No. 072: Spring Equinox
Offerings from Isabel Cole/ Maya Galimidi/ Sara Jolena Wolcott M.Div/ Ashlei Laing, Director/ RēAwaken RēTreat
Why does spring make everything feel better?
A Note from our Rē... Spring Equinox has arrived! We find the perfect balance between day and night. The dormancy of winter is left behind. Often our winter blues begin to lift. These changes are worth a moment or two of reflection as we wake back up our life. The warmer weather creates more gratitude. This creates body changes and lightness. What a gift! Enjoy!
A Note from our Rē...
Greeting RēMind readers. Myself and Rē would like to thank you for your continued support and choosing to spend time in our newsletter. We realize that there are many choices of where you can receive your information and we value and honor the fact that you choose RēMind. During this time of transition, we appreciate the grace that you offer. We strive to maintain the integrity you are accustomed to. We look forward to serving you for years to come. ~ Kerri
In The Garden with Isabel
Hello Everyone! My name is Isabel and I will be Rē’s resident gardener this year. I wanted to take my first appearance in the newsletter to introduce myself and let you know the plans we have for our garden space. I recently graduated from UNH with a BA in Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems and minors in Native American and Indigenous Studies as well as History. My passion and experience is in community based educational gardens which I have helped design and run at the schools and museums I have worked at. My goal is to empower others to learn and care about the food system, nature, and the history and cultures that have stewarded the land for generations. This year, we will be building two community gardens in Amesbury MA. One will be in downtown and the other will be grown at Camp Kent. We will host educational workshops, start an indigenous garden with Abenaki specific seed varieties, and donate food to the town's food pantry. We will be welcoming volunteers into the gardens to help care for them and share in the bounty they produce. I am so excited about this opportunity to get my hands in the dirt, to grow good food, and surround our gardens with our lovely community.
Until next time,
Isabel
A Moment with Maya
I am Maya Galimidi, the founder of Empower with Nature and the international ambassador of the Global Ecovillage Network.
Empower with Nature serves as an educational platform dedicated to nurturing sustainable relationships between societies and nature. Our multifaceted approach includes ecological, social, economic, practical, structural, and design projects, as well as transdisciplinary studies, all geared towards shaping a more sustainable future.
Our team, composed of individuals from diverse backgrounds spanning academia, activism, ecovillages, eco-restoration camps, and various cultures, exemplifies the harmonious coexistence of different traditions and disciplines. Together, we aim to transform the present and shape the future through collaborative efforts.
We are proud partners of The Regenerative School, where we have successfully launched programs such as “Nature and Belonging” and “Nature’s Lens: Shifting Perspective.” These initiatives seek to reconnect people with nature through experiential learning, storytelling, and mutual understanding of diverse perspectives and places.
Currently, at The Regenerative School, we are developing academic content to facilitate longer programs with all of Re’s esteemed lecturers. Stay connected with us for updates on our regenerative education initiatives.
Reflecting with Sara
As spring enters and the ground softens, my eyes turn, again, to the body of the Earth; to soil.
We live in a world that loves the pretty flowers and gives very little attention to the soil that enables those flowers to grow.
As Wendell Berry so beautifully said: "The soil is the great connector of lives, the source and destination of all. It is the healer and restorer and resurrector, by which disease passes into health, age into youth, death into life. Without proper care for it we can have no community, because without proper care for it we can have no life.”
I'm (also) preparing for my next ReMembering Course, a course that takes people on a journey through time, shifting our understanding of the past in order to come into a better interpretation of and solutions in the present. It's a course about ancestors, about time, about ecology and racism and revealing the colonial western worldview in ways that help us dis-entangle with it. I've been teaching this course to seekers from around the world for nearly seven years. I am still amazed by how powerful it is. How much I keep learning from it, and with it.
History has some curious commonalities with soil. History forms the ground from which everything else arises. Rocks themselves are living and (slowly) changing stories of what came before in Deep Time.
Is history - our ancestors - both source and destination of our own lives? What does it mean to have a 'healthy history' (or 'herstories'!), or perhaps, a healthy relationship to history - to our ancestors, to our shared interconnected histories that shape our interbeing-ness?
The ReMembering Course is like a pot of very rich soil - because it contains a lot of compost. That compost arises from the work of many, many people who have found ways to discard some of the harmful pieces and to work with/cleanse and around and through the poison that has found its way into the stories we tell about our country's history.
Most of the time, people are forced to plant their metaphorical seeds in soil that hasn't had the chance to receive compost. It's full of plastic and even poison. How can your seeds grow there? How can you possibly ground yourself?
The ReMembering Course serves to re-ground participants. Indeed, it is one of the most common things participants tell us: "This course is the grounding that I've been looking for."
Which, in a society that is so deeply dis-membered, where figuring out how to have a more authentic connection to one another and to this place where we call home can be so hard, is really, really cool.
Cool doesn't mean squeaky clean. Sometimes the process is muddy. I grew up working with a herd of horses and growing most of our own berries, apples, squash, and corn: I'm not afraid of mud.
If it were comfortable, a lot more people would be doing it. The process of ReMembering is powerful, and effective, and helps people make better decisions. So, why wouldn't all sorts of institutions of higher education, schools, companies, environmental non-profits, places of worship, retreat centers, and social impact ventures want to engage with it?
Who doesn't want some really good compost?
Alas, our society still doesn't value (non-metaphorical) compost at a systemic level (happily, it is much easier to compost than it used to be!) It still prioritizes broken, inorganic materials (as evidenced by the power of fertilizer companies). That's cuz society still prioritizes pretty, cheap flowers. It still pretends that roots and soil don't matter. That the life of the flower is less important than the customer getting a cheap price for it.
Our society still acts as if you can build a nurturing culture (cultivate, culture, and agriculture all come from the root word 'cult' which means 'to grow') on multiple forms of dis-membering. Both literal and metaphorical.
But then there are those who know that their (metaphorical) roots need good soil. Soil that can nourish their whole selves. Soil that supports the growth of mycelium networks. Soil that re-members ancestors.
I see so many signs of people searching for good soil. And so many people whose capacities to see what is and what is not good soil really increases. There are conversations about our past and about what solutions are possible in the future that simply were not possible a generation ago. Amidst all the disinformation in today's world, I am deeply encouraged by the many, many live conversations, sometimes in person, sometimes online, sometimes, seemingly, in the dreamtime, where ancestral healing is happening, old wounds are being acknowledged, and new possibilities become possible!
Now, let's also recall that there is an extent to which the metaphor of time-as-soil does not hold true. I was sharing some of this metaphor-play with my friend Ramasubramanian from Chennai, India, who has also done some work with the Re School, and he said something that I thought was brilliant:
“Soil is time. History is a record of time. Soil embodies all ails and merriments of history, books of history can selectively hold only whatever they want. There is a difference."
Yes, there are similarities between history and soil. For those of us who like to play with metaphors, myths, and stories, it's a great sandbox. But, as Ram says, there is a difference. The differences matter, too.
Blessings upon your season of spring... and wherever your play of metaphors might take you!
Sara Jolena Wolcott, M.Div.
Founding Director, Sequoia
Samanvaya LLC
Advisor, Spiritual Entrepreneurship
and International Projects, Samanvaya
Social Ventures Pvt Ltd, India
Host, The ReMembering And
ReEnchanting Podcast
A Note from our Director...
Dear Community,
As we navigate the complexities of social and environmental justice, it is essential to cultivate inner landscape as a foundation for our collective work for peace. Through participatory action research coupled with inner peace practices and reconnection to the land we can create transformative change both within ourselves and in the world around us.
**Participatory Action Research (PAR):**
PAR serves as a powerful tool for community empowerment and liberation. By engaging in collaborative research processes, we honor the wisdom and experiences of all community members, amplifying voices that have been historically marginalized. Together, we can uncover systemic injustices and co-create solutions rooted in solidarity and equity.
**Innerlandscape Work:**
Amidst the chaos and urgency of our work, it is crucial to prioritize our well-being and inner peace. Inner peace practices, such as mindfulness meditation, yoga, and self-reflection, can help us cultivate resilience, clarity, and compassion. By nurturing our inner selves, we can show up more fully in our advocacy efforts and sustain our long-term commitment to justice.
**Reconnection and regeneration of the land :**
As was reimagine what a better world for people, place, and planet could be we look to our relationship with the lands, our outer landscape, we are on globally and locally. We look to nourish better way to be in regenerative and reciprocals connect with the earth. Indigenous wisdom and practices are being supported and amplified on many platforms for guidance and support for this path.
**Global Current Events and Our Work:**
1. **Climate Justice Movements:** Around the world, grassroots movements are mobilizing for climate justice. From indigenous-led resistance against fossil fuel extraction to youth-led climate strikes demanding urgent action, the momentum for systemic change is growing. Let us stand in solidarity with these movements and amplify their voices in our advocacy work.
2. **Humanitarian Crises:** The ongoing humanitarian crises, including conflicts, displacement, and food insecurity, remind us of the interconnectedness of global justice issues. As advocates for social justice, we must address the root causes of these crises and work towards solutions that uphold the dignity and rights of all people, regardless of nationality or status.
3. **Racial Justice Struggles:** From the streets of our own communities to protests around the world, the fight against systemic racism continues. By centering the voices and experiences from folks of Bodies of Culture( Menakim, Resma) and LGBTQIA+ communitites, we can dismantle systems of oppression and build a more just and equitable society for all.
**Action Items and Opportunities for Engagement:**
1. **PAR Training Workshops:** Join us for upcoming PAR training workshops where we will learn practical research methodologies and explore how to integrate inner peace practices into our work for justice. Together, we can deepen our understanding of participatory research and its transformative potential.
2. **Inner Peace Offerings:** Experience the power of community and inner peace practices by joining our seasonal retreats or our online offerings. These gatherings provide a supportive space for self-reflection, nourishment, mindfulness/bodyfullness (Selasse, Sebane) and collective healing as we navigate the challenges of our world, from ecogrief to political strife.
3. **Indigenous food ways memorial garden :** This past year has cultivated funds and a wonderful recent UNH graduate Isabel Cole to bring us into connection with the land, Indigenous growing practices and food solidarity. Sink your hands into the soil and cultivate gratitude by growing produce for each other and the community. Together, we can build a more just and sustainable world for current and future generations.
**Closing Thoughts:**
As we continue our journey towards justice, let us remember that inner peace and collective anction are intertwined. By cultivating inner peace within ourselves and fostering solidarity with others, we can create a world where all beings and the land thrive in harmony.
In solidarity and peace,
Ashlei Laing
RēAwaken
Unpack history and connect with mother earth. Enjoy this day RēTreat surrounded by the beauty of Alnoba in Kensington, NH. Learn Ayurvedic wisdom, practice yoga, meditate and practice circular time rituals. Join us for a day of Remembrance, Reconciliation, and Indigenous Healing.
Date: Saturday, May 18th, 2024 Time: 9:00 am – 7:00 pm ET
Registration fee: Full Day $225 USD,
Half Day $110 USD
Scholarship Options Available!
Email us at admin@regenerativeschool.org for more info.
VISIT LINK BELOW FOR MORE INFO + REGISTRATION Spring ReTreat
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