The Art of Rehumanizing

Though my local climate is temperate, I can still see and feel the seasons shifting all around me here at the ranch. We’ve entered a phase of the year when I tend to notice myself craving a reprieve from our culture’s usual insistence on go, go, go. You, too? 

As we approach the back-to-school season, I’m reflecting on the research I began years ago while getting my doctoral degree in psychology. I studied the wellbeing of young students, teachers, and administrators, and learned that schools can (and maybe should) be understood as ecosystems where living beings exist in relationship to each other. Kind of like farms.

When I was in graduate school for psychology, I studied the ways our public school system suffers from a colonizing mindset, and through research discovered how this harms not just students, but also teachers, administrators, and parents – the whole educational ecosystem. What’s worse, it ultimately limits our human potential to flourish and thrive.

It’s been a while since I last wrote to you, but today seems like a great day to bring this newsletter back, since it’s the Summer Solstice – the longest day of the year, representing bright new beginnings and an abundant harvest ahead. Here’s a peek at what I’ve been up to in the last year or so…

I recognized what an incredible privilege it was to capture the enormity and importance of the preserved Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, the largest remaining nearly-intact ecosystem in the Earth's northern temperate zone, all in half a day’s flight. I was able to see for myself the impact of climate change, as experienced by a local in his lifetime.

The parallels between my own process and that of the land are striking: having been poisoned, my life was nearly ended. Once the poison was removed my body rebounded quickly and came back to full health. This is true in natural ecosystems, too.

I recently attended two different leadership trainings: a Mindful Leadership retreat at Esalen and Al Gore’s Climate Reality Leadership training in Minneapolis. Both were amazing, informative, and empowering.

Notes on a favorite slam poet.