Center Board

The Center, as a nonprofit, was blessed with the governance of caring and devoted board members since its inception. In our early years, we were particularly blessed to have Don Wells, Director of the Duke University Certificate Program in Nonprofit Management, as Board Chair, and Marty Goldstein, Headmaster of New Garden Friends School, as Treasurer. Under their experienced tutelage, we were schooled in board roles and responsibilities.

At Don Wells’ suggestion, the following community-based board, including Toben family representation, was formed in 2002:

Emily Chamberlain — Faculty, Carolina Friends School, Durham, NC
Sarah Gibbs — Director, S.E.E.D.S., Durham, NC
Marty Goldstein — Headmaster, New Garden Friends School, Greensboro, NC
David Henderson — Guilford County Ranger, NC Division of Forest Resources, Greensboro, NC
Ben Isenberg — Conservation Trust for North Carolina, Raleigh, NC
Susannah Lach — Center for Ecozoic Studies, Chapel Hill, NC
David Rea — CFA, Salem Investment Counselors, Winston-Salem, NC
Joe Shannon — Performer; Founder of Mountainhome Music, Boone, NC
Carolyn Toben — Director, Timberlake Farm, Whitsett, NC
Paul Toben — Student Apprentice to the Board, Tufts University, Medford, MA
Tim Toben — Director, Toben Farms, Chapel Hill, NC
Val Vickers — Faculty, Greensboro Day School, Greensboro, NC
Katherine Weaver — The Residence Development Company, Greensboro, NC
Don Wells — Director, Duke University Certificate Program in Nonprofit Management, Durham, NC
Anthony Weston — Professor of Philosophy, Elon University, Elon, NC

From 2002-2012, the following members came on the board to offer servant leadership to the Center as former members rotated off:

Paul Mitchell, 2004
Lynne Jaffe, 2004-2007
Dacia King, 2004-2007
Pat MacKenzie, 2004-2007
Rory Bradley, 2008-2009
Liz Levitt, 2008-2009
Larry Petrovich, 2008-2009
John Sullivan, 2008-2009
Gregg Sullivan, 2008-2009
Marti Canipe, 2008-2010
Cameron Cooke, 2008-2010
John Shackelton, 2008-2010
Sarah Borders, 2008-2010
Lisa Marie Peloquin, 2008-2011
Randy Senzig , 2008-2011
Iris Senzig, 2010-2011
Karen Bearden, 2010-2011
Danny Farley, 2010-2011
Colette Segalla, 2010-2011

During these first twelve years, the Center was located at Timberlake Earth Sanctuary and one of the primary roles of the board was an exploration of this nonprofit/private relationship.

With the Great Recession and its aftermath, however, profound changes followed for Timberlake as privately owned land and for the Center as a non-profit organization. In 2012, Timberlake Earth Sanctuary, LLC, was formed as a Toben family business. With this transition, the Center was asked to wind down its operations on the land as Timberlake opened its doors to a wide range of individuals, organizations and groups in order to preserve and maintain the earth sanctuary in perpetuity.

There was mutual recognition that the Center would need to continue in a new form. On June 18, 2011, Founder Carolyn Toben wrote the following letter to the Center board:

In the midst of all this, the idea of an Educator’s Council, or a Faculty Council had come forth, and I realized that this fit the understanding of changing the form in which the Center had been operating, that indeed the leadership of the Center needed to be expanded in a time in which its mission was more needed than ever before. And that this work needs to reach a wider audience as it plays its part in a continuing unfolding of a sacred story, a creative story and a story that now needs from each of you your deepest considerations and deepest prayers.

In 2012, an Educator Council was formed, composed of graduates of the Center’s Inner Life of the Child in Nature Program, as a working embodiment of the Center’s mission to recover the inner vision of a society in harmony with nature.

The Educator Council embraced a new form of sacred governance, expressed in a Board Wisdoms document, that guided its work from 2012 to the completion of the Center in 2025.

Founding members of the Educator Council included:

Marti Canipe, 2012-2013
Andrew Levitt, 2012-2025
Marie Nordgren, 2012-2025
Lisa Marie Peloquin, 2012-2014
Joanne Rothstein, 2012-2015
Colette Segalla, 2012-2025
John Shackelton, 2012-2013
Katherine Ziff, 2012, 2021

As founding members rotated off the Council, they were replaced with the following Council Members:

Trish Corbett, 2013-2015
Renée Eli, 2014-2018, 2021-2025
Mary Hartsell, 2014-2025
Bill Wallenbeck, 2014-2018
Margery Knott, 2017-2018
David Garcia, 2019
Catherine Hines, 2019-2025
Susan Licher, 2019
Sally Pamplin, 2019-2025
Janet Perez, 2019
Tom Roepke, 2019-2025
Sonja Younger, 2019

There follow the biographies of the Educator Council members who shepherded the governance of the Center during its last six years from 2019-2025.

Renée Eli holds a PhD in Transformative Studies from the California Institute of Integral Studies with an emphasis in Consciousness Studies and an interdisciplinary Master’s degree focusing on the human condition from the University of North Carolina Asheville. A contemplative scholar whose work is situated in what she refers to as a “philosophical physiology,” Renée offers embodied ways of knowing and being on behalf of human becoming, transdisciplinary perspectives on health and disease, and awakening presence to the body’s cues, especially perceptivity through the organ of the heart. A retired healthcare provider recognizing that chronic health concerns are a gateway to wholeness-making, Renée mentors individuals who come to this threshold to embark on a healing journey, calling on phytotherapeutics (plant medicine) in support. She is recipient of a research fellowship from Esalen Institute’s Center for Theory and Research for her work contributing to the Future of the Body project and Herbal Medicine Fellow with the Association for the Advancement of Restorative Medicine. Her weekly publication, Beyond the Comfort Zone, a 2023 Feature Publication on Substack, invites penetrating questions about life, body, and being human, written while exploring wild reaches of North America. Renée is a 2010 graduate of The Inner Life of the Child in Nature program.

Mary Hartsell is certified as a Family Nurse Practitioner and a Family Psychiatric and Mental Health Nurse Practitioner. She is completing an international certification as an Anthroposophical Nurse Practitioner. She received her Bachelorette in Nursing from UNCG in 1981. She returned to graduate school and received her Master in Science of Nursing with a concentration in Administration of Systems at Duke University in 1996. Dr. Hartsell was committed to health of individuals and returned to school and achieved a Post-Masters at Duke University in 1999 as an FNP. In 2004, She attended Rush University in Chicago and received another Post-Masters as a PMHNP-F in 2006. She holds a Doctorate of Nursing Practice from Duke University. She completed Spiritual Direction from the Alcyon Center in Maine in 2020. She has worked in many capacities of nursing including Pediatrics, Psychiatry, Home Care, Internal Medicine, and Family Health. She currently provides care within a private practice at Integrative Behavioral Health & Healing Practice where she practices as a nurse practitioner and therapist specializing in providing holistic care to individuals with complex chronic medical and psychiatric illnesses. Dr. Hartsell has studied extensively the art of contemplative meditation, spiritual direction, and existential therapies and incorporates these practices as the foundation of her clinical work. Mary is a graduate of The Inner Life of the Child in Nature program, class of 2014.

Catherine Hines holds a BS degree in Chemistry from the University of Pittsburgh and a Doctorate in Optometry from the New England College of Optometry. During optometry school, Catherine cofounded the school’s first peer tutoring program and discovered her passion for teaching. After completing a residency program in Philadelphia, Catherine returned to Boston and joined the faculty at her alma mater, where she specialized in ocular disease and focused on innovative teaching methodologies. When Catherine relocated to North Carolina, her focus shifted to administrative and regulatory aspects of optometry, but her passion for teaching and education continued through a variety of volunteer activities. She taught computer labs as a PTA volunteer, served on the Board of Directors for a K-12 charter school, developed and delivered jewelry-making courses for at-risk girls and young women, and served as a docent at the Carolina Raptor Center. During this period, Catherine’s spiritual awakening led to in-depth explorations of transpersonal psychology, archetypes, and shadow work and she was drawn to earth-based spiritual practices. Catherine’s volunteer work at the raptor center ignited a desire to share her deep appreciation of nature with others. She became certified as a Master Naturalist through the Central Carolinas Master Naturalist Program and enrolled in the North Carolina Environmental Educators program. When she discovered The Inner Life of the Child in Nature program at CEINW she immediately resonated with its intersection of education, nature, and spirituality.  Catherine graduated from the program in 2019.

Andrew Levitt holds a BA in English from Yale University and a PhD in Folklore from the University of Pennsylvania. He trained as a mime with Marcel Marceau and with Paul J. Curtis at The American Mime Theatre. Andrew performed and taught mime professionally for over thirty years and then helped found the high school at the Emerson Waldorf School in Chapel Hill, NC where he taught Humanities and directed theater for seven years. Andrew co-created a performance piece, “The Meadow Across the Creek: Words from Thomas Berry” for the Thomas Berry Centennial and is the author of  All the Scattered Leaves of the Universe: Journey and Vision in Dante’s Divine Comedy and the Work of Thomas Berry, published by the Center in the Fall of 2015, and  Heron Mornings, published by the Center in 2017. As Dr. Merryandrew, he worked as a clown doctor in the Pediatric unit at Moses Cone Memorial Hospital in Greensboro, NC for nine years until the onset of the COVID pandemic. Andrew is a graduate of The Inner Life of the Child in Nature Program, class of 2008.

Marie Nordgren is the founder of The Children’s Garden Preschool, a nature and play-based early childhood program in Durham, NC where she was the director and lead teacher for 18 years.  She currently teaches at Sun Star Farm Folk School in Apex, NC. Marie received her training in Waldorf early childhood education from Sunbridge College in Spring Valley, New York.  She has engaged in an in-depth study with the Choreocosmos School of Cosmic and Sacred Dance.  Her three grown daughters, three grandchildren, and husband, Carl, are also a never-ending source of new learning experiences.  Marie is a graduate of The Inner Life of the Child in Nature program, class of 2008.

Sally Pamplin holds a doctorate in Educational Leadership from Nova University, an Ed.S. in Middle School Curriculum, a Master’s in Early Childhood from GSU, and a BA in education from Emory University.  Her doctoral work consisted of developing and administering a program for low economic, underachieving children. Sally taught and administered curriculum in the Fulton County, GA, school system for 25 years, writing and developing curriculum for differentiated learning, and facilitating Dr. Gerald Lieberman’s Using the Environment as an Integrating Context for Learning.  She co-established a publishing company, Creative Classrooms, and was part of a team who developed the Advanced Training of Environmental Educators in Georgia Certification program (ATEEG). After “retirement” she was an education consultant for 5 years throughout the Eastern States for underachieving schools. Currently, Sally is following her passion delving into the Wisdom traditions, studying Perennial Wisdom with Rabbi Rami Shapiro, Teilhard de Chardin with Rev. Dr. Cynthia Bourgeault, Celtic Spirituality with Rev. Dr. John Philip Newell, and The Wisdom of the Sufi Path with Rev. Matthew Wright.  She shares these wisdom traditions with her church’s adult education classes, contemplative and interfaith organizations. Sally is a graduate of The Inner Life of the Child in Nature program, class of 2019.

Tom Roepke taught for twenty years in New York City as a literacy specialist at a public school in East Harlem. His role included helping teachers, parents and children experience contemplative practices to promote their well-being. Earlier in his career he became a certified Waldorf teacher and taught a class of children from first through seventh grade at the Rudolf Steiner School in NYC. Tom graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a BS in Education. He has a Masters in Early Childhood Education from Antioch New England and a Masters in Special Education from Hunter College. He retired from teaching in 2018 and completed The Inner Life of the Child in Nature Program in 2019. Tom is currently living in a small town in rural Wisconsin where he is exploring how service, hospitality and contemplative practices can cultivate life and nurture people who are experiencing poverty.

Colette Segalla is a psychotherapist in private practice in Raleigh, NC. She approaches psychotherapy with clients from a perspective informed by her ongoing work with the Center. In areas addressed during the therapeutic process, Colette recognizes the interconnectedness of life and the sacred relationship between human beings and the natural world. Her participation in the Inner Life of the Child inNature program at CEINW coincided with her graduate studies at Pacifica Graduate Institute and became central to her doctoral research. Before returning to graduate school, Colette was an AMI certified Montessori teacher in a lower elementary classroom of six-to-nine-year-old children. Colette is the author of I am You, You are Me: The Interrelatedness of Self, Spirituality and the Natural World in Childhood, published by the Center in 2015. She is a graduate of The Inner Life of the Child in Nature program, class of 2008, and has served on the Educator Council since 2010.   

Director Peggy Whalen-Levitt has been with the Center since its beginnings in 2000. Working closely with Center Founder Carolyn Toben and geologian Thomas Berry, Peggy has been deeply engaged in the formation of a work for adults and children that cultivates an “I-Thou” relationship between human beings and the natural world.  Peggy’s early experiences as a storyteller with children led her to complete a Masters degree at the Annenberg School for Communication where her studies focused on perception, aesthetic communication, and phenomenology as in-depth presence with lived experience. These studies continued at the University of Pennsylvania where she earned a Ph.D. in Language in Education with a concentration in Childhood Imagination. It was not until she discovered the work of Rudolf Steiner in 1985 and Thomas Berry’s The Dream of the Earth in 1988 that these interests deepened and expanded to include soul and spiritual dimensions of earthly evolution. This deepening has been furthered since 1992 by the contemplative practices of the School of Integral Spiritual Psychology and since 2005 by the meditations of Valentin Tomberg, which include the streams of both Carl Jung and Teilhard de Chardin. Peggy awakens each morning in the foothills of North Carolina by entering Silence in morning meditation.  She is the editor of Chrysalis (2004- 2024), the Center’s journal, Only the Sacred: Transforming Education in the Twenty-first Century (2011) and The Place of Our Belonging: A Work for Children and Educators Mentored by Thomas Berry (2023).