At the 2016 ESTIA conference, Still Water co-director and New Media professor Joline Blais used her keynote address to acknowledge a number of the most important practitioners who have contributed to her creative projects over the past decade.
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Tags: GreenHouse, LongHouse, orono, presentation, Still Water, sustainability, Wabanaki, Wassookeag
To coincide with Digital Humanities Week 2011, Joline Blais joins permaculture experts Julia and Charles Yelton, social media hackademic Craig Dietrich, Rural Maine Partners’ Claudia Lowd, and members of the Wabanaki community in hosting “Social Media and Sustainability” at LongGreenHouse, a clearinghouse for sustainable culture on the edge of the U-Me campus.
Tags: education, gardening, GreenHouse, LongHouse, orono, permaculture, presentation, sharing, Still Water, sustainability, University of Maine, Wabanaki, Wassookeag
As the final speaker in the panel discussion “Re-Imagining Globalism: Maine in the World’s Economy” at Bates College on Jan. 25, 2008, Peter Riggs, Executive Director of the Forum on Democracy and Trade, concluded his talk on climate change and international relations with a call for a new kind of creativity:
“Probably the most exciting part of looking ahead to what is a climate-constrained world, is the opportunity of new art forms to emerge. If cinema was the artform of the twentieth century, I submit to you that the artform of the twenty-first century is going to be–and it’s performance art by the way–restoration ecology.”
The talk was featured in Maine Public Radio’s “Speaking in Maine” series; mp3 and podcast available.
For reference, here’s a longer transcription of Riggs concluding remarks.
“Finally, since we are in a liberal arts school, I think probably the most exciting part of looking ahead to what is a climate-constrained world, is the opportunity of new art forms to emerge. If cinema was the art form of the twentieth century, I submit to you that the art form of the twenty-first century is going to be–and it’s performance art by the way–restoration ecology. Because we’re going to get really good at understanding how to rebuild ecosystems on their timescale and their timeframes, and that interrogative process of what ecosystems need to flourish, particularly in a time of atmospheric change, will teach us a lot. And I personally look forward to more engagement on the art and science of restoration ecology, because I really think that’s the future.”
Tags: economics, GreenHouse, Maine, Still Water, sustainability, Wassookeag
Archimedes was wrong: the tool most people use to move the earth is the mattock. Although often overshadowed by its big brother, the pickaxe, the mattock works on a human rather than industrial scale.
You find pickaxes in diamond mines and labor camps, where burley men with short lifespans heave them to gouge precious bits out of the earth and feed multinational corporations. You find mattocks in backyards, where everyday gardeners and homeschooled kids sculpt the soil into strawberry pyramids, herb spirals, and swales that catch rainfall and regenerate life.
Garden overrun with Himalayan balsam? Pry that sucker out with the pointy end. Want to aerate the topsoil without tilling? Stab it with those three prongs on the other end. Nail sticking out of your porch? Hammer it back in with the metal collar on the side. (Admit it, mattock owners, you know you’ve done it.)
In Future Scenarios: How Communities Can Adapt to Peak Oil and Climate Change, permaculture guru David Holmgren argues that ecological solutions on the energetic and geographic scale of corporations and nations (“brown tech”) are doomed to devolve to lifeboat scenarios, when their mining of energy to feed themselves rather than people crashes the ecosystems upon which these hierarchies depend. Simpler solutions at the village and township scale offer our best shot at making it to the 22nd century, because larger farm machines fail not only energetically, but psycho-socially. The carrying capacity of the earth is directly linked to the caring capacity of the beings that tend it.
The “earth stewards” of Holgrem’s ideal future would be well served to find a blacksmith with enough iron ore to make them a collection of mattocks. A mattock is a tool not only for moving the earth, but for moving the human heart closer to it.
Tags: GreenHouse, sustainability, Wassookeag
Local plant supplier Fedco has donated over fifty fruit trees and other plants to help with LongGreenHouse’s planting marathon this weekend.
Old and young permaculturalists, from both the Wassookeag home school and the university and Native communities, drew on this generous gift to populate the first catchment of food forest in the LongGreenHouse plot on the southern edge of the U-Me campus.
Thanks, Fedco!
Tags: food, GreenHouse, orono, permaculture, sponsorship, sustainability, Wassookeag
We invite Wassookeag women and friends to join us for our first Womens; Gathering hosted at LongGreenHouse (5 Chapel) by Miigam’agan. Kate Hastings will open our gathering with a short tribal dance to link our hearts and energies together for the joyous journey ahead! Food Welcome, but come as you are!
Tags: ceremony, family, LongHouse, Wassookeag, women
Debby and Kate will leave LongGreenHouse at 9:30 am for a 10:00 am visit. Or if you prefer, meet us at 10 at the Center!
Tags: Wassookeag
Today Wassookeagers and their friends were treated to a presentation by the University of Maine Debate Society, whose members conducted a debate on whether the US should sign the Kyoto Accord. After the formal debate, the U-Me students held a free-form discussion about climate change as well as their experience of the debate process itself.
Tags: GreenHouse, new events, orono, umaine, Wassookeag
I found this list of 40 characteristics of healthy families online. Of course every family is different, but I thought it might be nice to look at what might be positive attributes to family rather than negative.
http://home.earthlink.net/~chavele/40traits.html
Tags: family, Wassookeag
My dog went to the vet. He doesn’t like it so we had to give him a pill that makes him calm down a little bit. He had to stay overnight. We had to get up at 7 a.m. to get him. But I love him.
Tags: Wassookeag