“Carl has written extensively about animal wisdom, rituals and behaviours, most notably in his recent book, “Becoming Wild: How Animal Cultures Raise Families, Create Beauty, and Achieve Peace.” Susan Woodward
Carl Safina with Macaw Chick
Communicating Animal Sentience with Carl Safina
Sentient Planet is a podcast I started hosting on Earth Day 2021. It showcases the more-than-human animals with whom we share the Earth and the humans dedicated to their urgent defence and preservation.
It’s been a wonderful creative project to put my energy into during this time of pandemic. The subject matter can be emotionally tough to prepare for, but the interviews give me the opportunity to explore species and sentience and what they all mean for our collective future, and to share the wisdom of animal advocates and Earth lovers with listeners.
I started publishing Season 2 a few weeks ago. A popular guest is the renowned ecologist and bestselling author, Carl Safina. Carl has written extensively about animal wisdom, rituals and behaviours, most notably in his recent book, “Becoming Wild: How Animal Cultures Raise Families, Create Beauty, and Achieve Peace.”
It’s been suggested that the members of this sangha might really enjoy this and related Sentient Planet episodes. That would be awesome! You can find Carl’s interview here.
Please feel free to email me with your thoughts and suggestions if you would like to. sjwoodward@spiritnw.net.
At each meeting of It’s Alive! one of our members will offer a talk about a project close to their heart; a time for heartfelt discussion and sharing stories.
Maxine’s Talk: Deep Time Spiral walk for Earth Day
A transcript of the talk Maxine gave the Deep Time Spiral Walk is available here. It will be made available as a podcast.
Have come from earth
And earth is where
this body shell
shall stay
Of the stars
Not knowing
what that means
Of the sky
Beginning out of the beginningless time spiral of 13.7 billion years ago. In the ether of molten gases before a whiff of cellular organism. The beyond time story begins. I am not a scientist and have no expertise as to the formation of this universe but when I recently experienced this story at a Deep Ecology Yatra in early 2020 in NZ I felt a strong inspiration to retell it in our local community at an Earth day event. For us humans we need to be reminded of this over and over again. The words we used at our ritual were those used by John Seed inspired by the work of Joanna Macy and written by Miriam McGillis. The spiral walk leads us through the billions of years and after the three spirals we see how the importance of us humans is greatly diminished. The stardust heritage waiting for us at the completion of this life and the great turning of this universe will continue.
It’s NAIDOC and this year’s theme is “Heal Country”.
This update looks at what healing country might mean for all of us.
The Black Lives Matter link library is links to a wide collection of online resources referenced by members and through our discussions. It can be acessed at www.brightanddark.net/blmlinks or via the [CATEGORIES] menu above. You will land on featured items, but if you scroll through the dropdown menu you can view all items or select to view by topic or category: books, movies, articles etc
Contributions are welcome, email curlytrees@gmail.com
An exploration of the meaning of Healing Cuntry on the Naidoc Website
Country…sustains our lives in every aspect – spiritually, physically, emotionally, socially, and culturally. It is more than a place, it is spoken of like a person. Country is family, kin, law, lore, ceremony, traditions, and language. Through our languages and songs, we speak to Country; through our ceremonies and traditions we sing to – and celebrate Country – and Country speaks to us.
In this Conversation article, Bhiame Williamson looks at what it means to heal country and three ways we can all help. Far from being powerless to protect Country, there is much an everyday Australian can do. Here are three examples:
2) Donate to charities that support Indigenous land and sea management programs.
3) Write an email to your local MP and ask how they’re supporting local Indigenous land and sea management programs, including ranger groups or cultural burning initiatives.
In this historical narrative, Mark McKenna examines one event in 1934 – the shooting at Uluru of Aboriginal man Yokununna by white policeman Bill McKinnon, and subsequent Commonwealth inquiry – a mirror of racial politics in the Northern Territory at the time.
Through speaking with the families of both killer and victim, McKenna unearthed new evidence that transformed the historical record and the meaning of the event for today. As he explains, ‘Every thread of the story connected to the present in surprising ways.’ In a sequence of powerful revelations, McKenna explores what truth-telling and reconciliation look like in practice.
The ailing Murray-Darling River system is almost constantly in the news but we hear very little from the people who’ve cared for this country and its water for millennia.
To make people aware of the environmental disasters from their point of view, Aboriginal elders, custodians and others from the Basin’s waterways offered an open invitation to their water healing ceremony at the birthplace of the Murrumbidgee River. Led by Uncle Max Harrison, with Sue Bulger, Bruce Pascoe, Richard Swain, Wayne Thorpe
This week in Australia is Reconciliation Week….reconciliation with Australia’s first peoples, reconciliation with the brutal history of colonisation that continues to reverberate, reconciliation with country…
Some new food for thought in our Black Lives Matter link library
You can access the BLM link library directly at www.brightanddark.net/blmlinks or via the [CATEGORIES] menu above. You will land on featured items, but if you scroll through the dropdown menu you can view all items or select to view by topic or category: books, movies, articles etc
Contributions are welcome here or email curlytrees@gmail.com
Before the 17th century, people did not think of themselves as belonging to something called the white race. But once the idea was invented, it quickly began to reshape the modern world.
Across three-and-a-half centuries, whiteness has been wielded as a weapon on a global scale; Blackness, by contrast, has often been used as a shield. An article in the Guardian by Robert P Baird
This online story map, takes you on a journey through Darug and Darkinjung Country on Dyarubbin, the Hawkesbury River in New South Wales. Dyarubbin flows through the heart of a vast arc of sandstone Country that encircles the city of Sydney and the Cumberland Plain on the east coast of Australia. This map places Abororiginal names back on Dyarubbin the Hawkesbury River. The list was recorded in 1829 by Rev. McGarvie and has been researched by Historian Prof. Grace Karskens with Darug knowledge holders Leanne Watson, Jasmine Seymour, Erin Wilkins and Rhiannon Wright and a team of linguists.
Rare aerial photos intended to help open up the outback to mining following World War II instead deliver a lesson from the last generation of Indigenous people to live in the Great Sandy Desert on how to protect life and country. An article on ABC online by Ben Collins
