soundtracks for movies, theatre, and dance, producer of artistic events.
She uses music as meaningful entertainment, as a tool for healing, as a boost for intuition, as a facilitator for creativity, as a way to harmonize a conversation, as guidance for group retreats, as medicine for inner transformation, as a medium to connect to the intelligence of the body.
In the last decade, Laura has been focusing her work on the transformative and therapeutic power of sound. Combining her intimate knowledge of music with her studies of ancient schools of wisdom, she developed Resonant Healing, her own multifunctional method for self-healing and wellbeing. In-person and online, she uses this method in one-on-one sessions as well as in group work, public gatherings, and art installations.
She also teaches MetaMusic, a comprehensive body of work about sound healing and music ceremonies. Her in-person and online teachings are about creating resonant fields from which deep transformation, inner guidance, and healing arise.
Laura is the co-founder of Seeds of Gold Institute, whose mission is to research and integrate ancient technology and schools of wisdom into modern life. The Institute is dedicated to helping individuals, groups, and the global community in the journey of personal growth and collective evolution.
Born and raised in Sicily, she now lives in the SF Bay Area and works around the globe.
