One day I was contemplating our retreat center’s 310 acres and adjacent Crown Land (US readers: National Forest) and all the wildlife living on it, wondering what I could do to help the ecosystem be and stay as healthy as possible.
Then lightning struck. Wait a minute! I’m an integral part of this ecosystem!
Buddhist philosophy maintains that insight produces bliss, and that insight produced a lot of bliss. The sudden shift to greater perception of all the connections between me and everything around me in that moment felt noticeably better than the previous mindframe – however positive it was, – of trying to support something I perceived as outside myself.
In that moment I felt like a mere gossamer thread in the infinite web of life, and that felt far more powerful and profound than a Mighty Me.
What a beautiful challenge that lies before we humans as a species: how ingenious, innovative and effective can we be? How can we turn our societies around so that they are holistically and sustainably and meaningfully enriching? How can we leave our ecosystems, our communities and our finances healthier than when we arrived on the scene?
Let’s sink our teeth into that one!
This 3.5-minute interview clip with Holistic Management International board member and 7,000-acre Paicine Ranch co-owner Sallie Calhoun addresses how HM addresses the land management aspects of these challenges.
“I love that realization that humans are an important part of the landscape and that they should use their creativity, and can use their creativity to improve biodiversity, to improve resilience.” – Sallie Calhoun
It takes a village.
Traditional farming landscapes in places like Bali and Japan illustrate this principle most graphically for me, creating a buffer zone between jungle and village. Modern life and challenges to small-scale ag are calling out for creative adaptations of these models.
Additionally, I’m learning that spending more time learning about people may be one of the best ways to address ecological needs. I realize I often don’t know what even people close to me really want, and sometimes we don’t know ourselves what we want, deep down. I’m looking forward to learning more new perspective sand methodologies in our upcoming workshops on Holistic Management with consensus-building expert Jeff Goebel.
Enjoy the video, and I invite you to share your views. Ecologically or holistically speaking, what do you really want? And how could you see yourself using your creativity to improve ecological resilience?
This video is the fourth in a series of interview clips with former Holistic Management board chair, 7000-acre Paicine Ranch co-owner and business woman Sallie Calhoun.
Holistic Management founder Allan Savory speak at TED about reversing desertification of our planet’s grasslands here.
Calhoun shares about Profitability, Native Grasses and Carbon Sequestration in this four-minute video.
Watch this three-minute video with Calhoun for more on how sustainable grazing management a lá Holistic Management sequesters carbon.
In this 4.5 minute video, Calhoun explains how Holistic Management works for us, other people, the planet and profits whether we live on the land or work in an office, or switch from one to the other.
In this final 5-minute clip we get excited at the prospects of how each of us can help mitigate climate change.
Our retreat center, Clear Sky, will host an Introduction to Holistic Management workshop with consensus-builder and HM teacher Jeff Goebel on 26-28 Feb., 2015 outside Cranbrook, B.C. Register here.