Rough Drafts: Recent Episodes
BioIntegrity Partnerships
'Dream band. It's good to be home. Thank you, Casper.
After 4+ weeks off and completely away from playing music (three of them with AfricaExchange.org -- which was one of the greatest learning experiences of my life), I got to play with three of my most personally-treasured musicians. Glenn I've been fortunate to play with since about 1992. Bukka and I have shared homes and hotel rooms off and on for years. And, I owe one person the "thank you" for my return to playing drums a bit: Mr. Casper Rawls. He made it fun again, he's a humble, artful, barn-burning master, and one of the nicest humans on Earth... This band:
Casper Rawls
Bukka Allen
Glenn Fukunaga
Chris Searles
Live at the Continental, June 8, 2023
"here are some highlights"
recorded on Chris' phone
- Going Down (Freddie King)
2.
Marcus Kar is director of programs at Youth Farm MN. In this epsidoe he shares about his life and how gardening is healing...
Rev. Jimi Calhoun is an important part of the American music tradition, having recorded classic albums with Dr. John, Parliament-Funakadelic, and many more. He’s also an accomplished author and pastor.
In this episode, part 2 of 2, 93-year old Marj Barlow, Ph. D., shares her views on Feminism, biosphere care and her compass of joy.
Dr. Darcia Narvaez is Professor of Psychology Emerita at the University of Notre Dame and a research pioneer integrating work on child flourishing, human moral development, healthy psyche, and Indigenous Peoples' social values. Professor Narvaez talks about her breakthrough work, the meaning of "The Evolved Nest," and her new book, "Restoring the Kinship Worldview."
About Darcia
Darcia Narvaez, Ph.D., is Professor Emerita of Psychology Emerita at Notre Dame, a fellow to the American Psychological Association, and a fellow to the American Educational Research Association. She's written, co-authored, and edited more than 20 books. Her book, Neurobiology and The Development of Human Morality won the William James Book Award.
References
- The Evolved Nest
- Neurobiology and The Development of Human Morality
- Restoring the Kinship Worldview
- Four Arrows (co-author / co-editor of “The Kinship Worldview”)
- 9 components of the Evolved Nest
- Alloparents
- Iain McGilchrist, The Master and his Emissary
- Robin Wall Kimmerer, The Honorable Harvest (from Braiding Sweetgrass)
- Linda Hogan (Chickasaw Nation)
- Genevieve Vaughan, Maternal Gift Economy
- Nature’s Gift Economy
- David Abram, Spell of the Sensuous
- Human microbiome
- Symbiosis
- Melvin Konnor
- James Prescott
- Allan Schore, neurobiological attachment
- Jon Young, Coyote games
- Tamarack Song, games to develop intuition
- David Bohm, physicist, “The real intelligence is insight intelligence and it comes in from the outside.”
Program
0.00 Welcome & Intro
I. THE KINSHIP WORLDVIEW
2:50 What is a “worldview”?
4:30 What is a “Kinship” worldview?
6:58 Contrast the Indigenous worldview of connection with the Western worldview of disconnectedness
II. THE EVOLVED NEST
9:35 What are the characteristics of an “evolved nest”?
11:35 Components of the Evolved Nest:
11:45 Soothing perinatal experiences
13:00 Breast feeding
14:25 Lots of affectionate touch, no negative touch
15:20 A welcoming social climate
16:25 Alloparents who are responsive
16:55 Self-directed play with multiple-age playmates
17:55 Nature connection
19:14 Routine healing experiences
22:20 On being an animal
III. RESTORING THE KINSHIP WORLDVIEW
24:55 Talking about the book -- What are you trying to convey with the precepts?
30:18 Darcia: To understand our Nature as a Human species is to understand what Thriving looks like
happy, calm, quiet minds
gleeful, childlikesense of humor that’s not hostile
holding hands, sitting together, enjoying being together…
try to make the other person laugh and feel safe
there’s no big ego, it’s “us”.
32:00 The Honorable Harvest, Darcia shares favorite quotes,
“Sustain the ones who sustain you and the Earth will live forever.”
34:50 What healing medicine feels like , Tom shares a quote
37:05 Darcia: We have a lot of unhealed grief and trauma we pass on, instead of taking time to heal
37:30 What is the relationship between the Sacred Feminine and The Maternal Gift Economy?
40:25 Communion, holy union, co-creation, and our interconnectedness
41:10 Darcia on Nature connection, or “Ecological Attachment”, experiment
42:30 Rooted and connected: “our roots extend out from our skin and our other body cavities”
43:20 The microbiome; We are communities
44:00 Where does your passion for restoring the kinship come from, how are you teaching this?
IV. RESTORING OUR WORLD
48:10 What should we be doing to restore the nest?
Make sure you yourself are centered; Nature connection is one of the best ways to heal.
Learn to get back to social joy.
Learn to guide the conscious mind into connection; build the communal imagination.
52:12 What is sustaining your spirit right now?
I sing to the 6 directions
I sing on my land
Lying on the Earth, leaning against a tree, huggling with spouse
Try to make my husband laugh, sing and dance together
Keep aware: I am and always will be part of the Earth
V. CONCLUSION
54:30 Final thoughts
The first precept: the recognition of spiritual energy in Nature; find that guardian spirit...
57:00 Tom reads a final quote, on Community Welfare (Dona Enriqueta Contreras)
57:56 End
Quotes
“Everything the baby experiences engraves the brain for life. So you want to make sure you don’t distress the baby because then you’re shifting the trajectory away from wellness towards illness or ill-being or adversity.”“(In a) welcoming social climate, the mother feels supported, the baby is wanted, the community is delighted with having the baby around, and the baby feels like they belong, that they can make a difference, make other people smile and laugh as they are made to smile and laugh…”
“The mother is there to be affectively attuned to the baby’s emotional systems to keep maintaining them in the best bio-chemistry for growth.”
“You want to let children have that (self-directed play) experience when they’re young so they can build self-confidence. . . When you don’t provide the nest, in general, you’re deflating that individual…”
“We can get caught up in ruminations, because of this left brain, especially if we weren’t raised in a nurturing way, we’ll have OCD, worry, depression… all this stuff that goes on when you’re un-nested… So we need healing practices to get back into centeredness, into relational connection with others and the natural world, back into gratitude and into our bodies…”
“Our sociology relies on good biology…”
“If we’re raised in these nested communities, virtue is a byproduct, is the result. You would not survive in a community, dependent on others, if you were vicious. So, virtue is part of our heritage as well.”
“In the primal wisdom, the kinship worldview, life is relationships with everything, with All other relations, animals, plants, spirits, etc.”
“We’re trying to get back to connection, to understand that we are all connected, and that part of being connected properly is to be present, to honor the spider, the tree, the Earth, the computer, these are all things that people are relating to…”
“We are embodied creatures, we’re bio-social.”
“Another piece is holism. The way to be human isn’t just to be in this thinking mind, that left brain eco-consciousness. It’s actually quite distressing to be there.”
“The left brain thinks it knows everything.”
“If your survival systems are overdeveloped and you’re easily triggered, the authoritarian is going to be easy to pull you in. . . We forgot that we need to nurture, nurture the heart. And, you have to be immersed in relationships to build the empathy, the sensitivity, and the understanding, and the willingness to forgive, and be generous… All that is part of the Indigenous way, you’re immersed in that kind of social, loving community. And this then allows you to grow your human potential. Which is another thing we’re not doing…”
“Generosity is part of who you are a human being. But what Capitalism (to the Gift Economy) has done is stop that flow and allowed people to hoard resources, and force others to not have any resources…”
Writing “Neurobiology and the Development of Human Morality” brought me to the realization that Indigenous wisdom, the kinship worldview, is our heritage. It is what comes about when we honor our physicality, our embodiedness, our species wisdom, and it’s what will save us…”
The Western wisdoms tell us, "Clear your heart, clear your fear, clear your ego, and then be open to divine energies.”
This podcast is part of our series, Restoring Connective Tissue.
Produced and edited by Chris Searles.
Shmita and the Climate Crisis,
About Joelle
Interfaith Power & Light (DC.MD.NoVA)
other related work
About Interfaith Power & Light
- National office
- State affifiliates
References
Joelle's book
Rabbi Fred Sherlinger Dobb
Environmental Torah
Dobb’s source sheet to inform a Jewish response to climate change
when we can violate Shabbat to save a human life
5782 is a Shmita year
Faith community land acknowledgements
Jewish Brohaut (?, food prayer)
Quotes
I think we have to have weekday consciousness in one pocket and Shmita consciousness in the other pocket. We have to make time to release and restore.
I am feeling grief that is grounded in tremendous love -- and then suddenly, with my heart open and my hands open, that's a tremendously powerful thing. Right? It's like -- I'm gonna to be a warrior in the world for the things I love...
Audio processing and improving by Jeffrey Haley.
Shmita is about letting the land rest, the release of debt, and jubilee. Deidre Gabbay from Shmita Project Northwest challenges us to think deeply through the question, “What would a Shmita year look like today”?
Shmita Project Northwest
Shmita is deeply concerned about social justice. Shmita isn’t just about letting the land rest, it’s about the release of debt, and jubilee. Deidre from Shmita Project Northwest challenges us to think about, “what a Shmita year look like today?”
We need a Shmita year. Deirdre Gabbay, ___, ____, shares not only an explanation of what her group is doing, but her inspirations and the many relevant ways that a Shmita year is at least a good template for how we address today’s numerous social crises.
Deirdre Gabbay is director of The Shmita Project Northwest, an organization dedicated to bringing attention to the Hebrew calendar's seven-year Shmita cycle which centers the relationship between the earth and the wellbeing of the human and more-than-human world, through education, inspiration, community-building, and programmatic support. She founded Ahavat v'Avodat HaAdamah, "Love and Service of the Earth," in 2015 to establish an environmental presence for the Pacific Northwest rooted in Jewish text, tradition, and practice, specifically to support a response to climate change. Deirdre is a member of Congregation Beth Shalom, Seattle, and a member of the board of directors of Earth Ministry/Washington Interfaith Power & Light. Together with her husband she is raising a family on Queen Anne. She blogs at shmitainseattle.com, where all of her divrei Torah (sermons) can be found.
400
All of these calamities show the potential for disconinute
445
On the positive side it really taught us the discontinuity
As scary as it was it was also encouraging. And now all of us, across the planet, have this muscle memory — that things can jump out of their ruts. MORE HERE
545
This Covid year gives us a hint of what a Shmita year could be. And the Torah teaches us that
700
What if we were to embrace this, what would a Shmita year look like?
One of the strengths of a Faith-based point of view is that there’s a vocabulary for a sense of commanded-ness.
So how do we summon this sense of commanded-ness?
The maximalist vision that i have is that someday the whole world will recognize the need for the land to rest for a whole year and that they will rest alongside of it in some meaningful way.
It’s the earth, it’s the land that’s commanded to rest and to observe a Sabbath of complete rest for the Lord. It’s about a relationship that we’re not even really a part of. This is part of the way the world works. It’s part of an operating manual, between God and the land.
What if ordinarily people were to take a year off from their lives… The Shmita would open this up, for ordinary people to think about how to bring this into our culture… I think the Shmita raises the possibility of thinking about this, outside of a global pandemic.
Shmita is deeply concerned about social justice. Shimta isn’t just about letting the land rest, it’s about the release of debt, and jubilee.
Audio processing and improving by Jeffrey JJ Jo Jo Get Back! Get Back! Alfonoso Haley.
The Rev and Rav Talk Sabbatical Year (Shmita). Austin clergy Rev. Daryl Horton and Rabbi Neil Blumofe talk about Shmita, the sabbatical year practice described in Exodus, Leviticus, and Deutoronomy—exploring concepts such as economic justice, human nature, faith, and enoughness. Daryl and Neil are each respected faith and community leader in Austin, TX. They've each served as directors of Interfaith Action of Central Texas, working towards a common good for all.
About Our Guests
Rev. Dr. Daryl Horton is Pastor of Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Austin, TX. He has served the Austin community in different capacities and leadership positions. Pastor Horton stands boldly for equity and justice as a leader and resource. His goal is to mobilize disciples for mission throughout the Austin community. Read his full bio here. Rabbi Neil Blumofe serves as Senior Rabbi at Congregation Agudas Achim in Austin, TX. He is involved in Jewish teaching and learning locally, nationally, and internationally, and is active in civic life and leadership in Austin. Read his full bio here.
Connect
Visit the Rev and Rav Facebook page here.
ReferencesQuestion 1: Adventures
- Interfaith Action of Central Texas
- Rev and Rav Road Trips
- Rev and Rav Road Trip travel videos
- National Civil Rights Museum (Memphis, TN)
- The Legacy Museum (Montgomery, AL)
- The Civil Rights Memorial (Montgomery, AL)
- Pettus Bridge (Selma, AL))
- Slave trade tip of Manhattan (tiny plaque photo)
- Slave trade Manhattan
- Ellis Island
- The Peekskill Riots
- Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary
- "" "" > Certificate in Jewish-Christian Relationship
Question: 2 Rest for the Land
- Exodus Chapter 23: 10-11
- Sharecropping
- Historic St John's District Association (Austin, TX)
- St. John's District Association garden
- Dominion
- God grants Adam and Eve domninion over animals (Genesis 1:26)
Question: 3 The Release of Debts
- Deuteronomy 15: 1-2
- "If we mistreat the land, then the land will vomit us up" (Leviticus 18:28)
- Theem Suum, getting out of your own way
- Payday lending
- Hebrew Free Loan Society
Question 4: Jubilee (Freedom & Returning Home)
- Leviticus 25: 10
- The Emancipation Proclamation
- Juneteenth (June nineteenth)
- This is the Hebrew year of 5782
- The Hebrew calendar
- 5782 is a Shmita year
- Shmita practices occuring in Israel now
- "First Right of Return" (Austin, TX program; the opportunity to return to your neighborhood)
- Composting
Quotes
I think it is time to transition to the place, especially in the church, where we understand the need for people to have basic needs met. And so for churches that have enough property, you’re beginning to see churches that are planting gardens… — DarylGod is saying, "You do not have dominion over the Earth." Rather, the Earth is the Lord’s, as it says in Psalms, and you are in fact part of a larger system, a larger ecosystem, a larger rhythm of how this world, your world, functions." — Neil
God is saying, do you have faith in me enough to let the land lie and rest for a year? And I think that that kind of challenge is an incredible challenge, and it’s something that in every generation we get to decide if we are up to. — Neil
So the land is providing food, but we have to understand too, that underneath all of that, ultimately, God provides for us, and we shouldn’t take that partnership or that sense of obligation of that land for granted in our lives. — Neil
Debt is a burden that can bury one or prohibit one from living a free life… How can we help our young people, teach them how to become financially astute? — Daryl
If we are able to bless God with what God provides for us, then God will help to sustain us. It’s a Faith movement. — Daryl
We as a Christian community should help those who are trying to participate in the economic environment in this country, but not be burdened by it. — Daryl
Even if we aren’t able to change the system, I think there are some things we can begin to do. — Daryl
If you come to the synagogue we’re gonna feed you, and we’re gonna feed you every time, and that’s a very holy thing. — Neil
(A Shmita practice today) would be a deepening of our faith… there’s always room to learn to trust God more. — Daryl
We have to pay attention to the linkage between our psychology and what we do in the world. — Neil
What role can we play in the Faith community to honor the challenge and the command that God has given us to not just take care and have Dominion over this planet, but to love our neighbor. — Daryl
Shmita is not a year issue. It’s actually more like a two year or even three year issue... — Neil
What can we do to set a foundation so that a couple of generations from now it becomes so normal for us to take responsibility for the planet and each other’s financial status that we don’t even second guess it anymore, it's the expectation. — Daryl
I sit with the juxtaposition that in the book of Deuteronomy it both says, “There shall be no needy,” and “Poverty will never disappear,” and this idea that we can generate hope from that place… — Neil
Maybe it’s embodied in Indigenous cultures, but I think we can (have) the best of both worlds. We can recognize the science of how we grow and manufacture and do, but we can also recognize and tap into those who have been doing this much, much longer than Science. — Neil
#########
Thanks for listening.Visit the AllCreation podcast site or AllCreation.org for more.
Produced and edited by Chris Searles.
...podcat synopsis here...
About Mirele
Dr. Mirele B. Goldsmith is an environmental psychologist, educator, and activist. She is an expert in how to change human behavior to solve environmental problems. As director of Hazon’s Jewish Greening Fellowship, she guided 55 community-based organizations to save energy, invest in renewables, implement sustainable operations and educate youths and adults. She co-founded Jewish Earth Alliance, a national network mobilizing Jews to raise a moral voice for action on climate change to the US Congress.
References
Quotes
What is a "sustainable society"? The Sabbatical Year challenges us to think about what to do in the present to invest in a better future.What's most important is to talk about...
...Podcast Synopsis here...
About Naomi
Naomi Edelson is the Senior Director of Wildlife Partnerships for the National Wildlife Federation (NWF). In this role, she leads partnerships with state wildlife agencies and other state based partners to secure greater funding to prevent wildlife from becoming endangered, including legislative, communications, grassroots, and coalition building elements of the campaign. On the federal side this includes the Recovering America’s Wildlife Act campaign. Naomi has also developed a toolkit for wildlife leaders on “Strengthening State Wildlife Agencies” that includes securing state-level funding for wildlife with numerous tips, tools, and case studies. She also works with Gardening for Wildlife program to restore wildlife habitat where people live, work, learn, play, and worship, including creation of the Native Plant Finder and Sacred Grounds, a program for faith communities. Naomi is a wildlife biologist with a M.S. from the University of Florida where she studied wading birds and wetlands, and a B.S. from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Naomi lives with her husband and 14-year-old son in Takoma Park, MD, just across the Washington D.C. line.
References
- links
- Tallemy
Additional links of interest:
- https://www.nwf.org/certify
- nwf/sacredgrounds
- nwf/ gardening
- https://homegrownnationalpark.org/tallamys-hub-1
- https://themeadowproject.com/hometown-habitat/
Quotes
Saving wildlife saves us. (And,) it's a fun, very significant way to make a difference. We're each a part of this beautiful, life-sustaining world.
..,podcast syopsis here...
About Deirdre
Deirdre Gabbay is director of The Shmita Project Northwest, an organization dedicated to bringing attention to the Hebrew calendar's seven-year Shmita cycle which centers the relationship between the earth and the wellbeing of the human and more-than-human world, through education, inspiration, community-building, and programmatic support. She founded Ahavat v'Avodat HaAdamah, "Love and Service of the Earth," in 2015 to establish an environmental presence for the Pacific Northwest rooted in Jewish text, tradition, and practice, specifically to support a response to climate change. Deirdre is a member of Congregation Beth Shalom, Seattle, and a member of the board of directors of Earth Ministry/Washington Interfaith Power & Light. Together with her husband she is raising a family on Queen Anne. She blogs at www.shmitainseattle.com, where all of her divrei Torah (sermons) can be found.
References
Quotes
"The belief that we're all in this together is the most comfortable and poweful thing we have."
Joelle
About Joelle
Interfaith Power & Light (DC.MD.NoVA)
other related work
About Interfaith Power & Light
- National office
- State affifiliates
References
Rabbi Fred Sherlinger Dobb
Environmental Torah
Dobb’s source sheet to inform a Jewish response to climate change
when we can violate Shabbat to save a human life
5782 is a Shmita year
Faith community land acknowledgements
Jewish Brohaut (?, food prayer)
Quotes
I think we have to have weekday consciousness in one pocket and Shmita consciousness in the other pocket. We have to make time to release and restore.
I am feeling grief that is grounded in tremendous love -- and then suddenly, with my heart open and my hands open, that's a tremendously powerful thing. Right? It's like -- I gonna to be a warrior in the world for the things I love...
...podcat synopsis here...
About Our Guests
Rev. Dr. Daryl Horton is Pastor of Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Austin, TX. A native Austinite, he has been married to his college sweetheart, Dr. Shalonda Horton, for over 25 years. He has served the Austin community in different capacities and a variety of leadership positions. Pastor Horton stands boldly for equity and justice as a leader and resource for the greater Austin area. His goal is to mobilize disciples for mission throughout our community. Read his full bio here. Rabbi Neil Blumofe is a husband and father of three, and serves as Senior Rabbi at Congregation Agudas Achim in Austin, TX. He is involved in Jewish teaching and learning locally and in national and international settings, and is active in civic life and leadership in Austin, Texas. Read his full bio here.
Connect
Visit the Rev and Rav Facebook page here.
References
Quotes
Potential Quotes
If we just thought about what it took to create these bodies … for those atoms to come together and create these molecules, and on and on, and then on a more macro level, that we have to be at this particular distance from the sun for life to be possible, you know it’s like — It’s All So Incredible! — like, why aren’t we in complete awe and reverence of existence all the time?Harmony, walking on this planet and knowing that life is a gift and that embodiment is a gift and, as one of my yoga teachers used to say, “The universe has gone through all this trouble for centuries and millennia to create you in this form, right now, and that’s the gift.”
And I don’t think it’s that complicated. I think that just walking, just being on this planet, connected to the sacredness of life and the gift of living in this body that’s such a sophisticated instrument that allows us to hug and taste and move and think and speak; coming back to the awe, to the awe of what we have know and also to the gratitude for it.
“Enjoy every sandwich.”
It’s simple. From realizing the preciousness, so much comes, so much giving and truly living comes.
Janene Yazzie is a Diné Asa Navajo entreprenuer, community organizer and human rights advocate who has worked on development and energy issues with Indigenous communities across the United States for over 12 years. In part two of this interview, Janene shares about rights-based solutions, community-led efforts to regeneratively care for Creation, ways the world religions are related and connected to Mother Earth and our non-human relatives, and offers some words of encouragement. Janene is interviewed by Vance Blackfox, guest editor for our Fall 2021 collection exploring the Native American sense of "Sacred Relationship" with Earth's other living creatures.
About JaneneAmong her many accomplishments, Janene Yazzie is co-founder/CEO of Sixth-World Solutions and a co-convener of the Indigenous Peoples Major Group to the United Nations High Level Political Forum on the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. She works on climate change, water security, food security, energy development, and nation building. She is also a program manager for the International Indian Treaty Council and a co-founder of the Navajo Nation Little Colorado River Watershed Chapters Association, where her work ranges from infrastructure policy-making to restoration and protection of traditional ecological knowledge. To learn more about Janene, visit Sixth-World Solutions.
Selected Quotes
“It’s not about luxury, it’s about responsibility.”“Our challenges are so complex. Our histories are so complex, and our solutions need to mirror that. In order to protect and restore biodiversity our solutions need to have the same type of diversity, informed by the limitations and types of relationships that exist within our ecosystems.”
“What are the social/cultural structures that need to be created so that we’re creating communities that are sustainable and regenerative? Those are the types of solutions we need everywhere... It’s going to look different everywhere.”
"Don't give up. Don't give up. A beautiful world is possible and it’s being birthed right now, and it needs all of us to be there to help guide it into existence. We do that by breathing love into the work we’re doing. By breathing love into the relationships that surround us. By breathing love into ourselves, because we often forget ourselves in all of this process. And if we can do that then we can find ways, no matter what challenges we’re facing, to continue to stand in our power and bring life to the solutions that are needed for our world and our communities."
Listen to Part 1 of Janene's interview here.
Janene Yazzie is a Diné Asa Navajo woman from the Navajo Nation. She is a community organizer and human rights advocate who has worked on development and energy issues with Indigenous communities across the United States for over 12 years. In part one of this interview she talks about her background and identity, steps for personal and societal transformation, and how to stay in a good way. Janene is interviewed by Vance Blackfox for our Fall 2021 collection exploring the Native American sense of "Sacred Relationship" with Earth's other living creatures.
About JaneneAmong her many accomplishments, Janene Yazzie is co-founder/CEO of Sixth-World Solutions and a co-convener of the Indigenous Peoples Major Group to the United Nations High Level Political Forum on the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. She works on climate change, water security, food security, energy development, and nation building. She is also a program manager for the International Indian Treaty Council and a co-founder of the Navajo Nation Little Colorado River Watershed Chapters Association, where her work ranges from infrastructure policy-making to restoration and protection of traditional ecological knowledge. To learn more about Janene, visit Sixth-World Solutions.
References
Philmer Bluehouse (in memoriam)
- "Our objective is harmony"
- On Navajo peacemaking
Selected Quotes
“As much as I'm seeing the non-Indigenous world really get overwhelmed and experience new things like climate grief — what we’re seeing as Indigenous Peoples are all the necessary signs that are telling us “A new way is coming, A new way is possible,” and “It is our responsibility to rise to that occasion and recognize those signs and dig deeper within ourselves to create those pathways that are needed to change the direction and course of our future by restoring our relationship with all of life on this planet.”“Where do the stars know your name? Where is that place, that moment where you have that first memory of looking up to the stars and recognizing that you’re this speck in the universe. Where is that experience rooted? And how can you use that to reclaim your connection as a human being living on this Earth, tied to an interdependent and interconnected relationship to everything from the stars in our universe to the soils under your feet. Start that journey there."
"ALL of our places need to be protected. We need relatives that are willing and able to stand in defense of all sacred life and do it in a way that is meaningful, in a way that is authentic and genuine to their real histories, to where they’re connected, to where they come from."
“When you don’t understand the histories of where (our) practices come from, then you’re not honoring them the way you think you are."
“If we’re not able to tap into something deeper, into a deeper connection and a deeper imagination based on where we’re connected to, to place, then we’re gonna continue to be limited in our solutions and our understanding by that dominance worldview.”
"That’s part of the beauty of it: It’s not a quick fix. We can be patient with ourselves. We each have a responsibility to take on that journey, to take on that path of self-discovery. And when we do that, and we invest in right relationship with those around us and with other forms of sacred life, non-human life, that’s how we win.”
“Not only do we inherit the resiliency of our ancestors, we inherit their tremendous love and their tremendous power of believing and hoping for a different way, a different future, different outcomes.”
“We’re not here to save the Earth. We’re here to re-establish and remember our deep connection to our Mother and what a gift that is. But we’re actually here to really grow and evolve as a species, and to remember and restore our connection to each other, and to rebuild our own ecosystem -- the ecosystem that sustains us as human communities so that it’s back in balance with the natural ecosystems that exist around us. And we’re perfectly capable of doing that. For everything we have done wrong, we are capable of creating a solution to heal that, to address it, to take responsibility for it and to create a new way. And that’s what gives me hope and that’s what keeps driving me.”
Listen to Part 2 of Janene's interview here.
Sculptor / artist / entreprenuer / community-builder, Randy Jewart has been based in Austin, TX for about 20 years. He started Austin Green Art in 2004, a very successful public art effort to raise awareness on environmental issues and solutions. In 2010, he founded Resolution Gardens a small business that began by installing food gardens in people's frontyards for resale at the local food coop. Randy recently co-founded "The GIFT", a community garden project that is a partnership between his folks (secular environmental types) and an Episcopal church (religous environmental types). Now he’s looking at building cooperative food-producing communities outside of Texas, and taking his life on the road. In this podcast we get his reflections on how to "do" local community solutions, particularly in relation to growing food.
Find Randy through Facebook or ResolutionGardens.com.
Topics
- Randy's work
- How Randy fell in love with Nature
- How difficult growing food locally can be
- Urban farming
- Employing recovering addicts
- Randy's life philosophies
- Randy's vision and where he's headed now
References
- Austin Green Art
- Resolution Gardens
- The GIFT ATX
- What’s a “KOAN”?
- Soil mega biodiversity
- Terrence Real, New Rules for Marriage and manhood
- The turnip points the way... Here's a somewhat related video clip
Quotes
I’ve gravitated into food because the failing and the testing and the engagement is most rewarding and challenging and meaningful to me in a garden, to me, because it’s a living system. So going from training in gymnastics and art and literature and academics, there’s creativity, there’s relationships, there’s complexity, dealing with big issues — but all of that pails to a small 4 foot by 4 foot garden…When you think of soil — a good handful of soil supposedly has more creatures than there are stars in the universe. So in one 4 foot by 4 foot garden you have 1,000 lbs of soil…
Of course we have to use language to communicate with each other and talk about what we’re doing. Our language is so limited compared to what it is that we’re trying to describe. Our language is so mechanical compared to these living things that we should be in relation with. . . Chris and i have been talking about the indigenous communities and the way their human life ways are woven with the natural living world appropriately. And when i start to talk about how i feel about what we’re doing ….
What the turnip does is a Gift. It doesn’t own a character or skills or abilities, it’s living through what it is to provide this abundance. All of these living processes, they come back to this word “love,” the feeling that you would get to when you really understand it right. . . That should be the way that we talk to each other.
The last few months, i’ve been focusing on my need to care for myself.
Self-esteem is truly about do you love and take care of yourself whether you perform or not. . . That you have a responsibility if you truly want to be a healthy person, to connect with that aspect of yourself.
We could create a dollar value or a new kind of currency value for these things that we know we need in a healthy society. The way i think it could work is to use these new NFTs... that’s connected to behaviors and values and actions that we do want to have happening — and we put a value on that... It’s possible to tie that to economic circulation that rewards people for doing those things. And, potentially, if that game started to play, the money wouldn’t end up stuck somewhere, because these activities don’t ever have to end... All of this stuff could happen and be funded, and remarkably the people who need it the most would be the ones with the time and energy to start doing it and start getting paid... Middle class regular people have some discretionary income, if we took 1% of it and found a way to gift it — there’s a lot of money on the sidelines right now from regular people of good heart that could go into regenerative progress, and we could be more organized in our communities to state that intention… and create an awareness quickly that could go viral...
Randy’s Bridge solution:
Create NFTs and other digital currency incentives that reward people for virtuous acts.
A master session with Dr. Daniel Lavelle, U.S. Director for SurvivalInternational.org.
We apologize for some of the audio quality! Yes it gets noisy at time. We were having trouble throughout the session, but Daniel was so “on” we didn’t want to stop. Please bear with the various pops and purrs. Also, Daniel's dog joins us at a few key moments.
Daniel Lavelle is US Director for Survival International, one of the world’s leading human rights groups working to empower tribal peoples with “control of their lives and lands and the freedom to determine their own futures.” IN this episode we talk about why indigenous empowerment is priority one for the global environmental solution. Daniel earned his PhD in Philosophy and Environmental Science, Policy and Management from UC Berkeley in 2016. Here are the questions we explore in this eye-opening session.
- Tell us why Indigenous Peoples are so important to the global environmental solution?
- What woke you up to Indigenous rights as a focal issue for human advancement?
- What have you learned from Indigenous Peoples after working with them in the field?
- Is “indigenous wisdom” (stewardship of the earth) a real thing?
- What are the best ways to help indigenous people now?
- What does the future look like if and after we achieve the Indigenous Peoples’ Solution? (Ubiquitous empowerment of land occupation rights, self-determination, basic safety and human rights, and respect for all traditional peoples.
“These are insights I will think about and integrate over time.” — Jared
Recommended links
- SurvivalInternational.org
- Stephen Corry's blog series exploring the worldview behind today's conservation
- Survival's page about Uncontacted Tribes
- Survival's petitions page
Travis Ben Robinson is a Tibetan Buddhist teacher, psychotherapist, and co-director of the Marina Counseling Center in San Francisco. He joins us for a light-hearted, deep, kind of folksy conversation that shines a light on our way forward. He says (and we agree) that the way forward is through discovering and rediscovering that everything is sacred. He offers some excellent tools to help us along the way such as following what feels warm in the moment, waking up our body's consciousness, and finding safety. This last tool feels especially fresh, as safety is not usually talked about in spiritual circles. In this episode he also references neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor. We are including a link to her Ted page.
http://travisbenrobinson.com
https://marinacounseling.com
https://www.ted.com/speakers/jill_bolte_taylor
How's your self-esteem doing today? Negative self-talk, for probably all of us, starts in childhood. That is one of the reasons our guest, Lea Seigen Shinraku, says negative self-beliefs "can feel like they're in us on a cellular level... It can be difficult to envision life without them." If we want to change the world, how do we see through our own negative self-beliefs and find the truth of who we really are? This podcast explores how to better understand the inner workings of our feelings, our lenses, bodies and minds and what the future might look like if we got rid of negative self-talk all together.
Quotes from this episode, by Lea Seigen Shinraku,
“The reality is everybody feels shame sometimes... To transform it, you have to notice it... Coping with negative self-talk through self-compassion is a resource for dealing with all kinds of difficult truths about being alive right now.”“To get people involved, i think, there has to be some spirit of aliveness and creativity and a desire to want to do things, not from a place of shame and fear, but from a place of wanting to support life and co-create with other humans the world that we want."
“We need to be super creative and we all need to do it so we can meet today’s challenges. We need our full selves to be brought to bear.”
"Learning is trying, making a mistake, reflecting, and trying again... Pay Attention. Assess. Try Again. "
About Lea
Lea Seigen Shinraku is founder of the San Francisco Center for Self Compassion. Visit sfcenterforselfcompassion.com for meditations, newsletters, and more of her work.