Nature Evolutionaries

A special episode highlighting the importance of connecting with Nature during this unprecedented time. 

By connecting with Nature, we feel calmer, more grounded, and more resilient, which helps us be of service to our family and community with grace and patience. In fact, the deep truth is that many of us have been preparing, even training in a way, for this moment when our mother, the Earth, would begin to heal herself. We are seeing this healing around the world- birds singing, wildlife returning, more breathable air,  waters running clear and clean amidst us quieting our lives and slowing down. Let’s use this quiet to deepen our connection with Mother Earth, listen to what she is sharing and allow that to inform our way of life. 

Join Pam Montgomery (ONE’s founder) and Elyshia Holliday (ONE’s Executive Director) as they share their hearts and stories about their years working towards healing our relationship with Mother Earth and the gifts it brings to this time. Sit in circle with us and receive the gifts of their dialogue of gratitude, abundance, and love.

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Ann Armbrecht, an anthropologist, is the director of the American Botanical Council’s Sustainable Herbs Program. She is the author of The Business of Botanicals: Exploring the Healing Promise of Plant Medicines in a Global Industry which documents her journey following herbs from seed to shelf. She is also the co-producer of the documentary Numen: The Nature of Plants and the author of the award-winning ethnographic memoir Thin Places: A Pilgrimage Home, based on her research in Nepal.

From Ann:

“As a nation, we are struggling with a profound lack of imagination. We don’t see the forests being cut down to build our homes, the lakes being drained as we fill our tub. We live on the far side of a broken connection. Not seeing the people and places on the other side – not seeing the moral and ecological consequences of producing these commodities – simply makes them easier to buy.” 
— Wendell Berry 

Healing this broken connection, Berry concluded, begins with seeing beyond what the market wants us to see.

I began the Sustainable Herbs Program to follow herbs through the supply chain, to make visible the people and places behind the finished products because I believe that knowing those stories, as Berry points out, is the first step toward being more responsible for the moral and ecological consequences of our choices.

In this conversation, I will explore the ways herbal medicines offer an invitation to live in a deeper relationship with the world around us. I will talk about my work with the Sustainable Herbs Program, how we are sharing stories and resources to help inspire more sustainable and regenerative practices in the industry as a whole.

But I am also interested in much broader questions about our role as citizens of the world and how, through our choices about the commodities we buy, we impact that world. Plants are alive and yet they are also commodities bought and sold on a global market governed by the laws of capital. Is it possible to buy herbal medicines produced with these plants in ways that honor and respect that aliveness? What might exploring stories about efforts to responsibly source and produce herbal products show us about living more lightly on the earth? What insights do they offer for how to treat each other, the earth, and ourselves with more care and respect? And finally, what can we learn about creating worlds that are healthier—physically, socially, emotionally, and spiritually?

I’ll explore these questions by focusing on companies working to ensure that the vision and values of herbal medicine apply to the entire medicinal plant supply chain, not just the end product. In this way, I hope to show how changing this particular industry is a way to change the world.

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Maureen Robertson (Medical Herbalist) and Jose Melo (Musician & Composer) explore medicine. They have been working together for over 5 years to forge a conscious crossover between the healing vibrations of plants and the healing vibrations of music- a powerful example of working with nature in way of deep listening, attunement and cooperation.

In this teleseminar, they will give an overview of health or disease being a dissonance of vibration musical harmony within the body, mind, spirit whole, and how the sound vibration of the different chords in any octave can have a strong effect on the different energy centers of the body. Jose uses guitar chords to illustrate the concepts of the top, middle and base notes within essential oils. If you have your own essential oils, have them ready to smell whilst the relevant chords are being played to emphasize the qualities!

Aromatherapists already know how essential oils with their range of different notes can literally resonate with the energy centers to enable them to create a blend that harmonizes the energy. By experimenting with different chords stemming from the notes of aromatic oils choices, it is possible to begin a co-creative composition of healing vibration translated into music. This experimental technique gives a unique insight into which areas of the body need attention and then the relevant vibration of essential oils and their herbs which can help address that as well as the associated musical note(s).

The self-evident opening up to vibrational energy in this way can literally bring an immediate healing resonance as well as informing blends of essential oils to support energy imbalances.

Maureen has over 25 years of experience working with herbs and sharing Green knowledge. She co-founded the Scottish School of Herbal Medicine in 1992 offering courses from introductory to professional training at BSc and MSc degree level.

At the same time, she encountered Goethe's way of studying "the Holy Open Book of Nature" as shared by Rudolf Steiner and discovered an approach of wholeness to studying plants, landscapes, and natural phenomena. She developed a clinical application of Goethe's method which shaped her herbal practice and the way she supports the healing process for the people she works with.

In 2012 she established the Herbal Apprenticeship at Drimlabarra Herb Farm, Isle of Arran, Scotland which she ran for 4 years before relocating to Portugal where she continues her Apprenticeship training as well as hosting Inspiring International Herbal Speakers.

Her travels in Peru, Colombia, and Ecuador meeting shamans and teacher plants helped create a deepening into the interior world of self-healing and shamanic practices which aid these processes are now an integral part of her approach to purification and rejuvenation. https://www.theherbalpath.net/about-us

Jose has been involved in music since his first successful punk rock band as a teenager in Sintra, which had a strong following for many years and made a number of recordings. He quickly moved into working with the uplifting, feel-good beat of ambient electronic music which he composed and produced as a professional musician for several record labels and performed as an internationally acclaimed musical artist DJ for over a decade.

His warm, easy-going, and caring approach allows people to work with him to relax into their own healing through close encounters with teacher plants as allies and healing musical resonance. https://www.theherbalpath.net/about-us.

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Geneen Marie-Haugen explores an emerging dimension of the human/Earth relationship – a relationship in which the human capacity for imagination is an essential component of planetary ecology. We’ll consider the possibility that our manner of approaching the wilder Others make a difference – both reawakening the older mind in us that knows the animate nature of the world, as well as re-enlivening the wilder Others themselves. 

Dr. Geneen Marie Haugen grew up a little wild, with a run-amok imagination. As a guide to the intertwined mysteries of nature and psyche, she delights in multidimensional listening and in offering perceptive questions, ceremonies, escapades, and reflections that help expand a sense of our own possibilities as individuals (and as a species) and deepen our experience of participation with an intelligent, animate Earth/Cosmos. Her writing has appeared in many anthologies and journals, including Spiritual Ecology: The Cry of the Earth; Thomas Berry: Dreamer of the Earth; Written River; Parabola Journal; Kosmos Journal; Ecopsychology; and The Artist’s Field Guide to Greater Yellowstone. A former tipi-dweller and whitewater river guide, she now lives amidst the creatures and features of southern Utah’s sandstone labyrinth. She is exploring the awakening of what she calls “planetary imagination,” and the possible emergence of a new mode of the human that she has called Homo imaginans. She is committed to the world-transforming potential of the human imagination in collaboration with the Earth community.

To know more about Geneen’s work visit https://animas.org or see her offering this spring at Esalen.

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 Rina Kedem, environmental peace-builder, dialogues about peace, ecology, and communities.  Rina believes in peace between people and the land and is part of an international network of projects and communities that are involved in this work. 

Rina Kedem has developed and directed cooperative projects with Palestinians, Israelis, and Jordanians for the past 16 years. Her work is guided by a holistic perspective that includes the social-economic and environmental well-being of communities, as well as hands-on, long term peace-building opportunities that impact policy.  She helped found a multi-cultural center for peace and ecology at the Almog- Jericho junction, an area accessible to Israelis and Palestinians, and was part of a volunteer team that has built a network of ecological villages in Israel (GEN- Israel).

Rina is currently working on her Ph.D. in Community Development and Environmental Conservation Across Borders in the Department of Geography at Hebrew University and resides with her family in the Israeli desert.  She is part of the University of San Diego’s 2019 Women PeaceMakers program. and lives with her family in the desert of Israel.

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Join Dr. Ablard on a journey to the heartwood of growing and preserving, sharing, and healing.

Rosewood (Aniba rosaeodora) faces possible extinction due to unsustainable harvesting and management practices driven by a high global demand for its precious essential oil. Native to many biodiversity hotspots throughout South America, the loss of rosewood is inseparable from the loss of many other native species. Its cultural importance among the Shipibo Indigenous people of Peru attests to its importance as a traditional aromatic and spiritual medicine with a reputation for strengthening the heart and relationships. 

Kelly Ablard holds a Doctorate in Biology, an MSc in Conservation, and is a certified aromatherapist. As Director of the Airmid Institute, she is dedicated to the global education, research, and conservation and sustainable management of aromatic medicinal plants. 

Kelly has completed and published research on olfactory systems, chemical communication across species, and clinical uses of plant medicine for humans and animals. Her work has taken her all over the world where she has studied the different uses of traditional medicine, worked to help protect threatened species, and discovered firsthand the vital role that chemical communication plays in the natural world. For example, she has recently identified over 60 Peruvian aromatic medicinal plants, her novel discovery of how small wasps rely on individual chemical signatures to mediate their mating ritual is featured in Canadian Geographic magazine, and how she identified potential toxins in the critically endangered slow loris (Nycticebus javanicus) is highlighted by the British Broadcasting Company (BBC). She has also reported on the ingenuity of tool use by endangered orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) and has investigated the link between sociality and olfactory communication in mammals. She currently conducts research in Peru with the Shipibo and Quechua Indigenous peoples into their near-threatened and threatened aromatic medicinal plants.

Kelly sits on the Board of the United Plant Savers, is Co-Chair of the International Committee on Sustainability of Aromatic Plants used in Aromatherapy and Natural Perfumery, and is co-owner of Essence of Thyme College of Holistic Studies.

To connect with Dr. Ablard and to help protect threatened aromatic medicinal plants, please visit: Website:https://www.kellyablard.com or Facebook: @airmidinstitute

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This Dialogue with ecologist and artist, Dr. Rene Henery will explore pathways toward the simultaneous healing of systems in nature and of our own internal systems, hearts, minds, and spirits. In the process, Rene will share some of his experiences, as a scientist deeply engaged in the complex and contentious politics of water in California, pivoting from an emphasis on the application of science and mind to “fix” the world to an emphasis on relationship and heart, to heal, to catalyze greater connection with others and alignment with nature, and to be guided by what emerges from that connected place. The discussion with Rene will also explore how science, deep listening, and inner wisdom can work synergistically to orient us, with the dynamic natural systems we are a part of and the effects of that reorientation on the way we understand and value diversity and equity, our capacity for growth and change, and our felt sense of belonging.  We are part of nature.

Dr. Rene Henery is a Deep Ecologist, artist, writer, and speaker based in Northern California. Rene holds a joint position as California Science Director for Trout Unlimited, US’s oldest and largest Salmon and River conservation NGO and part-time Research Faculty with the University of Nevada, Reno, Global Water Center. Rene’s work in the US and abroad embraces water, diversity, reconciliation, and equity as pathways to resilient ecosystems, coherent communities, and personal experience of belonging. In his home state of California, Rene works collaboratively with private landowners, resource managers, universities, NGO’s, and state and federal agencies to recover water-dependent systems through science, relationship, and the reconciliation of conservation, flood management, agriculture, environmental justice, and indigenous wisdom

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Linda Lombardo is A Certified Forest Therapy Guide, Life Coach & Sacred Activist. She finds wonder in the worlds-within-worlds of the forest; seeing nature as a regenerative culture, in which nothing is wasted, nothing is without purpose.

In addition to forest therapy and coaching, Linda produces and hosts Voice of Evolution Radio, sharing the voices of those creating a more compassionate and sustainable world. Her eleven-part radio drama series, In the Souls Waiting Room, chronicles her own spiritual journey to create a story about who we are as Humans today and why the world is the way it is. She uncovers and explores deep wounds that we no longer remember or accept as part of our collective stories that continue to create polarity in us as a species. The radio drama series led to Linda publishing her pre- and post- production notes and the scripts as a book, now available on Amazon.

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 Earth Activist, Ardelle Ferrer shares about the regeneration of the Ceiba Tree on Vieques, Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria.  She also speaks about the creation of a park around the ancient Ceiba Tree and the meaning it holds for the community and the land.

Excerpt from:  An Ancient Ceiba Tree Blooms Once Again After Puerto Rico’s Devastating Storms 

Nature is Ardelle’s artistic muse. Her life is colored by evolutionary change, as is her art. Ardelle’s artistic history has and will continue to eternally emphasize the protection of our natural environment. Her deep connectivity to nature started as a child and has continued to be inspired by Puerto Rico’s natural wonders, where she first learned how to connect with the trees of El Yunque rainforest and the raw elements of nature.

Since 2007, Ardelle has dedicated endless community-based efforts to the preservation of a 400-year-old Ceiba tree site, located in the heart of El Parque de Ceiba in Vieques, Puerto Rico. Ardelle is the principal force promoting the legacy of the sacred ceiba tree and the primary organizer of projects that encourage the youth of Vieques to absorb the wealth of knowledge the ceiba tree has to offer to the local and global community. The goal of the community outreach project is to incorporate art, culture, nature, and spirituality, in a way that emphasizes the conservation of the land of our ancestors, the sacredness of the tree, and its teachings.

Ardelle received her BFA, Magna Cum Laude, from the Puerto Rico School of Fine Art and postgraduate studies at the Urban Glass studio in New York. She has been awarded several prizes for artistic excellence and her art includes multiple performances, expositions, symposiums, stained and fused glass, sculptures, public murals, installations, and monumental works of the ephemeral.

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 Emma and Davyd Farrell speak about the power of plant dreaming and sacred earth activism.  They will share with you how dreaming can inform your daily life and help you break through illusions to come to a better understanding of reality and therefore become a more whole person.

Emma & Davyd work in co-creation with plants and trees for every aspect of their work, from event design and creation to making medicines and providing healings for their clients. Living in the hills of Mid-Wales their house sits underneath a large 1000-year-old Yew Tree. The plants, trees, and more specifically the ancient Yews serve as spirit guides and teachers and help to inform their actions through dreaming whether it be shamanic dream journeying, daydreaming, or lucid dreaming. 

Emma &  Davyd are the founders of Plant Consciousness, the ground-breaking London event about the conscious intelligent world of plants and trees. A lot of their understanding of the healing process comes from years of their own inner work into childhood, ancestral, and soul traumas. Combined with a daily spiritual practice they have gone to the depths of their souls to make awakening an embodied process and uncover the truth of their existence.

Emma spent 6 months in the Himalayas with master energy healers and five years learning from one of the world's leading plant spirit healers, Pam Montgomery. She is a certified plant spirit healer. Emma also spent 5 months in the Ecuadorian Amazon with Kichwa elder and shaman Kurikindi, his mother and sister learning a unique form of shamanic healing and receiving initiations into their Sacred Tobacco & Jaguar lineages. She is one of the first people to be initiated into the Yew Mysteries for hundreds of years, brought to the modern era by Michael Dunning. She has studied Geomancy with Dr. Patrick MacManaway and Celtic Shamanic Healing with David Leesley.

Emma also holds a practicing Master's Degree in 'The Preservation & Development Of Wisdom Culture & The Art Of Liberation' in the Tibetan Buddhist Mahayana Tradition, writing her thesis on 'Understanding The Nature Of The Self Through Lucid Dreaming'. Emma spent 2 years at the Lama Tsongkhapa Institute in Tuscany studying under lamas and geshes including her refuge lama, Dagri Rinpoche.

Davyd comes from a strong Celtic background with ancestry from both Cornwall and Ireland. This connection forms an essential part of his healing practice. He has trained and studied under many great masters and teachers. After a powerful wake up in Egypt in 2010 he then initially spent 3 years studying Tibetan Buddhism in first India and then at a semi-monastic center in Tuscany. He has received teachings, transmissions and empowerments from; HH Dalai Lama, Dagri Rinpoche, Chamtrul Rinpoche and Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche.

After living overseas for 15 years a powerful experience with teacher plant medicine called him back to his homeland and so began a journey deep into the world of plants.  Since then he has spent 5 years studying under herbalist and plant spirit healer Pam Montgomery and is now a certified Plant Spirit Healer. He also spent 2 years learning in Ireland with herbalist and plant diet initiator Carole Guyett.

In addition to that, 4 years was also spent studying the Yew Mysteries with Yew Shaman Michael Dunning during which time he and Emma moved to a house that sits directly under a 1000-year-old tree in Mid Wales. The teachings of the Yew have continued under this powerful tree's tutelage.

To learn more about Emma and Davyd visit their website at https://www.plantconsciousness.com/  

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