Emergency to Emergence

Putting Ecological Thinking into Action:

Selected Resources for Further Learning & Doing

• Chef René Redzepi 
• Chef Thomas Keller (website)
• Chef Alice Waters 
• Chef Kwame Onwuachi
•  Chef Andrew zimmern (website)
• The Perennial Plate, -web-docu-series (website)  
• J. Kenji López-Alt, Food Lab (book)
•  Hetty McKinnen  
• Maangchi's, Big Book of Korean Cooking: From Everyday Meals to Celebration Cuisine (book)
• Taylor Swift, Musician (Website) 
• Fleetwood Mac, Rumors Album
• Local Natives, Band (website) 
• Tom Petty, Musician (website)
• Bruce Springsteen, Musician (website)

Putting Ecological Thinking into Action:

Selected Resources for Further Learning & Doing

• Shaun Chamberlin, personal resource page,www.darkoptimism.org/links (website)
• Mark Boyle, "The way home, tales from a life without Technology" (book)
•  Paul Kingsnorth, "Confessions of a recovering environmentalist and other essays" (book)
• Richard Powers, Overstory (book)
• Dark Optimism album, collection of songs at www.darkoptimism.org/links (website)
• Transition towns, Transitionnetwork.org (website)
• Flatpack Democracy, flatpackdemocracy.co.uk/ (website)
• Diggers and Dreamers, (uk based website) ic.org ( international website)
• Freegle (website)

Shaun Chamberlin is an author and activist who describes his perspective as one of "dark optimism" -- unashamedly positive about what kind of a world humanity could create, while unashamedly realistic about how far we are from creating it today. He has written and edited diverse publications -- including creating Surviving the Future: Culture, Carnival, and Capital in the Aftermath of the Market Economyfrom the work of his late mentor David Fleming -- and spoken at venues from Occupy camps to Parliaments.

In exploring the cultural narratives charting society’s course, he has held many roles: one of Extinction Rebellion’s first arrestees, pioneer of the Transition Towns network, chair of the Ecological Land Co-Operative, a director of the campaigning organization Global Justice Now and (for his sins) an advisor to the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change. Shaun also works with Sterling as a Consulting Scholar and the lead educator/convenor for our Surviving the Future courses and community.

[05:13]-searching in life for answers; course at a Schumacher college, life after oil;  meeting Richard Heinberg, David Fleming, Rob Hopkins; beginnings of Transition Movement founded with David Fleming in mind at the community scale

[10:25]-One Fleming quote that changed his life, "large scale problems do not require large scale solutions, they require small scale solutions within large scale frameworks." After Fleming's death; edited Fleming's life's work and manuscript Lean Logic into Surviving The Future, Culture, Carnival and Capitol in the aftermath of the market economy

[17:32]-Evolution to surviving the future, conversations for our time into Sterling course

[19:58]-Dark Optimism the essence of Chamberlin's work; facing the monsters and telling a story of our lives we are proud to tell 

[22:49]-Having brave conversations by stepping into the grief of what we know can be a healing process

[27:25]-Current adventures;Surviving the future course, Happy Pig; a non-monetary hostel; the informal and gift economy; relationship with re-wilding charity that's bringing back the natural forest ecologies of Ireland 

David Gilligan Mini-Cast 

Putting Ecological Thinking into Action:

Selected Resources for Further Learning & Doing

• ​​Terry Tempest Williams, Author (website)
• Gretel Ehrlich, Author (website)
• Rachel Carson, Biologist, writer, ecologist (website)
• Barry Lopez, Author (website)
• Jack Turner, Author (website)
• John Muir, Author, environmental philosopher (website)
• Henry David Thoreau, American Naturalist (website)
• Aldo Leopold (website) 
• Never Cry Wolf (film)
• Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner (film)
• Ten Canones (film)
• Natural History Institute in Arizona (website)
• Kroka Expeditions (website)

David Gilligan, Faculty in Ecology and Associate Dean of Sterling's Wilderness Field Programs, wants other humans to know that nature is our home.  He reminds us that wild nature is the ”wellspring of human being, of all diverse cultures on planet earth, of all creativity, of all thought.”  After many years of venturing into the wild nature and conceiving of it as the ultimate unbounded classroom, David remains awed by the depth and kinds of learning that are possible in extended backcountry field programs.  For this reason, he (along with recent guest Laura Beebe), lead Sterling’s Wilderness Field Program, which gives undergraduate and Gap Year learners an immersive opportunity to simultaneous participate in a liberal arts education and adventure in the American Southwest and emerge as influential interdisciplinary naturalists, environmental leaders, educators, and protectors of the wild.  Guided by the belief that free people are responsible for knowing about and caring for our earthly home, the Wilderness Field Program uses experiential, liberal arts education -- and a curriculum that blends outdoor skills with natural history and sciences, arts, humanities, and indigenous cultural studies -- to prepare the next generation to protect, preserve, and thrive as part of the natural world.  

[05:08]-David speaks of the simple notion that nature is our home. “It's kind of the wellspring of human being, of all diverse cultures on planet earth,  of all creativity,  of all thought and goes from there.

[08:56]-David speaks about one of his mentors of natural history who is fond of saying “there has never been a culture without natural history. It's part of being human. It is being human and the practice of natural history is the practice of being human, but never has there been a time in the world? Well, natural history has been practiced less than today, so that's kind of the conundrum we're in and briefly following the notion that historian naturalaus or the inquiry into nature is part and parcel with being human giving people experiences where they can connect with the natural world...the wilder, the better with a solid curriculum and really awesome mentors. Their world is changed and the way that they then go and engage in the practices of their own lives becomes more, essentially human, less industrial, less digital, less, kind of, emessed in the trappings of the 21century…”

[14:15]- David talks of the origins of every single culture on planet earth coming forth from wild, natural landscapes. “It's in all of our heritage. So why not make that accessible to everyone? I found that one of the important pieces that accelerates the learning process for people out there is the distractions of modern life are basically eliminated...everything is pared down and simplified to a level where people's learning retention is amazing. People's stamina for learning new content and new skills is unparalleled. The results are just incredible.”

[21:39]-David discusses trying to cultivate what we think from our perspective would be the ideal interdisciplinary environmental leader of the 21st century who is going to be very active through immersive experience. Like Rachel Carson was like Terry Tempest Williams is, like Gretel Ehrlich is, like John Muir was, like Henry David Thoreau was. All of these people, the signature is the deep experience that they had with the natural world. They weren't armchair ecologists.  They, they lived it, and that's what we want our people to do nothing less than what those mentors have done for us.

TIMESTAMPS

[24:25]-  David speaks of spending time in small groups, in focused learning environments away from modern distractions gives us a tool kit. “ It gives us a skillset to interact with other human beings that’s so authentic and real that students could come out of this program, be amazing executive...

Putting Ecological Thinking into Action:

Selected Resources for Further Learning & Doing

• Noe Alvarez, Spirit Run: A 6,000-Mile Marathon Through North America's
• Camile Seaman, PHOTOGRAPHY (website) 
• Melanin Base Camp (website)
• Jenny Bruso/unlikely hikers (website)
• Linda Black Elk, Ethnobotanist, INSTAGRAM (website) 
• YMCA (website) 
• Boys and Girls Club of America (website)
• Regional Environmental Coalitions 

Laura Beebe joins Emergency to Emergence hosts, Nakasi and Dakota, for a rich conversation on the importance of the backcountry to human development -- her own and her students.  Resisting a guide’s tendency to define backcountry in geographical terms or locate it far from the places that bear obvious marks of human development, Laura conceives of backcountry as a "state of being" reached through immersion in natural places, relationships with other species and with ecologies, and a sense of belonging among the same.  But in this ranging and rich conversation, Laura also resists the all-too-common tendency to obscure the modern cultural forces that force separation, replicate problematic hierarchies and tend to make adventure and discovery exclusive.   Reflecting on several decades of often being the only women in male-dominated spaces, Laura also delves into the inclusive aspirations of Sterling College’s Wilderness Field Program and illustrates how extended backcountry education, paired with the study of natural history and cultural ecology, allow students to see into deep time, celebrate continuance, and figure out more about how they want to be in  the world. 

[01:36] -Laura's definition of backcountry, "state of being" as opposed to geographic location and any place she can immerse herself in the natural space and a relationship to the ecosystem and environment that is the dominant relationship and describes feeling at home, alive, animated and as her best sense of self.

[06:21] -Twenty two years later Laura speaks of crying on one of her first backcountry outings to becoming an experienced backcountry guide with amazing mentors along her path and how she was first woman in her family with an advanced degree and the need to pay it forward and  love of seeing people figure out who they are while in the backcountry.

[09:19]- Relationship to natural world, who gets access, indigenous cultures stewards of the natural world, outdoors is an academic term, different cosmologies, epistemologies and discusses her respect for ethnobotanist Linda Black Elk and the notion that the same medicine exits in our own culture and land. 

[19:21] -Four phases of experiences on the Sterling Wilderness Field Program explained with examples of hiking the Grand Canyon and traveling through layers of time and the diverse landscape and what it feels like for the body moving over it and how being in the field becomes your whole day and night and participants begin dreaming about animals and the colors etc. 

[25:39]- Laura discusses how people show up with a life already and about serving people and the  idea of talking about risk management such as physical risks, like rock falls and risky decision making but we are not talking about sexism, racism, homophobia and all the oppressive forces that are actually risk management and that there are physical ramifications and emotional  traumas that can happen.  Laura thinks anyone who wants to be on these trips should and that it's a human right.   

[31:30]-Laura expresses that we are called right now as humans in ways we haven't been or that look different and that we are here because we have the capacity to rise to the challenge of being joyful in this journey and t's about having fun or avoiding it, it's about fully embracing what's in front of us remembering we that we are not alone and the belief that if we can get ourselves in some of these situations, we can definitely get out of these situations and do it in ways that are fun, inspiring and connective and makes the whole journey worth it. 

Putting Ecological Thinking into Action:

Selected Resources for Further Learning & Doing

• Jack Lazor,  The Organic Grain Grower: Small-Scale, Holistic Grain Production for the Home and Market Producer (Book)
• Lynne Miller and Stephen Lesley, The New Horse-Powered Farm (book)
• Ben Hartman, The Lean Farm (book)
• Antonia's Line (film)
• All creatures great and small (PBS series)

Gwyneth Harris, Sterling College’s Garden Manager joins Emergency to Emergence hosts, Nakasi and Dakota, for a rich conversation on the intricacies and advantages of small scale farming. Though farming is often misconstrued as a simple vocation, Gwyneth portrays the elegant complexities of an agro-ecological farming system, particularly one that balances education, experimentation, production, and nourishment. Sterling’s educational farms offer opportunities to learn core skills for cultivation, puts animal, plant, and soil science into practice, and integrates food sovereignty, social justice, and systems thinking. The farm management choices Gwyneth and her colleagues make have ripple effects on the land, the people in our community, and the plants, animals, insects, fungi, and microbes with whom we share this space. Those choices also influence the lessons that students draw from the Sterling farm and carry forward onto their future farms that will nourish their communities in the years to come. This conversation also illuminates the enduring contributions of smallholders and positions community-scale food and fiber production as a viable and valuable alternative to industrial agriculture and production systems of extraction. By listening to Gwyneth, you’ll get a better sense of why so many of our students come to Sterling to study Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems -- and of the intentionality that they find when they work alongside our farm managers. 

[03:17]-educational farm, not a single path; carpentry; animal, plant; soil science overlayed with food, social justice and systems is endlessly fascinating

[10:01]-Sterling farm experience has real impacts on animals and community

[14:04]-scale; systems of production; smallholders produce most of food; recognizing value of community scale

[21:22]-synergistic farm systems; thinking beyond the U.S. model of agriculture

[24:33]-balance of education of food and production; relationship to Sterling and outside community; Sterling addressing food insecurity regionally

Putting Ecological Thinking into Action:

Selected Resources for Further Learning & Doing 

• Favor Ellis, touchstone transformative bodywork and intuitive counseling (website)
• Adrienne Maree Brown, Pleasure Activism (book)  Emergent Strategy (book)
• Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Undrowned (book)
• Prentiss Hemphill, Finding our Way (podcast)
• Levar Burton, Lavar Burton Reads (podcast)
• N.K. Jemisin, Valedictorian (short story)
• Richard Powers, Overstory
• Robin Wall-Kimmer
• Braiding Sweetgrass (book)
• On Being, The Intelligence of Plants (podcast)
• For the Wild, Indigenous Knowledge for Earth Healing (podcast)
• Confluence Project, What Does the Earth Ask of Us (podcast)
• Black Lives Matter
• The Nap Ministry