Facilitators

Sandy Wiggins began his adult life in a monastery. He is a lifelong student of Eastern and Western spiritual traditions and is dedicated to supporting transformational development as the pathway to an equitable, sustainable, and abundant future. He completed an 8-year curriculum at the Inspiration Consciousness School & Community in Owings Mills, MD and spent many years training as a breathworker under the guidance of Inspiration’s founder and principal teacher, Jessica Dibb. He is certified as an Integrative Breathwork Practitioner and Psycho-Spirtual Facilitator by the Global Professional Breathwork Alliance and is a member of the International Breathwork Foundation. He has a private breathwork practice in DC, leads group breathwork across the U.S. and also facilitates a variety of workshops, communities of practice and retreats focused on personal transformation, equitable economies, environmental sustainability and culture change.Sandy has also trained in Holotropic Breathwork, Therapeutic Breathwork, and Coherent Breathing. He has studied and practiced numerous meditation and transformational techniques over 45 years, including Contemplative Prayer, Vipassana, Transcendental Meditation (TM), TM advanced techniques, TM-Sidhi program, Zen and Kriya Yoga. He studied Archetypal Patterns at the Assisi Institute, has done extensive coursework on the Enneagram with the Enneagram Institute, and completed the Landmark Curriculum for Living. Following a two-decade career as a real estate and construction executive and an epiphany regarding the destructive impacts of that industry, Sandy became a central figure in the nation’s green building movement. In 2004, he launched Consilience LLC, a national consultancy with a mission to foster environmentally, socially and economically sustainable communities. Through Consilience, his skillful facilitation has given birth to sustainability plans for municipalities and institutions, regional public policy initiatives and sustainable local economic development plans across the U.S.Sandy also currently serves as Chief Learning Officer for Future Tide Partners, a field building collaborative focused on equipping individuals and institutions to shift culture, policy and capital toward an inclusive and flourishing future economy. In this role, he develops and delivers transformational development content to diverse communities of change agents, business and government leaders, and wealth holders. Sandy is co-creator of and principal educator for The Choosing Earth Project, whose mission is to catalyze personal and societal awakening to the critical challenges to humanity’s future and to foster a relational consciousness grounded in our connection with a living universe.

Sandy previously served as Sr. Advisor to RSF Social Finance where he focused on RSF’s field building activity in emergent systems. He founded and facilitated the RSF/BALLE joint Local Economy Foundation Circle, a community of practice that supports leaders of philanthropies who are working to transition their endowments to mission-aligned investments. He also launched RSF’s Conscious Finance initiative, which focuses on the power of inner transformation as the means to alter the way that money works in the world. Sandy served for a decade as Chair of BALLE (now Common Future). He is also Past Chair of the U.S. Green Building Council, Founding Chair of Green Business Certification Inc., and Founding Chair of the Philadelphia based Green Building United.

Angel Acosta has worked to bridge the fields of leadership, social justice and mindfulness. He recently received his doctorate in the Curriculum and Teaching Department at Teachers College, Columbia University. Angel has supported educational leaders and their students by facilitating leadership trainings, creating pathways to higher education, and designing dynamic learning experiences. His dissertation explores healing-centered education as a promising framework for educational leadership development.

After participating in the Mind and Life Institute’s Academy for Contemplative Leadership, he began consulting and developing learning experiences that weave leadership development, conversations about inequality and healing to support educational leaders through contemplative and restorative practices. As a former Trustee for the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society, he participated as a speaker and discussant at the Asia Pacific Forum on Holistic Education in Kyoto, Japan. Angel continues to consult for organizations like the NYC Department of Education, UNICEF, Columbia University and others.