Re-imagining education with the Earth
On the upcoming Re-Imagining Education Conference and a week in review
Dear readers,
How are you doing today? Where are you on this precious planet? What more-than-human being, element, or entity are you bringing with you as you read?
I am writing from a quiet Sunday morning here in Costa Rica, traditional territory of the Huetar pueblo, and bringing birdsong and mist and humidity from the depths of rainy season.
This week, I began several gatherings with this prompt, which is inspired by how we often begin gatherings within the Ecoversities Alliance. The Alliance is a global community and when we gather in virtual space, this prompt is a way to bring the land into the call with us.
One PhD student shared that it was the most beautiful introduction they had ever experienced in an academic environment, which made me both happy and sad - happy that they were moved by the experience, but sad that this very simple practice was unusual, because all education could be this way!
The beings from the land where I live that I was bringing with me into spaces this week were a butterfly and a rainbow. As I shared about last week, I facilitated an International Day of Peace event on Monday, which was very beautiful. We gathered in the bamboo hut and shared poems, prayers, songs, and reflections. The event was bookended with two beautiful more-than-human blessings: a butterfly and a rainbow.
As I set up the space for the gathering in the bamboo hut, a butterfly came and rested on my shoulder, and stayed a while before flying off. After the event at lunch, a rainbow graced our presence. We get a lot of rain in Costa Rica but the conditions for rainbows (at least in my little corner) are rare, so it felt like a special occurrence, a blessing. I also had some magical encounters with a caterpillar and brilliant feathers this week.
This time of year is very full - the fast-flowing river of life - and it is easy to move past these moments, to barely register them. I have been really trying to practice dwelling in these moments of beauty, magic, and enchantment, staying with them for a few breaths, let them settle into my being. The current is moving fast, but I am trying to take the time to notice, to be grateful.
The upcoming Re-Imagining Education Conference asks the question, “How can we re-imagine education with the Earth?” We can begin by bringing the Earth into the space with us, consciously and intentionally, in these simple ways, and attending to the ways the Earth is already present with us, collaborating with us.
The conference takes place next month, and I hope you will join us! It is one of my favorite spaces to be in, and some of my favorite people on the planet to be with.
About the conference:
What would happen if we compost the word “education”, what nutrients will be out of it? How can we change the predatory system that we live in into a cooperative one? How can we bring more cooperation into systems that are dominated by unhealthy competition?
Join us for a virtual conference as we re-imagine the future of education. REC 4.0 invites new connections and deepening relationships that will transform education within and beyond academia. This conference is in collaboration with the Ecoversities Alliance, learners and communities from a plurality of worldviews, backgrounds, and experiences. Together, let's plunge into uncharted waters and discover new ways to learn.
Please join us from Oct 24th- 27th! Register here: https://re-imagining.education/
This event is offered in the spirit of the gift economy.
I will be hosting an open dialogue space on Saturday the 26th on the pains and possibilities of re-imagining education from within. I would love to see you there!
In another space, I offered the guided meditation from this post earlier in the summer. I am sharing it again here in case you missed it or want to revisit it:
You can also find more resources like this on the Guides and Meditations tabs of the Enchantable Substack homepage.
This week I begin teaching the first class I have had the chance to develop from scratch at UPEACE. It is called Identity, Community, and Peacebuilding, and the purpose is to give students a foundation in self-reflection, weave the learning community within our department, and provide them with some communication tools and practices like nonviolent communication and restorative circles, and connect all of this to their wider peace work. Part of what we will be reflecting on is how community is more-than-human, and remembering the wider Earth community we are a part of. For me, this is part of remembering interbeing and unlearning separation that is at the heart of my pedagogy and life.
How can we re-imagine education with the Earth?
Whatever work you are doing out there, how can the Earth help you re-imagine it?
I believe it starts with simple practices, like paying attention and bringing the Earth with us into these conversations. We are the Earth, so the Earth is already with us, because it is us, and we just need to attend to that understanding and live from it.
The Earth is here to support us, collaborate with us, and re-imagine with us. What happens when we tap into a much wider imagination than our own? To paraphrase Vanessa Andreotti, we make the impossible possible when we learn to trust the invisible and work in an entangled way1.
As I move into the intensive teaching portion of the end of the year, I don’t know what my writing practice will look like, but I do know that teaching often gives me a lot to write about, so we’ll see :)
Sending you birdsong and rainbows!
With love and care,
Stephanie
I highly recommend listening to the full podcast conversation here: https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/125-vanessa-andreotti