For this episode, Mary spoke with Katja Biesanz, Katja says of herself, "I help people like you to discover and to integrate different parts of themselves." She provides this service as a professional counselor, drawing on her experience as a dancer, poet, masseuse, and forest farmer.

By the time she was 12, Katha and her family had livied in five different countries. Several of these countries were dictatorships; the things she saw through her child's eyes have stayed with her. She routinely draws on them. including using them to help shape how she thinks about climate change and climate action.

Katja is also profoundly skilled in dance and movement. She draws on this knowledge in her therapeutic work. That service is also significantly influenced by her immersion in Latin American cultures, experience she credits with seeding in her the capacity to sense the energy people carry.

Finally, it's important to mention Katja's commitment to land stewardship and restoration. As you can imagine, ours was a wide-ranging and rich conversation, entirely in keeping with the suggestion that each of us is our own wilderness.

You can learn more about Katja by visiting her website at katjabiesanz.com. You can also check out this facebook link to - The Land - TEMENOS where Katja and her partner practice forest farming - tending and harvesting only the plants that grow in the ocean-front rainforest ecosystem.

Below you’ll find references for the three books authored by Joanna Macy that Katja mentioned early in our conversation. You’ll also find the list of characteristics shared by dictators that Katja has compiled as a diagnostic tool and as a warning.

Perhaps most powerful in our time talking together were Katja’s offers of ways for considering our energy fields in relation to those of each other and all of the natural world. Let’s take what she suggests and open to the possibilities.

Joanna Macy (2012). Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We’re In Without Going Crazy.

Joanna Macy (2007). World as Lover, World as Self.

Joanna Macy (1991). Mutual Causality in Buddhism and General Systems Theory.

Distilled List Dictator Traits (in progress)

• Like to hang out with other “Strongmen”
• Showmanship
• Entertaining
• Humor
• Emotion — such as Hate Mongering
• Demagoguery
• Usurp sacred symbols of other religions
• Uniforms and special clothing
• Demagoguery
• Knows how to get attention
• Not taken seriously until it is too late
• Saying what will do and only the avid believe it
• Desensitization
• Numbing, wearing down
• Scapegoating
• Dehumanizing
• `Press distortion
• Emotion
• Make self/followers victims
• Hate (see scapegoating)
• Nationalism vs Patriotism
• Use religion (usually cynically)
• Projection of unowned parts of self
• Violence
• Encouraging Amateur Violence
• Paramilitary
• Military against own people
• Many are military or control it, but few know war
• Self Enriching
• Countries Wealth Blended with own
• Plutocracy — Wealthy become more so, as long as stay allies
• Ordinary people often suffer
• Many can have extraordinary wealth even in a ‘Communist ‘country
• Lack of truth
• Repetition - repeating lies
• Propaganda
• Discrediting reliable sources
• Say things obliquely, plausible deniability, mafia don
• Power
• Use government functions for retribution
• Loyalty is to party or self, not to the country or all the people

MUSIC ~

This...

With this episode, we begin our 5th season of How it Looks from Here - Life in the time of Climate Change. As we've done in the past, we're launching into year 5 with an episode involving the two of us - co-creators of the Full Ecology programs.

Ten years ago, we began creating the programs and ideas we hold under the canopy of Full Ecology. Among those initiatives is this podcast. In this episode, we look back together over the past four years and share our sense of where we've come, where we are now, and where we're going. We also interview each other to learn how the world is looking to each of us these days.

Listen in to hear about our extension of Full Ecology into each of our current projects, our continuation of programs from the past, and what we're seeing going forward. Gary shares updates from his writing on the Ponderosa pine forests of the American Southwest. And Mary speaks about her new work on Elderhood and wilderness. Finally, with the opening of this HILFH season, we take a step toward keeping our programming real and growing by introducing a way you can help support our work (see below).

You can learn more about our work by visiting our website, www.fullecology.com. We also invite you to drop us a note. As I said in the podcast - Do Not Be Shy! We truly want to hear from you and welcome you as part of the Full Ecology community. Write us about Elderhood or aging. Write us about Ponderosa pine. Share your stories. Ask for a recent newsletter and join us on the second Tuesday of each month for a Deep Dive into topics linking all ecologies.

The thing we can guarantee is lively conversation about trees and wilderness, about devoted hearts, and about wild Elderhood.

Finally, do check out the two friends Mary mentioned. Listen to Paris Mullen speak of his experience in two early HILFH episodes [Episode #3, and Episode #4], and dive into the profound work of Dr. Carma Corcoran, Chippewa Cree scholar and Elder. Dr Corcoran's book, published by University of Nebraska Press is entitled: The Incarceration of Native American Women: Creating Pathways to Wellness and Recovery through Gentle Action Theory You can also learn about Carma in this recent Underscore Native News article.

HOW YOU CAN HELP~

If you like what you’re hearing on HILFH, make sure to subscribe. Let’s get these perspectives out there. Tell your friends and family. Share a link right now with someone you know would enjoy learning how it looks from another viewpoint. As you know, you can find us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you find your podcasts.

And remember, there’s a new way to support us by going to VENMO and sharing a donation of $5, $10, heck $25 with How It Looks from Here and Full Ecology. Go to @FullEcology. And thanks for helping us keep it all real and growing.

MUSIC~

This episode includes music by Gary Ferguson and these other fine artists.

Good Morning Café Jazz - Music by Sleep...

Jacqueline Courteau, Ph.D. is an ecologist, consultant and writer. She's also a teacher of university ecology courses in the field, and focused on restoration, sense of place, natural history and environmental writing.

Most recently, Jacqueline has established NatureWrite, LLC to provide ecological assessment and monitoring, and to measure forest regeneration, deer impacts on vegetation, and other interactions between plants and animals. Earlier in her career, she worked as a science and environmental policy analyst in Washington, DC contributing to an early 1990's report to Congress on how federal agencies could plan for an uncertain climate

In this episode, Mary and Jacqueline consider plant ecology, medicinal plants and love - all in exploration of avenues into climate repair.

You can learn more about Jacqueline by checking out her articles in Feb/Mar and Apr/May issues of Rural Heritage magazine where she offers a two-part series on herbal remedies.

Throughout our talk, Jacqueline continued to call our attention back to relationship with nature - no matter the ecosystem and no matter how urban. Her contention is that paying attention in this way helps us rediscover the love we have for the natural world - a world of which we are and have always been a part.

Jacqueline also mentioned these resources including books on observing plant life, and apps for Citizen Science.

BOOKS:

Kimmerer, Robin Wall (2015). Braiding sweetgrass. Milkweed Editions.

David Haskell, David. (2012). The Forest Unseen: A Year’s Watch in Nature. Viking Books.

CITIZEN SCIENCE:

Spring phenology

Budburst: https://budburst.org

Nature’s Notebook: https://www.usanpn.org/nn

Others

Firefly Atlas: https://www.fireflyatlas.org/get-involved/how-to-participate

Species identification

iNaturalist: https://www.inaturalist.org

This is a species ID app, but if you allow your location to be used, every time you look up a species (and the community confirms it), your finding is mapped, so there’s a great collection of what species have been found nearby.

eBird: https://ebird.org/home

For those of you interested in birds.

And a recent compilation from the Smithsonian, which might list a few additional apps:

https://ssec.si.edu/stemvisions-blog/mobile-apps-citizen-science

Additional Citizen Science Efforts focused on weather:

Community Collaborative Rain, Hail & Snow Network

cocorahs.org

Skywarn Storm Spotter Program

https://www.weather.gov/skywarn/

MUSIC~

This episode includes music by Gary Ferguson and these other fine artists.

Peaceful Guitar - Music by Tung Lam from