EarthWays Winter 2022 Newsletter
Welcoming Winter!
Greetings! We hope you are enjoying the shorter days of winter. While it is certainly a time to honor our instinctive tendency toward stillness and rest, here in northern California, the wild outdoors remains inviting throughout the season. Most of us would be happy to see more rain, yet even when we are blessed with precipitation, we enjoy easy access to local trailheads and comfortable outdoor temps. Let's face it, it is easy for us to be outside all winter long. And, as Covid lingers, being outside, whatever the weather, is the safest place to be when visiting with friends. And, when you are not comfortable hugging other humans, a tree is nearby just waiting for your warm embrace. Winter is a time for dreaming and planning. And we dream of seeing you in one of our upcoming programs. Please check out what we have planned for the the coming year. We would love to see you soon. Stay wild! Stay safe! - The Guides of Earthways LLC

Gratitude

It is with humble and joyous hearts that all of us at EarthWays thank those of you who responded to our donation request late last fall. Much to our delight, we received over $3000! This will help greatly with some website expenses, and also provide a small scholarship fund. Your generosity, as our community, buoys us as we move into 2022. Many thanks.
When you wake up and you see that the Earth is not just the environment, the Earth is us, you touch the nature of interbeing. And at that moment you can have real communication with the Earth…. We have to wake up together. And if we wake up together, then we have a chance. Our way of living our life and planning our future has led us into this situation. And now we need to look deeply to find a way out, not only as individuals but as a collective, as a species.

-- Thich Nhat Hanh (October 11,1926 - January 21, 2022)
Upcoming Programs

Wild and Awake Series - Waking Up, May 7th
Sugarloaf Ridge State Park Sonoma County
Guides: Cynthia Eisho Morrow and Scott Eberle

Letter to the Earth, May 21st
West Sonoma County (TBD)
Guides: Sahara Chaldean and Sara Harris

Barebones of Ceremony, June 23rd thru 26th
Pomo Canyon Sonoma County
Guides: Sahara Chaldean and Scott Eberle

Dancing with Uncertainty: Learning to Navigate
a Life-Altering Illness, June 11th
Wild lands in Sonoma County
Guides: Deb Greene-Jacobi and Scott Eberle

Cultivating Resilience, August 13th
Sugarloaf Ridge State Park Sonoma County
Guides: Sahara Chaldean and Cynthia Eisho Morrow

Wild and Awake Series - Belonging: The Web of Life, August 27th
Sonoma County (TBD)
Guides: Cynthia Eisho Morrow and O. Andrew Schreiber

Wild and Awake Series - Expanding our Identity, October 15th
Sonoma Coast Beach (TBD)
Guides: Cynthia Eisho Morrow and Roy Remer

Wild and Awake Series - Wild Love: The Heart Responds, February 4th, 2023
Sonoma County (TBD)
Guides: Cynthia Eisho Morrow and Sara Harris




KINSHIP: BELONGING IN A WORLD OF RELATIONS
Co-edited by Gavin Van Horn, Robin Wall Kimmerer, and John Hausdoerffer

This collection of essays and poems is a treasury of brilliant composition, experiences and storytelling which cover an astounding array of subject matter including Planet, Place, Partners, Persons and Practice. Understanding our kInship with our human and non-human relatives is worth exploring and thinking about. These writings offer inspiring new perspectives on how can we honor and nourish these vital wild processes and relations.

This collection is taking me on quite a journey over time as I read and savor the deep wisdom shared in these pages. I wholeheartedly recommend this amazing collection to anyone committed to deepening their connection to the mystery and wonder of life and the natural world we live in and share relationships.

- EarthWays guide, Deb Greene-Jacobi

Why Children’s Stories Are a Powerful Tool to Fight Climate Change

Marek Oziewizc 
January 14, 2022 in YES! Magazine

The power of children’s stories resides largely in its audience: in how open young people are to new ideas. Their drive to experiment is familiar to any parent: Children invent new words, do things differently, and ask “why” about pretty much everything we adults take for granted.

For teachers, children’s noncompliant curiosity is at once a source of delight and frustration. We know this curiosity lies at the heart of learning, and we strive to keep it alive by pushing against educational systems built on factory-model standardization. And while some dismiss youth “rebelliousness” as a stage—something to grow out of—what if it is really a refusal to comply with the wrong ways of doing things that adults have acquiesced to?

In this time of climate change and biodiversity loss, children’s ability to imagine alternatives to the way things are may be the most powerful force for the socioeconomic transformation we need.

By a Pond
by David Wagoner
(June 5, 1926 - December 18, 2021)

Its face, as calm as the air,
holds an inverted world
of trees and a trembling sky,
and I'm looking at a garden
as far away from my eyes
as if I lay underwater.

What the seers and sibyls learned
in their rippling mirrors no one
can say for sure. A dropped stone
would send it flying and show
where the earth begins again.

All I can ask for answers
from what I see in my mirror
are the shades of apple blossoms
over which water striders
lighten the touch of bees
against the mud of heaven.

We hope to see you soon