Host: Michael Toms Interview Date: 10/6/2009 Program Length: 1 Hour
Media:
MP3 Download
Price: $1.99
Program Description: "There are times when our guarded separateness from the nonhuman world breaks down, and it's a moment of grace." It is through such grace-filled moments, that we rediscover our intimate connection with the natural world, whether we're walking a remote forest path or watching the crows dance outside the kitchen window.
Lyanda Lynn Haupt invites us to revisit that connection every day—through a simple awareness of the living world around us, and of the impact our households and our urban lives have on the nonhuman community in which we live. She explains that true ecology means not only appreciating and caring for the wild lands, but also cultivating a more conscious way of living wherever we find ourselves.
She says, "When we think of nature as the pristine place we go to and then return from, the implication is that what we do when we get home doesn't matter because we're not in nature anymore. But we're intimately involved in the more-than-human world at every moment. That can be enlivening and enchanting."
Lyanda Lynn Haupt has created and directed educational programs for Seattle Audubon, worked in raptor rehabilitation in Vermont, and as a seabird researcher for the Fish and Wildlife Service in the remote tropical Pacific. She is the author of numerous articles and three books, including Rare encounters with Ordinary Birds (Sasquatch 2001) and Crow Planet: Essential Wisdom from the Urban Wilderness (Little, Brown 2009). To learn more about the work of Lyanda Lynn Haupt go to www.lyandalynnhaupt.com.
Topics explored in this dialogue:
The difference between wildlife and wild life
How you can renew your connection to the natural world, no matter where you live
Why crows are associated with death
How crows hold funerals for other crows
How you can let go of guilt and become a joyful ecologist
