Though there was never any genuine dislike of any of the stops on our weeklong trip my favorite has to be the University California Santa Cruz garden. Not only was the garden immensely beautiful but it also held an air of sustainability about it. Maximizing the potential of space, time, and education. At every turn we were greeted with something new. May it be the exposed bee hive, compost row, or green houses packed full of juvenile plants. As soon as I stepped foot in to the lush garden I fell in love.
While we meandered through vast plain of foliage our docent spoke to us of the many uses each plant holds. Like the patch of blueberries where students are conducting experiments to see which plants grow best in what conditions. Rows of cover crops help the eye flow smoothly across the rolling hills. While the oceans peeks out from the swaying grasses. Everything works together harmoniously.
We learn about the lucky number of interns that get to stay here, while we parade their luxurious tent cabins. Tent cabins as we learned are a great improvement from the previous camping tents, that offered little protection from outside forces. The Tent cabins are quaint wood structures with canvas lining and simple inside quarters. We soon move on to the herb and flower garden providing immediate cover for there tower of bee hives. I admire the cleansing scent of cotton lavender while honey bees buzz around me. I walk away with pleasant smile on my face. Caught up in the wonder of their garden.
This week, we pulled out the new weeds poking up from the compost after our return back to Woolman. After finishing up the weeding--this time, we hoped, for good--we potted about 25% of the plants that had been growing in the greenhouse. We then planted the dahlias and a couple of other plants directly into the composted ground. Our next step is to fill the antique wheelbarrow with compost and start our mini herb garden.
Chelsi Torres, Woolman Semester Student Spring '12
May 16, 2012
The hope in the success of my propagated and transplanted native plants is high! All of the redbud propagations have leafed out and the Sierra gooseberries, monkey flower, Oregon grape, and some of the bush lupins are still alive. However, it's only time to plant the Oregon grapes, and lupins which are to be planted directly next to the forest garden tomorrow afternoon. There is also a patch of miner's lettuce that I planted on April 16th and will hopefully sprout up soon. I've also made a small amount of progress on the guide book for the garden that I hope will serve to teach young and old about native plants. Check the garden for new additions!
I would like to share about my experience of going to Woolman to visit with current students and staff in the spring of 2010.
I had a great chance to share my experience of being a student at John Woolman School in May of 2010 on location at Woolman during their Spring Semester.
I had a positive life-changing experience as a student at Woolman and I thought it would be great to give an idea of what it was like when I was a student to the current students in the one semester program. It was also a great time to introduce my wife Heidi to Woolman, which she had certainly heard a lot about :o)
Once I got on campus 24 years after graduating, I realized that so much was the same though some things were different. The environment was still beautiful and well-kept. Walking out in the meadow was great. I did wander through the Manzanita to the location of the student-built "Treehouse" and found it lying in a pile on the ground. Close by was a fire circle with fresh wood and was obviously lovingly maintained by someone. ( I am not recommending open fires in a CA grassland.) Years had passed and some things were different, but the energy of the place was still about learning how to be in a world that needs your help.
I was invited to speak after the silent meeting which happens in the middle of the week. This part of the day is controlled by students and is also a community meeting addressing various needs, like scheduling and keeping aware of upcoming events or responsibilities of students and staff. In addition to staff, students, and interns-Ted Menmuir, current pottery teacher and occasional principal and teacher over the years was there. He was the only contemporary of my time at Woolman who was present.
I spoke about the expectations that Woolmanites had of each other when I attended and of the traditions we honored. I spoke of how much we learned to respect each other and develop healthy relationships with the staff, animals, and environment around us. I talked about how each student experienced being valued as an individual at Woolman, and was empowered to follow his or her own way of being in the world. That we had these ideals made for a unique environment. I shared that student conduct at Woolman was not so much about rules as understandings about how one lived in community and took advantage of the opportunities of being in the community. While we were students after every break or vacation we would hug each member of the community the first time we saw him or her when we returned to campus.
Mostly, I talked about being encouraged to follow my heart and take responsibility for my life. About taking my studies seriously, working hard in the Woolman community (workjobs), and being an activist in the larger community as I was led to do so. The work for peace, social and environmental justice just naturally grew out of that.
I also talked about being at Woolman and having the experience of community was something one did as an individual, but it was also in the presence and tradition or lineage of others as well. I compared it to the Native American/First Nations tradition of being in a sacred space with "all my relations." Though the students were there now, the energy of those who had been students and staff before, and even by extension the families of the students who had been touched by the Woolman experience, are present on that land and in that community. Especially at Silent Meeting and graduation, it is clear to me that students take their place in relation to all those who have gone before and even into the future. Such a precious time it was for me at Woolman and speaking there with the students and staff I felt that they knew this preciousness too. They did not have the luxury to experience it for three years as I did, but they clearly appreciated their time at Woolman. I encouraged them to use it well and not get too distracted by the actions which could get them in trouble or out of harmony with the community.
I thanked them for coming to Woolman and taking the time to learn and use their study to help others as well as themselves. I thanked them for the projects of education and activism that they are involved in. I thanked them for listening and half-heartedly apologized for being so emotional.
I can’t say this about any other time in my life but I honestly believe that anything I do here is somehow productive. When I eat a meal here I know I am nourishing my body, when I build a fire I know my cabin will be heated for the night, when I laugh with friends about a joke someone said I know I am happy. Here I have learned to live in the moment and that being silly and having fun can be meaningful.
I have never before felt so supported and loved while feeling supportive and loving. Here at Woolman everything is mutual as we truly live by the golden rule. I see teachers, interns, fellow students, and community members as friends and family and I feel personally connected to each and every one of them. That is incredibly unique. I try not to take for granted the fact that everyone here is so accepting that anyone can be themselves and be appreciated because of their differences. Sometimes I wish the whole world could be like Woolman.
Oh what I would give to have more time here. Time to explore each of the 230 acres of land, to learn all the Woolman recipes, to see the seeds I planted grow, to learn even more from my teachers, to carry out all the plans I have made, and just to spend more time with these lovely people. But I know my time here will soon come to a close and when that day comes I will be happy. Happy because I know that when I leave another person will have the opportunity to take my place and experience this wonderful place I have been lucky enough to call home.
You weren’t what I expected. I guess I don’t really know what I expected. I didn’t expect manzanita. I didn’t expect it to be so dry and lacking of mushrooms, at least in the beginning. I thought that by the end I would feel all experienced and knowledgeable, and confident in my beliefs and opinions, knowing exactly what to do next. Well, here I am with three weeks to go, and maybe those things are true, but I still don’t feel the wayI expected.
Maybe it’s because I can’t wait to go home, and my homesickness is obscuring my feelings towards the last few months. I bet once I go home I’m sure I’ll really begin to see how valuable this experience was. I really did have a lot of good times. Going for adventures in the woods, finding a huge variety of beautiful mushrooms, then coming back and making spore prints galore. Eating a delicious shaggy mane cooked up in coconut oil. Climbing every climbable tree on campus. Climbing that one tree with the rope in it, and swinging out off the branches. Playing with Brosenberg at a much more legit than expected high school auditorium, opening for Michael Moore. THE YUBA, the wilderness trip, watching a snake swallow a fish, then seeing it happen again a couple weeks later. Man, I went swimming in the Yuba every weekend until October. I loved visiting the cows and the obelisk, listening to it hum. I had so many great times avoiding my homework, probably the best. I can’t wait to come back in a few years and see how Woolman has changed. The forest garden will be so wonderful, and hopefully with mushrooms from my project among the rest. Right now I can’t wait to go home, but I’m sure eventually I’ll feel the same way about coming back.
During The Great Turning Trip, the organization, HowMany?org showed us a film about overpopulation leading up to over-consumption of natural resources, food, and space. The video explained that in many cultures it would be against their laws or way of life to get contraceptives. Also, many women just dont know about contraceptions and in many countries in Africa and the Middle East, women need their husband's approval to get it. The film also showed that with the rates in over population increasing the more the rates for comsumption increasing. Some countries have tried to limit the number of children couples could have.
Here are some quotes that stood out to me:
"In 1950, the global poplution was 2.6 billion people and we had 53 billion cars....today the population is over 6 billion people and 5oo billion cars..."
In 1950 americans consumed 144 pounds of meat and in 2007 that shot up to 222 pounds."
The facts go on and on. Watching this video informed me about the situations all over the world. This flim gave me a reason to go back home and inform as many people as I can about this. This situation is one that is serious and important for women to know. If im given an option for birth control, so should other women, and because of the different situations we are born into that's not always a given. To find out more information about this organization their website is Www.howmany.org.
On Tuesday, the 2nd day of our Great Turning trip we visited the Canticle Farm in Oakland, CA. First we met with Annie a resident of the community. She gave us a tour and introduction to the community. We learned that the mission of The Canticle Farm is to break down the barriers in Oakland and create a neighborhood and community that was open and giving. Canticle Farm is definitely setting the example with its open doors and community connections. Later we met Pancho, an immigrant from Mexico who is undocumented by choice. Pancho lives in the Casa de Paz, another house in the community. We spent much of the afternoon in the attic of the Casa de Paz doing meditation and some exercises from the Great Turning workshops. The exercises included questioning where an inner and outer circle was established and we would take turns rotating and asking and answering the questions. We also did an activity in which we asked, “Who are you?” to our partner and listened to them speak for 5 minutes solid. During the answering time we would not comment but just listen fully to their answer. Then we would switch and answer the question ourselves. After lunch we met sister Kimberly who spoke about the interconnectedness of our world. She spoke about the idea that all humans are connected and that we must not think of each of us as separate beings. Brother Adelaja also spoke to us. He told his story about what brought him to The Canticle Farm and his previous struggles.
I really appreciated Canticle Farm’s message about community and oneness. I think that they send a strong and important message by always having their door open. I never realized how important community really was. Having that space to be together can really bring people together and that coming together can have many great effects on the community and the world. When people in a community come together they have the power to make big changes. Many of the activities we did made me think about interconnectedness and that, we as humans are connected on more ways than we may think. The power we have when we come together can be unstoppable.
I knew it would be awkward when I came home, that I had changed in some way or another. I had lived at Woolman long enough to consider it my home, and having two homes can get very confusing. However I never would have guessed how oblivious I was to all of the things in my day to day life that directly relate to what I learned at Woolman. The First thing I was hit with came to me in the middle of a supermarket that my parents stopped by on the way back from picking me up. I hadn’t prepared myself enough and went into a culture shock from the size of the store and what it was selling. There was an amazing amount of subsidized junky cheap food. Anything healthy or local was noticeably more expensive. My parents tried to comfort me with food, but for once I wasn’t hungry. I thought after I had left the supermarket that I would be fine, that it would only happen once in the beginning of my vacation. I was wrong. The first image I saw upon opening the front door of my house was a close up of someone getting stabbed on the TV screen. I flinched, remembering the myth of redemptive violence and other classes that had taught me about how such images get into our heads and lives. The shocks didn’t end there, because there were enough revelations to keep me in shock for the rest of the week. Even though I didn’t know it then, I was in for one heck of a week.
The week that we spent in the bay was really amazing, and it was my favorite things that we've done here at Woolman so far. I took away a lot from it. On one of the days, we went to the mission district and spent half the day wandering around the city and looking at all the allies with beautiful art work and murals. The walls were covered form top to bottom in beautiful color and incredibly detailed. All the murals had different meanings to them, some you could tell right away what they meant, while others you had to take time to really look at it and figure out what it meant to you.
There were murals of people running from things, taking things for granted, peace, war, people that have died. Each mural had its own meaning, there were so many stories behind each thing you just had to look hard enough to see it. The mural trip was my favorite part of the week, cause it wasn't just people talking about things going on around the world and in our country. But it was people showing us what they thought through art work, and their own opions. They told us what they thought of the paintings, but then we were also able to wander around and get our own feel for everything.
A special thanks to the Global Education organization, World Savvy, for taking us on this tour! To learn more about World Savvy, please visit: www.worldsavvy.org
During the Global Issues Great Turning Trip we at the Woolman Semester had the Opportunity to visit the Ella Baker Center in the Bay Area. The Ella Baker Center is named after Ella Baker, a human rights activist and one of the organizers and leaders of the Civil Rights movement. The Ella Baker Center works to end human right violations through a variety programs, for example, the Books not Bars program, which focuses on ending injustice in prisons, closing youth prisons and juvenile halls, and reducing the overcrowding of California's prisons through “sentencing reform.”
They also have programs that use tactics like Theatre of the Oppressed, in which youth create and perform short, ten minute skits acting out scenes of economic injustice, systematic oppression, or systematic racism that they may have to encounter in their day-to-day lives. They perform the skit twice, and the second time around the audience is encouraged to interact with the performers and change the scenes in a way that would find solutions to the violence, racism, or oppression the characters may have encountered.
Unfortunately, due to a scheduling issue we had a limited amount of time at the Ella Baker center and were unable to spend very much time at their offices, and were unable to speak in detail about all of the programs that they are working on. However, we did learn quite a bit not only about what they do, but why they're doing it. Overall, our visit with the Ella Baker center was brief, but positive!
Have you ever been awake, but the experience you were having at the time felt as though you were dreaming? And because the people around you were acting much less ridgedly, would it cause you to think and possibly realize your imaginitive genius still exists while awake?
Interplay was an event on our global issues trip that was based on learning how dance and movement would allow us to interact in new ways. Our hosts explained that the building we were using explained that it used to be a bar and the origin of the Black Panthers. Interplay had a profound effect on me. I learned that leading and following were only steps to learning how to just move in uniform with one another. It makes sense that, as the observer, you would need to have distinctions between character roles such as which one of us was leading or following but to participate would allow for a new perspective.
These cultural standards don't apply if the art form is so free that there is no leading or following. Learning to let go of preconcieved notions and limitations based on our "seperateness" as people has been a part of my recent history and Interplay was a big step towards understanding that there are many creative ways for solving the world's problems. Sometimes all that is stopping our progression in society is a mindset. Our mindsets can be very strong barriers and to overcome them, we as a society must see viability in other, more creative solutions. I don't expect that everyone in my group was having the same experience as me but I feel as though we were all closer as a group after we finished the activity.
Interplay is an organization in Oakland that whose goal is to inspire activism through thoughtful and engaging play. Youth for Environmental Santiy (YES!) is an organization that works to empower and connect youth activists from all over the world. These two organizations collaborated for a meaningful and fun workshop with us on The Great Turning Trip.
Through play, they intend to unite body, mind, and soul, to find the good in you. The goal is to have play without expectations or judgment, so that each person expands to their full creative potential and is willing to completely open their minds. I enjoyed the activities that they did with us. First we played some simple but silly games to get us warmed up and relaxed, then as the workshop progressed, the activities got more and more interpersonal, until we were learning how to use appreciative inquiries to get to know each other on a much deeper level. I will take some of the games that we learned their will me elsewhere because they were so fun. The workshop promoted a lot of understanding and trust in the group.
The emphasis on fun was similar to the Striking at the Roots Workshop and many of the other organizations that we visited. There was a general trend that all the organizations we visited were interested in having fun communities as well as making a difference in the larger world. Interplay was the most focused on this out of all the organizations.
Allow me to start this blog by saying thank you Emily; the Global Issues trip was absolutely amazing. All the activities from Global Exchange to Trash Mash-Up really informed me about the world and changed my life in ways both little and big. One of the later organizations we visited was called Bay Localize. Emily was able to get us a workshop with Bay Localize because her good friend Eva worked there. Thus, after almost getting lost multiple times and taking an incredibly long time to find a place to park and getting lost within the building with its many locked doors, we finally came upon a fancy room where Eva and Kirsten were waiting for us. As we all sat down we noticed the nametags which no teenager can resist. Finally after we all had collected ourselves and wrote fake, silly names on our nametags the two presenters began what was to be another amazing workshop.
In the first, presentation part of the workshop we learned about the goal of Bay Localize. Like a lot of the other organizations we visited, their broad goal was to help communities prepare and weather through environmental and social crises caused by climate change and peak oil.
I find that the easiest way to try to summarize all that they said is to use an example. Imagine a business that wants to be more sustainable or get started sustainably. Bay Localize would help them do this by giving them advice and creating policies and tools to help that business along in their goal to become more sustainable. The presentation perfectly led into the next activity which had us creating our own sustainable business. We all got into four groups who were focusing on different specific issues in the world and brainstormed our own sustainable business that would combat such issues.
After that we got to come up with our very own climate/environment saving superhero. The creativeness of everyone’s superhero was hilarious. Sadly, after that activity, the workshop ended as all good things must. Leaving I remember thinking about how much fun I had and how glad I was that we visited this organization later on in the week. It was a very optimistic break from all the depressing and scary facts the other organizations showed us (not that the other organizations weren’t awesome). I truly did enjoy the entire week and everything new– such as Bay Localize –which we got to experience.
If you would like to learn more about Bay Localize, please see:
Corporations and industrial food systems providing so many globally with so much stuff have accumulated an incredible amount of controlling top-down power in society, both socially and environmentally. Yet these systems in place are too large for us to build a connection without an expiration date. Though they govern much of what we consume. I believe grassroots change by the people for the people holds potential for altering this system and that power-with lies ready in the hands and hearts of the people, and that change on this small-scale holds the most positive power in our society today.
The myth of redemptive violence is increasingly prevalent in our society as we begin to see violence legitimized more and more by politicians, the media, and through numerous aspects of our personal lives. The belief that evil can be overcome through violence and that in every situation as a nation we are the good and the conquered must be the evil only serves to promote the idea that violence saves us.
A classic case of the myth of redemptive violence being promoted through the media were the deaths of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. These almost mythical figures, embedded in the American psyche as being a danger to the collective “everything” that we “stand for,” were successfully and violently eradicated. Their deaths were not mourned, but rather grossly celebrated as being something that we had been hoping for. We were the good and they were the evil, the fact that they were human beings and that they had been murdered didn’t seem to enter into the equation.
Politically, redemptive violence often goes unseen or unrecognized. The recent fervor over Kony 2012 was a mass movement against a universally hated and brutal criminal in a far-off land. However, how often do we oppose the brutality and criminality supported by our own government? When the American government imposes sanctions that kill 500,000 Iraqi children or tortures suspects that remain unconvicted of any crime, when our government approves indefinite detention and spends billions of dollars on wars that the nation does not collectively support, committing unmentioned acts of violence in places where we are not welcome, who opposes this? Both situations deserve our attention. The myth of redemptive violence paints us as the good, when really in a situation outlined by the over-simplified terms of good and evil we are no better than those who we decry with such passion.
The myth of redemptive violence and its presence in my daily life went unnoticed until I spent a week away from Woolman. Through my experience at the Woolman Semester so far I’ve begun to have a dramatic change of worldview, and the fact that coming home for the break seemed to at first entirely reverse this worldview came as quite a shock to me. I left Woolman with the belief that things were indeed not right with the world, but that they could be fixed and that I had the power to create positive change. Day three into the break and I found myself thinking aloud, “Well, things aren’t that bad. There’s nothing I can really do about any of it anyway.” I was mortified at this to the point where I stopped what I was doing and eagerly sat down to read the articles that were assigned for homework.
It came down to this: while at Woolman, I felt legitimate. Everyone around me seemed to be in full support of all of the same peace, social justice, and sustainability movements that seek to make our world a fair place for all. At home it seemed as if the problem was everywhere: I began to see the myth of redemptive violence appear in the television shows that I watched, the newspapers I read, the conversations I had, and the everyday activities that I carried out. Even the clothes I wear are made with little conscience: other people make them for a pittance and I buy them for a relative fortune. The key element of redemptive violence is separation: the belief that all human beings aren’t connected and that our world cannot possibly be webbed with boundless interconnectedness only serves to strengthen the power of redemptive violence to the point that it begins to infiltrate our very consciousness.
The struggle against the myth of redemptive violence is in itself a form of redemptive violence: it is a fight, a struggle, a battle, there seems to be a good and a bad, an evil and a righteous side. As Walter Wink writes, “In short, the myth of redemptive violence is the story of the victory of order over chaos by means of violence (pg. 3).” In our society and in our culture as it exists today, coexistence and unity are not considered to be valid means of creating said order. Peace and nonviolence are equated with chaos, everything around us screams out for winners and losers. However, our systems of war and of violence— both physical and structural—that seek to glorify few and degrade many are exactly that: systems. They are not so deeply ingrained in us as to be irreversible— we are entirely capable of changing the way that our society functions at its very roots so that our systems truly serve us in the pursuit of equality and dignity— if only we remain aware of the world around us and move with intent towards a future that is bright for all of us.
In our day to day lives, we grow attached to certain aspects of how we live; whether its our dietary habits or personal relationships with people, objects or status. Some people live in the mind set that they are not attached to anything. Being attached is only half the situation. Interplay is a practice in which people can learn how to establish, lead, follow, attach, let go and then come back through dance.
The activities that were facilitated with our group at Interplay is movement and action based. During the establishing phase, each person picks a movement or action and moves and mills through the other participants. At any moment the game shifts, through the lead/follow phase each person randomly pairs up, one person will lead by continuing their movement or action and the other will begin to follow. As the leader is now 'attached' to their movement or action, in the next phase the pairs break apart all the leaders pick new movement/actions until they are a leader again or decided to follow someone else. At the end, each person returns to their original movement/action as part of coming back to things you were once attached to.
This game is a giant metaphor for life. It has applied to me in so many ways. One of the things that impacted me most about Interplay is the lead/follow concept. The idea behind it is that in healthy human relationships each persons must take turns in leading and following. Take a moment to think about how that idea applies to you.
Sally Mitchell, Cynthia Winton-Henry, and Shilpa Jain,
On the last day of our Great Turning trip we visited Bridget and Jessica McCracken at the Institute on Aging in San Francisco to learn about their project Trash Mash-Up. We spent part of the time talking about how much waste there is in the United States. Items like Tetra-pack cannot be reused or recycled in the traditional sense and just end up in the land fill. There is great possibility for all the trash a city produces. That’s where the McCracken sisters come in. On their own and with the help of supporters, they’ve collected large amounts of so called “waste” to be repurposed as costumes and art. They have worked with schools and kid groups to create ornate and cultural masks and costumes for theatrical productions and parades.
After discussing their work and organization, it was time to start getting creative. We were going to be making dream catchers—a cultural art form done by many Native American tribes to help catch good thoughts and dreams. Tetra-pack, markers, scissors and paper were whisked out of bags. The room exploded into the busy sounds of cutting paper and coloring. We followed the McCracken’s lead and, step by step, the assortment of trash became funky, silly and sweetly designed dream catchers. Everyone worked as a big group—our first grade teachers would have been proud—as we shared the glue sticks and politely asked for the scissors. We all helped each other to get the project done.
This activity showed me that one man’s trash is everyone’s treasure. I was reminded that we can do more than just the traditional sense of recycling in the blue bins. Repurposing old materials into interesting artwork is just one way we can make lemonade out of what lemons we’re given. We have available to us a whole world of usable, free resources that can be used in school programs and workshops for the youth. Attending this Trash Mash-Up activity reminded me of our trip to Inter-Play earlier in the week. Both activities focused on the great potential for social change that can be found in having fun. Being an activist does not have to be big, depressing work. Sometimes what change calls for are laughter and growing connections between people. There is a great value in remembering that we are all having this great human experience together.
The panel of Occupy Oakland activists was a very interesting stop on our weeklong field trip. I got to see what Occupy was about and what kind of people were in it. I knew Occupy was made up of a lot of different people, but it was really shocking to me to see how diverse they really were .In some way, Occupy has done a lot already for the people it helps, also for the people whom are helping. Learning and hearing everything the panel had to say was great. They spoke of what the movement means to them, how they got into it, and how it affects their lives.
The Occupy panel was made up of a high school young female, an older female nurse, a father of 3 kids and then 3 or 4 everyday normal people. These people shared their stories. The high school girl made an Occupy group within her school and put together walkouts. The father of 3 joined occupy because he felt as if the school board and government wasn’t helping the education system very much. They closed too many schools and cut funding so he felt like it was his job to step up and help. Another man spoke about how his life before Occupy was all about living what he thought was a negative lifestyle. Since Occupy his life changed dramatically. Now he has new friends, a new style of dress, a totally new way of seeing things, and is feeling good about helping people. Everyone spoke about how much they love to help and get things done. Over all it was great meeting these people, they gave me a real look of what Occupy is and made up of.
