How It Looks From Here

This month, Mary had the opportuinity to spend time with Dr Alexandra Adams. Alex is Director of the Center for American Indian and Rural Health Excellence (CAIRHE), an NIH-funded center focusing on building research partnerships with rural and Native communities and mentoring junior investigators. Her research focus is community-based and participatory. She works in close partnership with Native American communities to understand and solve health challenges using both scientific rigor and crucial community knowledge.

Alex has focused her career on the promotion of family and community wellness and healing trauma through community building. Addressing the effects of climate surprises on health has been central to her work. She also uses storytelling, filmmaking, and other strategies to engage communities and support health.

In their conversation, Alex and Mary explored her experience at the interface of Western medicine and rural, American Indian and other indigenous communities. Alex described ways for building healing relationships of trust and sharing - acknowledging the deep wisdom of local communities and of ancestral indigenous knowledge. What Alex describes is medicine at its most responsive. Fully honoring the fact that the health of the land is the health of the people and drawing across the arts to practice what is perhaps the greatest of all healing arts, listening.

You can learn more about Dr. Alexandra Adams by visiting her personal website and substack, Longing for Belonging. and her substack. Also check the website for the Center for American Indian and Rural Health Excellence (CAIRHE) where you can learn more about Alex’s initiatives with that organization. And here's the link to the Turtle Island Tales website and videos Alex described.

Through all of her creative endeavors, Alex lives fully in her relatedness with all beings. This is good medical practice, it’s good art, and it’s solidly consistent with climate repair. Let’s all join her.

MUSIC

Mystical Flute Music. Music by morel dua from Pixabay

Tabla Flute 102. Music by Johnson Cherian from Pixabay

Acoustic Guitar and Flute Fairytale. Music by Denis Pavlov from Pixabay

Original theme music, composed and performed by Gary Ferguson.

This month, Mary got to have a fascinating exchange with Dr. Dan Papaj, a Full Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology with the University of Arizona. Vastly dedicated to pollinators - in particular, the Blue Swallowtail, Dan is an esteemed and longstanding researcher and faculty member. He completed his undergraduate work at Cornell University and earned his PhD in zoology from Duke University. He's a fellow in the Animal Behavior Society and has won fellowships with Bellagio and Fullbright. All along the way, he's retained inspiring relationships with his students. His inflluence now spreads through scholarly and ecological communities.

In their conversation, Mary and Dan dipped into the social life of bees, the evolutionary trajectory of humans and the impact of drought on the desert. Listen in for new insights into how it looks to an active entemolotist.

You can learn more about Dan by checking out his University of Arizona faculty profile. Just below, he’s also provided a few links to some of his writing, and to resources on cultural evolution. Check them out. Learn more. And as Dan suggests, always make choices for our relatives, the pollinators.

And a quick postscript. Early in the life of HILFH, we had the delightful honor of welcoming Sara Mapelli Tink as a guest (HILFH episode 5). Sara is known for her activism in support of bees - she dances with them covering her body. Check out her interview - it never gets old!

LEARN MORE

The role of similarity of stimuli and responses in learning by nectar-foraging bumble bees: a test of Osgood’s model

M Baek & DR Papaj. Animal Behaviour 219, 123036

The relationship between preference and switching in flower foraging by bees

DR Papaj & AL Russell. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 78 (3), 40

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Dan's recommendations for learning more about cultural evolution:

Cumulative cultural evolution. Culture and the Evolutionary Process. (1985). University of Chicago Press. https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/C/bo5970597.html 

Dan’s comment, “Boyd and Richerson's 1985 Culture and the Evolutionary Process is still in print at U. Chicago Press and for good reason.”

An article by Gerbauly et al. on the development of lactose tolerance in humans. https://mail.google.com/mail/u/1/#inbox/FMfcgzQcqtjBxVGRsHBrrNlBrnwFXxPC?projector=1&messagePartId=0.1

And a very cool photo of Bees ~

https://photoawards.com/winner/zoom.php?eid=8-222523-21

MUSIC

Jazz Restaurant Café Music. Music by Ievgen Poltavskyi from Pixabay

Jazz Background Music. Music by Mykola Sosin from Pixabay

Jazz Lounge Elevator MusicMusic by Andrii Poradovskyi from Pixabay

Original theme music composed and performed by Gary Ferguson.

This month Mary had the chance to spend some time with Karen Tate, a global leader in Goddess Spirituality. Karen was raised a white woman in the South. In childhood she observed and experienced abuse – and further, saw that abuse routinely rationalized. It wasn't until her adult years that she recognized her unconscious involvement in excusing, and thus perpetuating, the normalization of cruelty and manipulation. Her most recent of seven books (most of which focus on aspects of Goddess Spirituality), is entitled, Normalizing Abuse: A commentary on the Culture of Pervasive Abuse. Drawing on Goddess Spirituality for tools, Karen strives for a world where abuse and exploitation - of people and of the natural world - are simply no longer acceptable.

Across her career, Karen has been a thought leader, speaker, author and activist - all of this at the crossroads of spirituality, personal transformation and social justice. She hosts the long-running Voices of the Sacred Feminine podcast, considered a treasure trove of wisdom for more than a dozen years. Karen has been named one of the Thirteen Most Influential Women in Goddess Spirituality and a Wisdom Keeper of the Women's Spirituality Movement.

In their conversation, Karen and Mary explore the ways Goddess Spirituality and abuse culture are evident as in our relationships with the more-than-human world we've learned to think of as separate - as Nature outside of us.

You can learn more about Karen Tate by visiting her website karentate.net. There you’ll find all of her books, Including Normalizing Abuse, and be able to gain access to her writings and her podcast. We can all learn a great deal about how to restore our health as members of the community of Nature by listening to the ancient wisdom of Goddess Spirituality. As Karen suggests, we are all suited to act from kindness and connection with each other and the whole of being.

Here are a few links that Karen wanted to share in addition:

Heide Goetner-Abendroth - https://goettner-abendroth.de/en/biography

The Center for Partnership - https://centerforpartnership.org/

Karen also offered these words to all of us as an afterthought. Regarding the way the world would look if the tenets of Goddess Spirituality were centered: 

We'd pass assets through the mother line instead of the father line, adapt some of the matriarchal values and traditions to keep women and children safe and at the center of society rather than on the fringes.

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Meditative Drone, Music by Natalia from Pixabay

New Heights, Music by Alana Jordan from Pixabay

Love Serenity, Music by Dvir Silverstone from Pixabay

Original Theme Music, Gary Ferguson.

This month, Mary had the chance to talk with Traute Parrie, an environmental engineer and conservationist who had a career with the U.S. Forest Service. Traute says she’s at her best in high-mountain pika habitat. The small mammals scampering between boulders with their chirping voices capture her curiosity and have long been teachers. She’s also prone to long walks - often days at a time - including a recent hike through the Yellowstone ecosystem from the Lamar Valley on the east side, to Jackson and the Teatons on the west. 

Now, on the heels of a long career which culminated in her leading the Custer National Forest Beartooth Ranger District, you can find Traute in ecosystems of every description - wandering and listening to the land. She bikes, hikes, skis, sometimes in dubious weather. And is also known to pound nails as part of fire-lookout restoration projects. 

Traute knows wild nature from her work and from her lifelong dedication to the world outside. She’s been watching human and more-than-human behavior for a long time and has plenty to share that can offer all of us additional understanding and ideas for being active participants in climate repair.

You can learn more about Traute by taking a look at the book she helped edit, Voices of Yellowstone’s Capstone: A Narrative Atlas of the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness. Celebrated as "A riveting history of the areas animals, plants and soaring mountainsides with historical perspective from the Absalooke people, and the first non-native people to enter and engage with the land."   

The book: https://shop.abwilderness.org/products/the-atlas 

Video Interview: https://www.anewanglepodcast.com/p/traute-parrie-and-aaron-teasdale-776 

Excerpts: https://books.google.com/books?id=2if1xQEACAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false 

And these resources that Traute mentioned.

The book, The Crazies by Amy Gamerman

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/214152457-the-crazies 

The poetry of Montana Poet laureate, Chris LaTrey

https://www.chrislatray.com/ 

As Traute says - we’re all related to each other and to all beings in the natural world. Her career in the Forest Service and her retirement illustrate there’s a lot to guide us in that relationship. 

MUSIC

Instrumental Acoustic Guitar Music - Music by Viacheslav Starostin from Pixabay

Upbeat Acoustic Guitar - Music by Tunetank from Pixabay

Acoustic Guitar - Music by Sound Music from Pixabay

This month we’re moving into the 6th year of this Podcast. As has been our tradition, Gary and I open the season with an episode to catch up on Full Ecology and our work in the world. What an amazing thing to take stock of where we’ve been and to consider where we are and where we’re going.

We hope you enjoy this conversation and look forward to having you along for this season of varied and brilliant voices sharing their view on our glorious planet and its precious life.

You can learn more about Gary’s book Twilight Forest, and Mary’s work with Inner Elderhood by following these links (blue above). You’re also welcome to inquire about these and all things Full Ecology by writing us at [email protected] or visiting the Full Ecology website.

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Acoustic Nature. Music by Dvir Silverstone from Pixabay

Lovely Day. Music by Dvir Silverstone from Pixabay

Instrumental Acoustic Guitar. Music by DELOSound from Pixabay

This month Mary had the opportunity to meet up with Dr. Jane Close Conoley, who, since January of 2014 was the first woman appointed as permanent president of California State University Long Beach. After nearly 50 years in higher education, we caught Jane on the cusp of her retirement.

Just prior to coming to Cal State Long Beach, Jane served as dean of the Gevirtz Graduate School of Education at the University of California Santa Barbara. Along with serving as dean, she was professor of counseling, clinical and school psychology.

Before Santa Barbara, Jane served as dean and professor of educational psychology at Texas A&M University (1996-2005) and associate dean for research at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Teachers College (1989-94). In addition, she held faculty positions at Texas Woman's University and Syracuse University. 

Jane is the author or editor of 22 books and has written more than 100 chapters, refereed journal articles and technical reports. Her areas of primary interest are interventions with families, and with children with disabilities - especially children with serious emotional disturbance and aggressive children and youth. Her most recent work investigates the application of the science of positive psychology in educational settings.

By the time you're the president of a major University, you've got plenty of credibility. Jane is at the same time a person of great integrity, creativity and heart. You'll hear all of that in their conversation.

[Note from MMC - This was an especially gratifying episode for me. Back when I was in my early 20's, Jane recognized me as someone she could mentor. Because of her confidence in and encouragement of me, I've moved through my own academic career and into the work I do now, here on this good Earth, with all of you. I am forever grateful to and for Jane Conoley.]

You can learn more about Jane by checking out the Cal State University Long Beach website. Especially this link focused on her generous service to CSULB.

And here's a link to a pdf on positive psychology in educational settings that Jane co-authored with her husband, Collie W. Conoley.

And make sure to consider how you can identify approach goals for your own action in support of climate repair. The initiatives of Jane’s University and the city of Long Beach are inspiring. Acting locally - even as locally as our home and family, makes a difference.

Thanks to each of you for refusing to give up. Our choices to do what we can where we can come together with those of people around the globe to truly matter.

MUSIC

Rolled Ankles. Music by Nicholas Panek from Pixabay

Jazz Background 333352. Music by Ievgen Poltavskyi from Pixabay

Romantic Jazz. Music by Soundore from Pixabay

This month Mary had the chance to spend time with Lucas Black, an environmental economist who currently serves as a staff member for World Wildlife Fund - US. In his work and across the whole of his life, Lucas is an energetically devoted champion of the environment. He can often be found in the wilderness of his current home in Oregon, and is also known to be tucked into a corner at a desk writing essays and longer pieces - odes to the beauty, strength and expanse of the natural world.

Earlier in his life, Lucas was a Peace Corps Volunteer - living for two years in a village in Guinea-Bissau. In his early career, he worked as a financial advisor on Wall Street but elected to pivot into making a career out of developing financial tools and business models to solve environmental problems. In keeping with that focus, Lucas served for 13 years as a staff member for the United Nations. While there, he designed projects in the areas of climate change and biodiversity conservation for some of the world's major environmental trust funds and donors.

Lucas has worked in more than 80 countries and lived on four continents. In his walk and his talk, Lucas is healing climate action. We think you'll enjoy what he has to share.

You can learn more about Lucas on the World Wildlife Fund US website. https://www.worldwildlife.org/experts/lucas-black

Or go to this link to read the recent interview with Lucas and his WWF project partner, Josephina Brana Varella, Laying the Groundwork: WWF's Nature-Based Solutions Origination Platform Marks a Year of Progress.

As Lucas mentioned, the Nature-Based Solutions Platform team is just back from powerful economic and environmental development work in Madagascar.

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Middle East in Motion. Music by Dvir Silverstone from Pixabay

Asian Wonders. Music by Dvir Silverstone from Pixabay

World Vision-273608. Music by Dvir Silverstone from Pixabay

This month, Mary got to spend time with Alexis Marie Adams, a freelance writer and journalist. When we recorded, Lexy was in the last few weeks of spending half her year in a remote village in Southern Greece. This is her annual rhythm, with the summer and fall stretch spent in another small community at the edge of Montana's Beartooth Mountain Range.

In these places, Lexy writes. Her focus is cultural and sustainable travel and environmental issues. Her articles and essays explore history and culture in the eastern Meditarranean, traditional and sustainable agriculture and, more recently, old-growth forests and other imperiled ecosystems globally. Lexy's work has appeared in the New York Times, National Geographic, The Guardian, Scientific American, Orion Magazine and The Boston Globe among other outlets.

In their conversation, Mary and Lexy explored the influence of place on various forms of climate activism and the role of journalism in climate repair. They also turned attention to the underlying meaning humans know in relationship with the natural world.

You can learn more about Lexy on her website.  There you’ll find access to a great selection of her writing. And, as promised, here's her article on Albania’s wild nature published by the NYT in April 2025.

Don’t miss the chance to take a deeper dive into Lexy’s observations of and inspiration from this magnificent planet. As she says - it’s all about attunement - and that’s all about interdependence and love.

MUSIC

Good Morning Café Jazz. Music by Sleep Volume from Pixabay

Rolled Ankles: Smooth Jazz Flute Instrumental. Music by Nicholas Panek from Pixabay

Piano Jazz-324015. Music by Mircea Iancu from Pixabay

This month, Mary had the chance to speak with career environmental activist, Scotty Johnson. Scotty has spent the last forty years working in conservation, climate education, and as a Permaculture design specialist. During his time, he's lectured extensively for former Vice-President Al Gore's Climate Reality Project, served as National Outreach representative for Defenders of Wildlife and founded the Lanai Permaculture Institute.

Through it all, Scotty has retained a passion for healing inherited from his father who worked as a country doctor in rural Arizona. Tending social ecologies, Scotty studied integrative medicine and Transpersonal psychology with pioneers like Andrew Weil and Stanislav Grof, investigating ancient healing methods practiced by the Tibetan Bon, Celtic, and other cross-cultural traditions. These explorations revealed that the Earth, like the human body, has an innate intelligence, keeping all functions healthy and balanced. Scotty believes that integrating different perspectives to engage this intelligence is uncharted territory with tremendous potential to hasten global restoration. He founded Taproot, a nonprofit effort based in Tucson, AZ, to further this awareness. 

You can learn more about Scotty Johnson by visiting the Taproot website https://taprootcollaborative.org/ . For exploring the integration of social ecological work, Scotty suggests the readings listed below.

And remember, as Scotty emphasized, take precious care of yourselves and don’t give up.

Readings:

"Dream of the Earth." Thomas Berry.

"The Secret Teachings of Plants." Harold Buhner.

"Braiding Sweetgrass." Robin Wall Kimmerer

"Entangled Earth." Merlin Sheldrake.

"Cosmos and Psyche." Richard Tamas.

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Guitar 5 - Music by Johnson Cherian from Pixabay

Classic Guitar World Music Ajonnah - Music by Jonathan Dube Tembo from Pixabay

Slow Emotion - Music by Rodolphe Rakotomalala from Pixabay

Another captivating episode! This month Mary had the chance to be in conversation with Dr. Peter Whitehouse. With MD and PhD degrees from Johns Hopkins, Peter has filled roles as Professor of Cognitive Science, Psychiatry, Neuroscience, Psychology, Nursing, Organizational Behavior, Bioethics and History. He's also deeply involved with public education as President of Intergenerational Schools International, and can be found portraying "The Tree Doctor," a metaphorical tree being who shares what trees and forests have to teach humans about being healthy.

In 1986, after filling positions at Harvard and Boston University, Peter established the department of Neurology at Case Western Reserve in Cleveland, OH, where he continues on faculty. He is coauthor of The Myth of Alzheimer's: What You Aren't Being Told about Today's Most Dreaded Diagnosis and hundreds of academic papers and book chapters. He is also part of the reimagine aging movement personally and culturally. In 2000, Peter and his wife, Catherine Whitehouse, a developmental psychologist, began opening what are now 3 public schools in Cleveland focused on connecting seniors with school-age children. From the beginning, a key focus of the curricula in these schools has been the wellbeing of the climate.

From dignity across the lifespan to ecological interdependence and quantum entanglement, Mary and Peter had plenty to talk about.  

You can learn more about Dr. Peter Whitehouse by checking out any of his many publications. In particular, The Myth of Alzehimer’s. Also check out these videos.

HAPI - People, Planet and Profit: Health in a Time of Polycrisis (2024)

TEDx - Alzheimer's and the Value of Inter-Generational Schools (2012)

Gerontology Society of America - The Gerontologist Podcast: ”American Dementia” with Drs. Daniel George and Peter Whitehouse (2024). Audio only.

And find a way to take the opportunity Peter offers, to tend deeply to the lessons of trees and all of the natural world. See how wellness and aging are as diverse in people as they are in the wide world of which we are part.  

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Jazz Café Background Music - Music by Maksym Malko from Pixabay

Easy Listening Jazz - Music by Krzysztof Szymanski from Pixabay

nhac-jazz - Music by Zazz Bossa from Pixabay