No. 069: January Reading List
"Wintering" / Dendrochronology / Eco-linguistics / Yoga for Farmers / The Importance of Soil / Finland's Circular Economy / and MORE!
Happy Friday Regenerative School Community!
We hope your January is off to an easy start, filled with deep breaths, curiosity, and gratitude.
We still have space in this Sunday in our “Nature’s Lens: Shifting Perspectives” 90-minute new year course. If you are interested in a conversation on nature, humanity, and the transformative power of ecocentric views, join us January 28, 2023 at 11:00 AM ET (10:00 AM CT / 8:00 AM PT / 17:00 CET / 19:00 TRT). Register here to cultivate personal transformation and ground the new year in community.
Keep scrolling for our January reading list. We hope everyone is safe, cozy, and taking care.
Best,
The Rē Team
P.S. In case anyone else is in need of a grounding moment, we found peace in this five minute meditation this week.
Wintering, by Katherine May, is a beautiful book on how we can find “nourishment in deep retreat, joy in the hushed beauty of winter, and encouragement in understanding life as cyclical, not linear.” We read this book in the pandemic, but so many conversations circling back to the importance of recovery and rest. Winter’s shorter days and colder temperatures naturally foster a “fallow” period in our minds and bodies. How can we lean into this retreat despite our many obligations, responsibilities, and roles? Perhaps we can recommend grabbing a blanket and preparing a warm cup of tea. It might be time to read this stunning memoir.
We loved The Washington Post’s latest interactive feature titled “Written in the Wood.” Sarah Kaplan, Bonnie Jo Mount, Emily Wright and Frank Hulley-Jones’s stunning climate-reporting chronicles the survival and growth (past, present, and future) of ponderosa pine trees on Mount Bigelow, Arizona. If you are curious about learning about dendrochronology—the science of telling time through trees—this one is for you. Click here to be wowed.
Amy Mayer’s “This Group Has Helped Farmworkers Become Farm Owners for More Than two Decades” for Civil Eats is a fascinating profile on ALBA (Agriculture and Land-Based Training Association) an incredible organization that has spent the last twenty years helping California farmworkers access the land, capital, and training needed to become farmowners. Click here for an inspiring read!
“Why We Need New Words for Nature” by Becca Warner is another power piece from Atmos. “It is both obvious and easy to forget that the words we use to describe the world around us reveal how we relate to it. In [the Indigenous] Anishinaabe culture, the natural world is active, precious, and has a dignity all its own.” Click here for more on the Anishinaabemowin language, eco-linguistics and the words we should use.
Nora Neus’ “Om on the Range” for Ambrook Research details how yoga is gaining ground in agriculture. “Your body is your first tool,” says one farmer. “Everything you do, even if you buy the most expensive thing, maybe a tractor or a broad fork or whatever it is, if your body is not working properly, nothing is going to work properly,” Click here to learn how farmers are tending to their inner landscapes and their physical bodies through the age-old practice of yoga.
In “Soil Builds Prosperity From the Ground Up,” Breanna Draxler explores how tending to soil can help grow a more “resilient future for all.” From citing Soul Fire Farm’s incredible work to Liz Carlisle research in Healing Grounds: Climate, Justice, and the Deep Roots of Regenerative Farming, Draxler braids together the theory and practice of just how important stewarding soil is. Click here to read.
“How Wealthy Corporations Use Investment Agreements to Extract Millions From Developing Countries” By Nicholas Kusnetz and Katie Surma for Inside Climate News. Incredible reporting on the ecological injuries, personal losses, physical displacement, and all-around injustices caused by foreign oil in Ecuador. Click here for this sobering must-read.
This past Wednesday, Dr. Vandana Shiva and Dr. Elaine Ingham dynamically discussed the “Future of Farming.” The two experts shared insights on biodiversity conversation and climate resilience, the regenerative agriculture movement, and how to better empower soil, farmers, environmentalists. Click below to watch the recording.
Did you know that eight years ago, Finland became the first country to adopt a national circular economy road map to reduce the material footprint of its national economy? We didn’t. Read “Lessons From Finland’s Attempt to Transition to a Circular Economy” by Sean Mowbray for Mongabay News to learn about the innovation, institutions, and education needed to meet their target. Click here for more.
“The Largest Dam Removal in U.S. History Has Begun” by Neil Dhanesha for Heatmap News. “This is historic and life-changing, and it means that the Yurok people have a future. . . It means the river has a future, the salmon have a future.” Click here to read about the decades-long effort to restore the Klamath River, which snakes for more than 250 miles through Oregon and California, to a new natural state.
In other water news Jake Bittle’s “Groundwater Levels are Falling Worldwide — but There are Solutions” for Grist details how to protect the aquifers that hold most of the world’s fresh water according to new research published in Nature.
That’s all for this week. We will see you on Friday, February 9th with some Rē School updates and offerings.
What have you been reading? What have you been listening to? Write to us at admin@regenerativeschool.org and let us know.
Stay grounded. Be well. Deep breaths.