Weeds to Wellness: Strengthening Your Connection to Nature with Rosalee de la Forêt
Embark on a captivating journey of herbal exploration with renowned herbalist Rosalee de la Forêt in our upcoming webinar. Join us as we unravel the untold stories of the often-overlooked plants that thrive in your local environment, proving to be powerful allies on your path to well-being and connection to Nature.
Partnering with Beavers for a Resilient Future with Jakob Shockey
The Live webinar is at 12:00 am PDT/3:00 pm EDT on Tuesday, July 9th
Join us in discussion with Jakob Shockey, co-founder of Project Beaver, for an insightful webinar that explores a pivotal question, "How can we move towards coexistence and partnership with Nature even in places where we as humans have dramatically altered the landscapes?" Looking to Nature and co-creative partnership, we will delve into the role of beavers as natural engineers and their crucial contributions to environmental health and sustainability.
During the webinar, you’ll learn about the critical ecological benefits that beavers provide. They create and maintain wetlands, essential for a diverse range of flora and fauna, which serve as natural water filters, reduce flooding risks, and help in carbon sequestration efforts. Jakob will discuss how the structures built by beavers, such as dams, can prevent flash flooding and reduce soil erosion, essential for restoring degraded landscapes and repairing damaged watersheds.
Despite their importance, beavers are often seen as nuisances. This session will challenge such views and highlight the need for a shift towards coexistence and appreciation of beavers as valuable partners in our environmental efforts.
Engage with us to explore how co-creative and co-existence efforts with beavers can lead to a more sustainable and resilient future for all life.
Jakob Shockey is a professional wildlife biologist, entrepreneur, land steward, and storyteller. His work focuses on restoring the natural process and order of resilient habitat, its wildlife, and the complex interrelationship with humans. He has been working professionally in Oregon’s streams, rivers and wetlands for over a decade. He is the foremost authority in mitigating beaver conflicts with human infrastructure in Oregon, through his company Beaver State Wildlife Solutions. Jakob also co-founded and leads Project Beaver, a nonprofit dedicated to empowering humans to partner with beavers and value their works.
Jakob lives in the Siskiyou Mountains of Southwestern Oregon, with his wife and their three children along the same creek he grew up swimming in. While Jakob remembers cannonballing into pools that teamed with young coho, that stream now goes dry every summer, and instead of swimming, his kids play with powdery rocks. That shift in baselines for what is perceived as “normal” in just one generation has animated his work.
Jakob values community, truth, awareness, and grace. He is a clear-eyed optimist, working for resilient human and non-human habitat with tools like strong inference and evolutionary theory. He flies a paraglider, climbs big trees, volunteers with Search and Rescue, plays the fiddle, and once gentled a wild horse, which he took with him to college. He also sings to himself, loves flying kites and can’t spell.
To learn more about Jakob and Project Beaver, visit their website at: https://projectbeaver.org/
ONE Members' Community Meet-up: Kinship of Plants and People
By inwardly participating in the formative processes of plant life, we are realizing something about our own beingness. Using our sense perceptions, can we listen carefully enough to hear Nature’s language in the surging, flowing, ripening, spiraling, integrating, creating, composting...It’s coaxing us into a meditative and contemplative cycle that carries us from seed to roots, stems to leaves, and blossoms to fruit.
ONE Members' Community Meet-up: The Soul of the Soil, Beauty and Deep Medicine
The main topic of conversation will be the Soul of the Soil. You will have an opportunity to share about your relationship with Soil as well as your experience with the Soil Gratitude Ceremony. This is a great way to get to know others in the Nature Evolutionaries Community.
ONE Members' Community Meet-up: Rejuvenation and Connection, Community Tea
We give thanks and deep gratitude, inviting others to join us at the hearth, lighting candles within our souls to prepare for an inner journey. Maybe it is with dance, or maybe deep rest, or a bit of both. Come join us for a delightful meetup and community tea ~ rejuvenating body and spirit!
Exploring Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary with Keith Laakkonen
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An insightful webinar featuring Keith Laakkonen, Sanctuary Director at Audubon’s corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary in Southwest Florida. In this engaging conversation, Keith delves into Corkscrew's unique ecology, focusing on its old-growth cypress, Ghost Orchids, Wood Storks, and the significance of prescribed fire in maintaining the delicate balance of this unique sanctuary. Discover the fascinating history of the Everglades and the impact of development and alteration of this landscape through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
We explore ongoing restoration and conservation efforts in the region and emphasize the crucial role wetlands play in maintaining ecological balance and the health of the entire region. Keith, who grew up in Southwest Florida, also shares his experiences amidst the captivating landscapes, the inspiration that fuels his connection to the land and water, and the journey that led him to his current role.
This webinar offers a rare opportunity to connect with the heart of this natural wonder and gain insights into the passion and commitment driving conservation efforts in the area.
Keith Laakkonen, as Sanctuary Director of Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, oversees the 13,450 acres in the Western Everglades. Leading a dedicated team of 25 people, he focuses on land conservation, research, policy, and public engagement.
Laakkonen is Audubon's spokesperson for the Western Everglades. He collaborates closely with Audubon Florida's leadership to reach conservation goals in the region, and he and his team are dedicated to restoring and protecting the Sanctuary's ecology.
With over 20 years of environmental management experience, Laakkonen has held distinguished roles, including Director at the 110,000-acre Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve and a regional administrator for the Office of Resilience and Coastal Protection at the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. His accolades include the Guy Bradley award from Audubon Florida, earned during his tenure as the Environmental Sciences Coordinator for the Town of Fort Myers Beach.
A Southwest Florida native and avid birder, Laakkonen's educational background includes a Bachelor of Science in wildlife ecology from the University of Florida and a master's degree from Florida Gulf Coast University with a focus on sea-level rise policy. His diverse interests encompass watershed management, environmental policy, wildlife ecology, prescribed fire management, hydrologic restoration, exotic plant and animal management, as well as environmental education and outreach.
To learn more about Keith and Audubon’s Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, visit their website at: https://corkscrew.audubon.org/
ONE Members' Community Meet-up: Flowers Breaking Through the Cement of Culture
Let’s explore how we are actively lifting climate stress from our human nervous systems and birthing what has always been fundamental to our being: loving-kindness and enjoyment. With the vision of a flower that needs only the basic elements to thrive, can we learn to simplify the narrative and become active participants in an ever-changing world that includes all beings?
Activating for Earth Day Every Day
The Live webinar is at 9:00 am PDT/12:00 pm EDT on Sunday, April 21st.
Join us for "Activating for Earth Day Every Day," a special fundraising webinar featuring renowned herbalists, teachers, and authors Pam Montgomery and Kat Maier. They'll share personal tips they use daily to deepen their lived connection. Practical, easy, and deeply insightful, you'll be guaranteed to be inspired to deepen your own connection and experience profound Earth partnership every day.
Whether through plant connection, herbal remedies, or gratitude practices, discover how small daily actions can make a significant impact on our planet's well-being. Gain personal tips for immersing yourself in Nature and deepening your connection to the Earth as Pam and Kat share personal insights and practical tips.
What's more, this is a fundraising event for ONE, and your contributions have the power to go even further with a generous $2500 matching grant in place. Every dollar donated could be doubled, amplifying your support for vital Nature partnership education programs like our free webinar series and weekly inspiring Earth Writes emails. And, as always, your donation is tax-deductible.
Register now to secure your spot and donate now to double your impact!
Kat Maier RH, (AHG) is the founder and director of Sacred Plant Traditions, a center for herbal studies in Charlottesville, Virginia. One of her greatest accomplishments has been to train many clinical herbalists who have gone onto to begin other schools, apothecaries or open their own practices. In clinical practice for over 30 years, Kat teaches internationally at universities, conferences, and herbal schools. She is a founding member of Botanica Mobile Clinic, a nonprofit dedicated to providing accessible herbal medicine to local communities. The Botanica clinic arose out of her school’s free clinic which was one of the first on the East Coast and served as a template for other herbalism schools. She began her study of plants as a Peace Corps volunteer, and her training as a Physician’s Assistant allows her to weave the language of biomedicine into her practice of traditional energetic herbalism. She is coauthor of Bush Medicine of San Salvador Island, Bahamas, and author of Energetic Herbalism. As a passionate steward of the plants, Kat also served as president of United Plant Savers and was the recipient of the organization’s first Medicinal Plant Conservation Award.
You can connect with Kat here: Website, Sacred Plant Traditions Website, Sacred Plant Traditions on Facebook
Pam Montgomery has been investigating plants and their intelligent spiritual nature for more than three decades. As an author, teacher, and practitioner, she has passionately embraced her partnership with the plants who are guiding us in our spiritual evolution.
She is the author of Partner Earth: A Spiritual Ecology and the best-selling Plant Spirit Healing: A Guide to Working with Plant Consciousness. She teaches internationally on plant spirit healing, spiritual ecology, and people as Nature Evolutionaries.
Pam is the founder of ONE. She has dedicated herself to co-creative partnership with all of life and feels the Organization of Nature Evolutionaries is a way to make this partnership manifest.
You can connect with Pam here: www.wakeuptonature.com
Summoned by the Earth with Cynthia Jurs
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Join us for this enlightening webinar as Cynthia Jurs shares her story of Sacred Earth Activism and inspires us to ask ourselves this question:
How can we bring healing and protection to the Earth?
In 1990 Cynthia climbed a path high in the Himalayas to meet an “old wise man in a cave”—a venerated lama from Nepal. In response to her question, the old lama gave her a formidable assignment based on an ancient practice from Tibet: she must procure earth treasure vases made of clay and potent medicines, fill them with prayers and symbolic offerings, and bury them around the world where healing is called for.
Ultimately, the path from the wise man’s mountain cave winds around the world, bringing Cynthia into relationship with elders, activists, diverse ecosystems and communities. One by one, as the humble clay pots are planted in the Earth, the power of an ancient technology of the sacred comes alive and a global community grows to protect the Earth and learn how to become vessels of healing.
As many of us wonder what we can do in this eleventh hour, Cynthia offers a riveting account of one woman’s response to the challenges we face, and invites all of us to become “sacred activists” heeding the call of the Earth.
Cynthia Jurs became a dharma teacher(Dharmacharya)in the Order of Interbeing of ZenMaster Thich Nhat Hanhin in 1994 and, in 2018, was made an honorary lama in the Vajrayana tradition of Tibetan Buddhism in recognition of her dedication to carrying out the Earth TreasureVase practice. Inspired by thirty years of pilgrimage into diverse communities and ecosystems, today Cynthia is forging a new path of dharma in service to Gaia—a path deeply rooted in the feminine, honoring indigenous cultures, and devoted to collective awakening. Cynthia leads meditations, retreats, courses, and pilgrimages to support the emergence of a global community of engaged and embodied sacred activists. She lives at the foot of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in northern New Mexico, where she is often found walking in the wilderness with her dog or gardening with her husband. You can find her offerings and join the global healing community at www.GaiaMandala.net
If Cynthia’s webinar activated you, and you would like to participate in Gaia Mandala’s Full Moon Global Healing Meditation Series, you can find more information here.
Inspired by an ancient Tibetan Buddhist tradition, the Earth Treasure Vase Global Healing practice lives at the center of the Gaia Mandala (www.gaiamandala.net) Community where once a month on the full moon we join in a meditation of sacred activism and invoke the locations where Earth Treasure Vases have been buried around the planet to bring healing and protection to the Earth. We imagine our prayers radiating out to activate a global healing mandala that has been created over many years, embracing all of Gaia in our love.
ONE Members' Community Meet-up: The Language of Wetlands, Flowing and Merging in Gratitude
In co-creative partnership with Wetland beauty, we invite you into a poetic expression of life that supports all life. When we come together in a group, gathering and sharing our experiences can be an exciting process. We get to learn from one another, and we get to practice our expanded capacity to speak of our shared love and gratitude for Wetlands.
Wetlands: Water, Earth, Life with Myra Jackson
In the third session of our Wetlands Series, we explore the confluence of Water and Earth in sustaining abundant life. Drawing on her years of work with communities, rivers, and freshwaters worldwide, Earth Elder Myra Jackson shares about her co-creative partnership with water and wetlands as places of wonder, unity, and connection. These awe-inspiring, unifying spaces foster biodiversity, mitigate climate change, and help sustain life on a global scale.
Immerse yourself in the reciprocal movement between water, a life-giving and dynamic force, and wetlands, which purify our ecosystems. Delving into the intricate relationship between humanity and wetlands, Myra skillfully guides us to feel our connection with the freshwaters in our own landscapes.
As we approach the Spring Wetlands Gratitude Ceremony, let's come together to honor the magic of wetlands and deepen our connection to these vibrant, vital aspects of Nature.
Myra Jackson is an Earth Elder who has held careers in engineering, holographic organizational development and academia. She carries the title of Diplomat of the Biosphere with a primary focus on transforming our societal relationship with Nature through public policy approaches that recognize Nature's intrinsic rights to exist whole along with all Her life forms. She also serves as an expert on the platform of the U.N. Harmony with Nature Program. Her life’s work is anchored by her role as an Evocateur of the Sacred and those ideas whose time has come.
Myra participated in the Women Working for the Earth Summit hosted by ONE and has been a webinar guest sharing her highly popular topic, “Nature’s Embrace: The Way of True Reparations.”
Communities, Water and Connection with Dr. Emily Hite
Join us for the second session of our Wetlands Series.
We will talk with Dr. Emily Hite to explore the complex connections between communities and their land and water. Dr. Hite is a cultural, environmental anthropologist and passionate advocate for environmental sustainability whose research focuses on the intersection of human-water relationships and climate governance.
Dr. Hite investigates the far-reaching consequences of damming rivers and how communities and wetlands are intricately linked to the health and vitality of these waterways. We will speak about the importance of maintaining the integrity of rivers and the delicate balance required to sustain both human communities and the diverse ecosystems they rely on. As part of this conversation, Dr. Hite will share stories of communities working together to maintain an ancestral connection to their waters and land in the face of infrastructure and land development.
How did Dr. Hite find her passion for her work, and what is her personal relationship with water?
She will share valuable insights from her research and collaboration with the Global River Protection Coalition and her studies in Costa Rica, as well as shed light on the Coalition’s ongoing efforts to enhance wetland protections on a global scale.
Together, let's empower ourselves with knowledge and contribute to the collective effort to preserve the waters that flow through our world.
Dr. Emily Hite is an Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Saint Louis University. She is also a primary investigator at SLU's Water Institute and serves as a regional co-chair of the Global River Protection Coalition. Her research is focused on understanding human-water relationships and how they are challenged by both climatic changes and climate policy. A central concern of her research is the justice and equity of the processes of climate governance, with particular interest in how different knowledges, values, and belief systems are integrated into those processes.
Dr. Hite works with dam-impacted communities in the United States and throughout Latin America and conducts research at international climate and hydropower meetings to understand local-to-global perspectives. The ultimate aim of her research is to influence more culturally-informed governance that aligns with the principles of climate justice.
To learn more about Dr. Hite please visit her website http://www.emilybentonhite.net/ or her SLU university site,https://www.slu.edu/arts-and-sciences/sociology-anthropology/faculty/emily-hite.php.
Tides of Change: Wetlands, Indigenous Food Systems, and the Impact of Colonial Histories with Dr. Lyla June Johnston
Join us as we delve into the profound intersections of Wetlands, Indigenous food systems, and the enduring impact of colonization, featuring the esteemed Dr. Lyla June Johnston.
The Story is in Our Bones: How Worldviews and Climate Justice Can Remake a World in Crisis with Osprey Orielle Lake
Join us for an illuminating journey with Osprey Orielle Lake, a renowned author, activist, and changemaker, as we delve into the pressing need to rewild ourselves and our dominant worldviews.
ONE Members' Community Meet-up: When the Moon is in the Feet
Let's slow down... and feel the moon... and our feet.
At one time, the sign of the Moon was meant to tell the farmer when to plant and harvest and when to wean the calves. It was meant to inform us of an enhanced fermentation process that would result in the best time to make sauerkraut ~ or heal our gut microbiome. How is the celestial backdrop of lunar energy informing our lives, and our bodies today?
Reclamation: Regaining My Voice with Christina Lynch
Join us for an insightful webinar as we delve into the inspiring journey of Christina Lynch, a story of reconnecting with her Bajan heritage, her unique upbringing, and the profound influence of her environment on her path to regaining her voice. In this engaging and enlightening discussion, Christina will take you on a journey through her intuitive herbal path, sharing the powerful plant allies that have played a pivotal role in her physical, emotional, and spiritual healing.