Rebecca Burgess and the Fibershed project are building a regional economy that connects ranches producing wool with artisan clothing manufactures. Fibershed’s local economy network is based on carbon farming practices that capture atmospheric carbon and store in the soil. Soil carbon supports a regenerative fertility cycle and is the building block for a climate-friendly life-promoting economy.
Learn more at http://www.fibershed.com/
We’re living in a thriller that only reality could write. Breakdown and breakthrough – death and rebirth – creative destruction writ large.
As this year’s Bioneers Conference will exemplify, there’s as much cause for hope as for horror, and the ground truth is that how this story turns out is up to us. Nothing less than a step change in human evolution will do. Never has it been more important for us to exercise our vision, our agency, our solidarity and our voices.
That’s what we’ll all be doing together at Bioneers 2018. The theme is “Pathways Forward,” and we’re excited to explore the paths with you.
Learn more at http://conference.bioneers.org
A nationally recognized expert on social justice philanthropy, Edgar Villanueva (Lumbee) is about to release is his first book, Decolonizing Wealth. In it, Villanueva, Chair of Native Americans in Philanthropy and as Vice President of the Schott Foundation for Public Education in New York City, draws from Indigenous wisdom to offer ways to dismantle colonial dynamics in the philanthropic and social finance sectors. It’s a persuasive look at how Americans must work together to identify and destroy the systems that oppress not only with zeal and purpose, but also with compassion. The book will be available everywhere on October 16.
In less than a month, Villanueva will take the stage at the 2018 Bioneers Conference, along with other accomplished social justice advocates, at the Indigenous Forum for the discussion, How to Be A Good Ally. During the workshop Villanueva, along with fellow speakers like Mitch Anderson, founder and Executive Director of Amazon Frontlines, and Hernan Payaguaje (Seikopai) Executive Director of the Ceibo Alliance, will have a candid discussion about what white “ally-ship” means and how to build successful cross-cultural collaborations. Villanueva will also take part in a Bioneers authors book signing, where you’ll be able to snag your own copy of his newly released book.
Ahead of the conference, Villanueva shares some of his thoughts on the challenges our country is currently facing, why he has reason to hope, and the books he recommends reading.
What he’s most excited for within the next year: “How my new book, Decolonizing Wealth, can bring conversations of truth and reconciliation into the philanthropy and finance sectors.”
His biggest reason to have hope right now: “We’ve transcended beyond the superficial relationships to deep connectedness and belonging — and this is what it will take to restore balance.”
Our biggest challenge to overcome right now: “We must name and dismantle white supremacy.”
The number one thing individuals can do to have a big impact on the world in a positive way: “Hold up the mirror and take a long gaze. Ask yourself what you are doing to reinforce the status quo or what are you doing to disrupt the ordinary.”
The Bioneers 2018 talk he’s most excited to see: Hilary Giovale, who will also be speaking in the Indigenous Forum’s How to Be a Good Ally.
The books he recommends to our audience:
The following is an excerpt from Chapter 8 of Dawn Again: Tracking the Wisdom of the Wild (Propriometrics Press, 2017) by Doniga Markegard. Dawn Again takes readers along on Markegard’s journey of exploration and survival: the wilderness immersion school where Indigenous elders and wildlife trackers were among her teachers, hitchhiking across the pacific northwest, the moment she first connected with a deer using owl eyes and fox walking techniques, and to Alaska where she fell in love with tracking white wolves and the rigor of wilderness survival.
Doniga Markegard will join us at Bioneers 2018, where she’ll speak on regenerative agriculture.
I gathered more wood to get me through the night. I also gathered bark to set up as a heat reflector, and to pull over me when I took my wet clothes off to keep drafts from chilling my naked skin. Walking past the stream at the base of the waterfall, I paused to look into the clear water. Reflected back at me were smooth pebbles of browns and greys. I remembered a story that a Haida wood carver, Ralph Bennett, once told me of his people, who lived in the Pacific Northwest. The story recounts a time when the rivers were so thick with salmon that you could walk across their backs to cross the river and never touch the stones below. I imagined salmon so thick in the streams you could just reach down and throw one up on the bank, feasting on the richness they had brought from the ocean to the fresh waters.
Back at my fire, I said the prayers Gilbert had taught me. I prepared for sleep that night warm in the womb of the grandmother cedar tree, knowing I could live here forever, surviving on food I gathered and staying warm with the shelters and fires I built. I could build traps for squirrels and rabbits. I could find cattail swamps and dig up the roots, extracting the starch and feasting on the young shoots that emerge early in the spring. I could make jerky, tan hides for clothes, and make a bow and arrow for hunting. The possibilities were endless. I stoked the fire until I was warm enough to fall asleep, peaceful in the knowledge I had the skills to survive here as long as I needed.
That night I was in and out of a dream state. I awoke shivering. The fire had died down, so once more I stoked it. My clothes hung propped up on sticks around the fire to dry. I went to sleep again, dreaming of the salmon coming back to the rivers and of the wolf packs that once flourished in this wilderness. Waking up tired, I stoked the fire hot and fell into a deep sleep.
I awoke a final time to the faint light of dawn. A foul smell had shaken me out of my dream state. It wasn’t the smell of the gunk that was causing deer to lose their hair and a meadow ecosystem to perish. This was the smell of…burning clothes. My clothes had caught on fire! I jolted up, looking at the fragments of Carhartt jeans. The waist had survived, but the legs were burnt up to the seam. My shirt too was a fragment of thread, useless for anything but wiping up a mess. I was naked and alone in the wilderness, far from any road or house and surrounded by a blanket of snow.
I put the remains of my fire out, that fire that I’d worked so hard for and that had taken it upon itself to teach me a lesson. It had taken away the possessions I’d brought with me, rendering me as helpless as the deer in the poisoned meadow. The lesson showed me the struggle to survive in the wilderness was a struggle that humans have brought upon themselves by going away from the natural patterns and law of the earth. We have forgotten not only how to survive, but also how to care-take the elements necessary for our survival.
During my time alone at Cedar Falls, I heard the creatures crying out to me for help. The salmon wanted the obstructions to be cleared so they could run again in great numbers. The deer wanted their forests to be lush again so they could thrive on the purity of plants. The waters cried out to flow clean of chemicals and sediment that ran off from the clear-cut. The clear-cuts had been sprayed with herbicide to prevent the weedy vegetation from coming back and covering the earth. Those weeds that were being stopped would have rebuilt the soil to allow the natural succession back to forests. I too was stripped of my covering like the forest, and it was now time for me to rebirth.
I walked out of the woods naked. It was a symbolic walk for me as I moved down logging roads and wildlife trails without the need or want of a single material item. I had, after all, long since placed the health of the earth above the want for any material possession. I did not feel defeated; I felt galvanized by this unplanned rite of passage. I needed to leave the wilderness now, but I resolved that I would return to the wild and flourish. I would learn to live in a way that created abundance, instead of merely surviving for my life, living alone in the wilderness, away from my friends and family. I would find a way to love the earth and be part of its regeneration. The fire I had lit with the bowdrill was inside me now, and it would continue to burn throughout my life.
Excerpted from Chapter 8 of Dawn Again: Tracking the Wisdom of the Wild (Propriometrics Press, 2017) by Doniga Markegard.
The Hidden Promise of Our Dark Age: Discovering Our Wisdom, Strength and Beauty in the Midst of Crisis
One of the great activists and spiritual teachers of our era, Joanna Macy, brings a hopeful message: If we can free ourselves from the delusions and dependencies bred by the “industrial growth society,” something wonderful can happen. If we manage to steer clear of panic, we may well find, at last, the wild power of our creativity and solidarity.
Introduction by Nina Simons, Co-Founder of Bioneers.
This speech was given at the 2009 National Bioneers Conference.
Indigeneity is a Native-led Program within Bioneers that promotes Indigenous knowledge and approaches to solve the earth’s most pressing environmental and social issues through respectful dialogue. By fostering a broader understanding of indigenous perspectives, we are building a network of allies to protect and restore traditional homelands. We do this by bringing people together, making original Indigenous-content media, fostering Native youth leadership, and developing learning materials for students and lifelong learners.
John Wick and the Marin Carbon Project are developing innovative carbon farming practices based on their research of the carbon cycle’s impact on soil. These practices draw down dangerous levels of atmospheric carbon and sequester that carbon in the soil where it becomes an agricultural asset. More carbon in the soil increases fertility and yields and make farms more resistant to droughts. If adopted on a global scale, carbon farming can make agriculture a driving force that will help solve the climate crisis and cool the planet.
Explore the Bioneers Carbon Farming Series >>
Videography: Guido Lois and Brenda Manookin
Kandi Mossett of the Indigenous Environmental Network delivers a powerful address on First Nations, fossil fuels, and decolonization of the mind. In this short clip, Mossett dives into the concept of neurodecolonization through mindfulness as described by Dr. Michael Yellowbird and reminds us, “We have to get to the very heart of the problem of this broken system, which is capitalism and colonization.”
For more than 25 years, Kami McBride has worked to harness the power of the natural world. She’s taught experiential herbal programs focused on sustainable wellness practices and revitalizing our relationship with the plant world and also teaches popular online courses that empower people to use herbal medicine in their daily lives. In 2010, McBride committed some of her herbal knowledge to paper and published her book The Herbal Kitchen: 50 Easy-to-Find Herbs and Over 250 Recipes to Bring Lasting Health to You and Your Family, which aims to make cooking with herbs and other home-grown ingredients simple.
At this year’s Bioneers conference, McBride will host an Earth Connection Herb Walk during which she’ll help participants learn how to connect to the Earth in order to live more sustainably. She’ll not only discuss how to use what grows around us as medicine, but will also practice some simple, everyday ways of tuning in and listening to what the Earth has to teach us.
Ahead of the conference, the author and herbalist shared with us what she sees as our biggest challenge right now, and two of her must-read books.
What she’s most excited for within the next year: “Helping thousands of people deeply connect with the Earth through reviving the art of home herbalism.”
Her biggest reason to have hope right now: “The Earth is so beautiful. Every day I listen to her guidance and the solutions that she has for us to carry on. We can do this.”
Our biggest challenge to overcome right now: “Our biggest challenge is that we forgot that the Earth is our Mother, so we are acting like motherless children, fighting, squandering….. When we deeply experience the interconnectedness and relatedness, we can change.”
The number one thing individuals can do to have a big impact on the world in a positive way: “Tune into the song of their own heart: What is it that you truly came here to do at this time?”
The two books she recommends to our audience:
In 2007 May Boeve was a student at Middlebury College when she and several peers teamed up with one of their professors, a journalist named Bill McKibben, to launch an organization aimed at catalyzing a global climate movement: 350.org. It feels almost hyperbolic to describe the impact that 350.org has had on the global climate movement in the time since. With a truly global reach and influence, 350.org has helped to catalyze literally millions of people and thousands of direct actions, campaigns, marches and protests, all aimed at increasing awareness of and taking action on climate disruption. May is now the Executive Director of 350.org, a role she’s held since she was 27, and under her leadership (along with many others, as she’d certainly be keen to note), the organization has remained relevant and vital as the climate movement has evolved and transformed, expanding to incorporate and acknowledge other essential movements for environmental justice, indigenous rights and more.
May spoke with Teo Grossman, Bioneers Senior Director of Programs and Research about 350.org, international climate action, her own personal approach to this work and more.
Teo Grossman, Senior Director of Programs & Research, Bioneers: 350.org has accomplished a huge amount since its founding and has really been essential in describing and mobilizing action (along with other key groups, obviously). Do you have a sense of the overall size of the climate movement at this point? How many are we? In how many countries does 350.org have staff and affiliated networks at this point?
May Boeve, Executive Director, 350.org: We are many! We take a very expansive view of who is in the climate movement—not just individuals or organizations who have a specific focus on climate action, climate policy, climate organizing, climate communications, but also those who see themselves as impacted by climate change or who are working towards its solutions. In that sense we comprise a movement of movements—from farmers who are rebuilding healthy soils that also sequester carbon, to teachers who are instructing a new generation of students in the science of atmospheric change, to organizers advocating for 100% renewable energy in their communities as part of economic development. Climate change has many intersections, and powerful connections exist between the climate movement and movements for social justice, economic justice, human rights, etc.
In terms of 350.org, we have staff in about 28 countries, based on some of the hotspots in the world where lots of fossil fuel projects are being built but can be stopped, where there is financing for these projects, or where there is a vibrant movement we are tied into. We also work where climate impacts are already directly threatening front line communities. This list includes but is not limited to the United States, Canada, Brasil, Australia (through our partners at 350 Australia), the UK, Germany, South Africa, Japan, India, the Pacific Islands, and in Indonesia. Crucially this list does not include many other places where there are vibrant movements—this is what it means to be part of a larger movement. We work with partners in many other countries where there aren’t 350 staff, like Argentina, China, and Nigeria. There are also hundreds of other 350 affiliates and close partners.
TG: Internationally, there are ongoing campaigns across Europe, growing efforts throughout Africa and much more. What are U.S.-based climate activists unaware of that’s happening globally and how can we get involved?
MB: How much time do you have or pages to print?! There are tens of thousands of important fights taking place to prevent the worst effects of climate change. At times a particular campaign takes on particular prominence in the news and there are calls for global solidarity—like the #StopAdani fight in Australia where activists have effectively convinced numerous banks to refuse to fund the world’s largest proposed mine or the fight to stop the Rampal coal project in Bangladesh, located in a UNESCO world heritage site.
I would highly recommend plugging in on social media to keep track of these fights—you can follow us at @350 and we often post specific ideas about how to get involved. [Editors Note: See the map below for 350.org campaigns near you.]
Another way to think about involvement is that people in the US may be implicated without knowing it. This is a large part of why we are so committed to the fossil fuel divestment movement: because you may have your retirement savings invested in a mutual fund that is invested in, say, the Adani or Rampal projects. “Following the money” is often a very powerful way of being an ally to fights around the world, since so much of the funding comes from financial institutions with ties to the U.S.
All of the work happening globally is aimed at ending the age of fossil fuels as fast as possible ensuring a just and fair transition to 100% renewable energy for all. The Fossil Free campaign outlines the three demands we believe need to happen simultaneously if we are to have a good chance at averting the worst impacts of the unfolding climate crisis. We have campaigns all over the world pushing for the following three demands:
TG: What’s the biggest challenge in front of us? Where is your energy going these days? What are you most excited about in terms of opportunities for the movement?
MB: There are many. It’s the most challenging time I can recall since becoming active in the climate movement as a student. The number of global leaders (the Trumps, Putins and Dutertes of the world) advocating a militaristic, anti-people and pro-fossil fuel agenda is on the rise, and they are regularly sacrificing families, even children, to their agendas. They are restricting who can participate in politics, making more space for corporations and less for communities. Abhorrent and immoral decisions are taken regularly, and all of them take time and considerable courage and conviction to resist and then undo.
The times are indeed dark. Finding and looking for hope and motivation to fight back and pursue a proactive agenda is an increasingly essential practice.
There does seem to be a formula emerging in many corners of the globe. Community members have found ways to put their bodies on the line, to convince their global neighbors to divest, to lobby their governments, and ensure that the path they are on points solidly to 100% renewable energy for all and away from the polluting energies of the past.
Therefore, my energy is going into envisioning what it would look like to expand and inspire the amount of community-based Fossil Free fights around the world. Much of this is about the culture we create as a movement, that helps us work together to solve problems, to build and nourish and sometimes re-build relationships, and to sustain ourselves in these fights that often last years. The pressure of all this takes a personal toll on people, which is where solidarity with others and within our own communities is essential. It is a very natural response to the world we’re living in, but gratefully many people can see and recognize this and can help us stay connected. Connection is an act of resistance when our elected leaders work so hard to divide us. If our connection—particularly across the divisions of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, sexual orientation—weren’t so powerful we’d not be seeing this level of attempted division.
TG: Climate change is such a massive challenge – it’s such a complex issue with so much at stake and we’re arguably nowhere near where we need to be globally in terms of responding to it effectively. Are you hopeful?
MB: Yes. And I have to work at hope, as a practice, every day. I’m deeply distraught and paying close attention to the science and seeing people suffer and learning about ecosystems collapsing.
Our work is about building an increasingly larger movement that can build a Fossil Free world. I am not able to engage in that work without hope; because of what it means to build relationships and win campaigns with the energy hope provides. But I am also hopeful because of who I get to surround myself with: passionate and hard-working and kind people who accomplish things that sometimes feel impossible. Like the people of 350 Colorado who are working to pass a set-back on fracking after suffering a defeat last year; the people of Ireland forcing their entire country to divest; they are not backing down, they are learning and they are moving forward.
I have been very inspired by Rebecca Solnit’s work on hope—it’s an action, it’s a muscle, and it’s very much a choice. Especially for me, born with many privileges: to give up hope and give in to despair, seems an abuse of those privileges, when so many people who are living in targeted communities remain hopeful and vigilant in their own struggles. I recommend reading or re-reading Hope in the Dark every few months. My colleague and 350’s Programme Director, Payal Parekh, recently wrote a piece about “Overcoming Despair,” which I also recommend.
TG: What’s your experience with Bioneers? I think you attended first as a Brower Youth Award winner and have been back since. Has the event and network impacted you personally or professionally?
MB: I first attended a satellite conference in Fairfield, Iowa in 2004, when I was traveling across the country on a veggie oil bus. Twelve Middlebury students and I were part of Project BioBus, speaking to students about climate change and alternative fuels. We were in Iowa for Bioneers and our bus was on display. I felt at home there, and it was part of a discovery at that time about who else was out there. So much of my experience in the climate movement has been like that—the sense of awe and relief to learn just how much is going on out there. It gets to your first question: we are so many.
I also remember being very inspired at Bioneers in San Rafael years later. I learned about Wiser Earth at Bioneers from a talk by Paul Hawken, and the 350 team invited everyone listed in that database to participate in our first global day of action. I first heard Naomi Klein at Bioneers and bought her book Shock Doctrine. Now she’s on the Board of 350, a real dream come true to have your own hero in your midst.
Lastly, I am very inspired by the cross-movement view Bioneers has taken, increasingly bringing a wider equity lens to the work, and expanding the sense of who’s involved. I was glad to see my friend Heather McGhee, President of Demos, speak last year about a new “We The People” for as sustainable future. And perhaps most importantly, Bioneers has been an early champion of the full recognition of the leadership of indigenous peoples in the movement, including my colleague Clayton Thomas-Mueller, long time Board member and Bioneers change agent.
TG: What are you reading at the moment? Do you have 3 books to recommend to our audience?
MB: Democracy in Chains by Nancy McLean, Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward, The Farm by Hector Abad
The following is from the introduction to The Four Sacred Gifts: Indigenous Wisdom For Modern Times by Anita Sanchez, Ph.D.
“The hoop is an evolving symbol for humanity, as its wisdom and presence reminds us of how to be and how to do.”
—DON COYHIS, MOHICAN ELDER AND KEEPER OF THE HOOP
In 1994, a vision came to a Mohican man as he slept in his house tucked into the large pine trees on the edge of the Rocky Mountains. An eagle flew above his sleeping self, dropping a beam of light upon the man’s head. This ray of light began to expand, reaching from the sky to the earth. Within the light, a very small sprout sprung forth, becoming a tree, growing through each of the four seasons—the spring, summer, fall, and winter.
Then the leaves of this tree began to fall off. And then soon, the branches began to fall off. What remained was a single stem of the tree, which rose up vertically and then turned horizontally, bending and forming itself into the perfect shape of a circle to represent the earth and the universe.
When the circle or hoop was completed, a single dot of light formed in the sky, coming down to the hoop. The dot of light transformed into an eagle feather attaching itself to the hoop. Then more and more dots of light came from all the four directions—north, east, south, and west—becoming eagle feathers, attaching themselves to the hoop until there were one hundred eagle feathers in all.
When an indigenous person seeks guidance, being in right relation with their community, they will naturally seek out the wisdom of the Elders, who are in communication with spirit and Mother Earth. So, with this dream, Don Coyhis, Mohican messenger, and members from his Turtle Clan took this vision to seventeen Elders in South Dakota, who said, “You need to build that hoop.” They saw this vision as a prophecy of the coming together of the human race: “There is only one race, the human race.” The Elders said, “We walk around on earth in our earth suits. Some come in red earth suits, some white, yellow, and black. Take these four colors of ribbon and wrap each around the hoop, bringing them together in the middle, and joining them with one eagle feather in the center.”
Listening to the Elders, they began to build the sacred eagle hoop. A willow branch was made smooth and gently shaped into a circle. They took the colored ribbon—red, white, yellow, and black—praying and wrapping each one around the hoop. They took their collection of one hundred eagle feathers, praying and attaching each one to the hoop.
Then there was a sacred gathering and hoop ceremony. Twenty-seven indigenous Elders from the four colors and directions—Elders from the North American tribes representing the red and south direction, a Buddhist Elder from Tibet representing the yellow and east direction, a Sami Elder from Finland representing the white and north direction, and two Elders from African tribes representing the black and west Direction responded to the call.
During the ceremony, there was no man-made notion of time—past, present, or future; there was only the Now, one spirit, calling forth through the human beings, through their different languages, through their sacred chants, prayers, blessings, and meditations. There was no separateness, only one mind, one heart, one spirit connecting these Elders and their sacred traditions from the four directions.
The twenty-seven Elders, with joy and solemnity, took cedar planks, laying them in the four directions, placing the hoop on top, and saying, “We have come together. We will put into this hoop four gifts that are necessary for this coming together . . . this healing time.
“The first gift we place is the power to forgive the unforgivable.
“The second gift is the power to heal.” The Elders prayed their healing medicines into the hoop.
“The third gift is the power of unity. The power to come together.
“And the fourth gift is the power of hope. The ability to dream, to see wellness and the powers to attain it.”
After the sacred eagle hoop was built and blessed by the twenty-seven Elders with their four gifts, the hoop began a great land journey, traveling through thirty-five states in the U.S. and to Canada. Don Coyhis took the hoop and traveled to cities, communities, colleges, reservations, and homes. He traveled through many seasons, climates, and environments in this land of our ancestors.
And on this journey, an awakening began. A healing time of prayers, tears, hopes, and a creating time of dreams from all the people, indigenous and non-indigenous alike. Standing in a central place, the hoop is both symbol and catalyst to our awakening, which continues to unfold in magical ways as it makes its journey, touching so many lives.
The four colors, the four directions of the hoop, symbolize harmony and interdependence between the different peoples around the world. The hoop is meant to support all people to discover and trust the four sacred gifts, so that each of us can be a life-giving connection to others: all beings, earth, and spirit. The hoop is a powerful force, a powerful medicine, a coming together of the human race.
Momentum is building. A movement is building across our great lands. We are seeing with a clearer vision the strength and wisdom of our Oneness, and the gifts of the hoop are needed now more than ever to help us realize that vision of life…
The prophecy of the sacred eagle hoop is an urgent message for these urgent times. And, being an indigenous prophecy, it does not revolve around a single person, prophet, or hero. The focus of the prophecy is not on the messenger but rather on the message itself, and the collective community or tribe that holds the message. This is good news.
You and I, all of us, indigenous and non-indigenous, are meant to fulfill the message of the hoop with its four sacred gifts. The hoop prophecy does not predict the future; rather, it presents the probable positive or negative consequences of not heeding the original instructions from spirit. This is what is needed to joyfully fuel our hearts, thoughts, and actions in order to deepen our understanding, to live the truth, the reality, that we are all connected.
So, if you do not remember where you came from, your culture, or your tribe, you have now found your Home. Welcome to this community, the community of human beings who accept these four gifts from the Pan-Indigenous Collective of Elders, and who will use their power to create harmony and connection with all other beings.
Excerpted from The Four Sacred Gifts: Indigenous Wisdom for Modern Times by Anita L. Sanchez, PhD, Excerpted by Permission of Simon & Schuster – Atria Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without Permission in writing from the publisher.
For more information visit www.FourSacredGifts.com
As the president of the Warner Babcock Institute for Green Chemistry as well as the non-profit Beyond Benign, John Warner is on the forefront of designing chemical products inspired by nature and designed to do no harm to people or the planet.
John Warner examines the toxic character of chemistry and reflects on his own path into the field of industrial chemistry and then asks why we don’t look to nature, the most brilliant chemist there is, for the chemical solutions to our modern problems.
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