Near the end of my training at the Jung Institute in Zurich, I had one of the
most powerful and simple dreams I have ever had. It was a single-image dream of
a typical upper Midwestern landscape. There was a meadow with very green grass,
flowers and possibly alfalfa. The topography was gently rolling with trees on
the horizon. Insects flew above the meadow. It was a beautiful sunny day with
puffy white clouds in a blue sky. What was most remarkable about this simple
scene was that it shown with an inner light: every atom in the dream was alive.
Despite having seen some of the most beautiful scenery in the world—California,
the Grand Canyon, the Canadian Rockies, Switzerland--I have never seen anything
as beautiful as this simple meadow scene.
This is an example of what the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung called a numinous
dream—a dream with an inner light and a sacred sense. I contend that no indigenous
person has had a more sacred dream of the land. Every human is capable of experiencing
this. Long ago Jung recognized this archetypal need of a connection to, and love of the
land that E. O. Wilson calls “biophilia”.
When one has such a dream, the challenge is to let it lead one’s life and direct one’s
conscious orientation. To follow such a dream’s inspiration is to walk a path with heart. Having grown up in Wisconsin, I knew
the state affected me deeply, but I had no sense of just how deeply until this
dream. I began to look at all elements of the Upper Midwest more closely—its
soils, topography, flora and fauna, seasons, etc. To deepen this process and
help convey this sense of the land to others, my wife and I set up a week-long
summer institute in 1991 called Spirit in the Land, Spirit in Animals, Spirit in
People. The Institute was so well received that we ran a second one in 1992,
followed by a reduced version for the University of Wisconsin Extension in 1994.
In 1992 we got a grant to conduct three teleworkshops using presenters from the
Spirit in the Land seminars. This was part of a series of extension programs
called “Strategies for Improving Schools”, our program being titled “New
Approaches to Environmental Education”.
Presenters at the Spirit in the Land seminars included four Jungian analysts; a geologist, soil scientist and
dendrologist; nature educators; a professor of teacher education; a Wisconsin
writer; a Native American artist, Native American story teller, and Native
American dancer; a therapist practitioner of shamanism; a psychiatrist who works
with the criminally insane; the mayor of Madison; instructors in t’ai chi,
psychosynthesis, and body work; the Wisconsin Secretary of State from the famous
Wisconsin progressive tradition; a Buddhist monk; and the daughter of Aldo
Leopold who took us on a tour of Leopold’s shack. The talks I gave at the
various events became the genesis of my writing four volumes of The Dairy
Farmer’s Guide to the Universe—Jung, Hermes, and Ecopsychology. This Spirit
conferences were some of the first Jungian attempts to integrate Jungian
psychology, science, and Native American spirituality in a didactic and
experiential manner. The term “ecopsychology” was coined by Theodore Roszak in
his 1992 book The Voice of the Earth and the first book on ecopsychology
appeared in 1995: I was engaged with the topic before it had a name. To convey
my sense of an interdisciplinary environmental education program, I am
reproducing the contents of three brochures announcing the Institutes and a
description of the teleconferences.
1991 Madison Summer Institute Education for the 21st Century
SPIRIT IN THE LAND, SPIRIT IN ANIMALS, SPIRIT IN PEOPLE
From the Director…
I grew up on a small dairy farm in Wisconsin where I spent
many hours of my free time wandering the hills and marshes with my dog. A deep
connection was forged between the land and my psyche, much deeper than I
realized. After spending many years away from the Midwest, working on a
doctorate at Berkeley in the late 60’s in Insect Pathology (microbial control of
insects), then a master’s degree in Humanistic Psychology from Sonoma State
College, California, and finally training to become a Jungian Analyst in Zurich,
Switzerland, I was led by a series of powerful dreams to return to the land I
have felt so connected to. I also became involved in sweat lodge, vision quest
and Sundance ceremonies of the Lakota Sioux of the Rosebud Reservation in South
Dakota which added a depth of relationship to the environment I could not have
otherwise imagined.
It is out of this background that I have put together a
series of speakers and workshops that will help us embody a unique,
multidimensional experience of our environment. The didactic, Western scientific
content of the program will be presented in such a way as to enhance, not
distance ourselves, from “all our relatives”: the four-leggeds, the standing
brothers (trees), etc. The aesthetics of our relationship to nature will be
experienced by hearing from artists, writers and poets, who have been deeply
influenced by their ties to the land. In many ways and forms the Native American
experience will permeate the program, including a guided tour of Madison’s
fascinating Effigy Mounds with their astronomical alignments and hearing tales
from a Winnebago Indian about the land and the animals of this area. There will
be a strong emphasis on the intra-psychic dimension of our connection to the
environment as revealed by dreams, myths, synchronistic events, and shamanistic
techniques to discover our spirit animals. Madison Mayor Paul Soglin will
discuss the hard reality issues he faces in trying to preserve the environment
via effective legislative and land-use planning.
The entire program will be
framed in a Jungian, symbolic, archetypal perspective, yet the contributions of
the varied and talented presenters will offer perspectives and experiences
beyond this framework. New models for education will be explored as this 1st
Annual Summer Institute is an aspect of a broader model being developed for the
University, entitled Education For The 21st Century.
We have the perfect
environment for this program on the beautiful 135 acres of St. Benedict Center
overlooking the shores of Lake Mendota to the East and rolling hillsides of
trees and farmland to the West. Please join us August 19-25, 1991, for this
week-long Madison Summer Institute—Spirit in the Land, Spirit in Animals, Spirit
in People.
Dennis L. Merritt, Ph.D.
PROGRAM:
Monday, Aug. 19 Registration
1-2:00pm THE SPIRIT IN NATURE AND JUNG’S
CONCEPT OF THE SYMBOLIC LIFE
DENNIS MERRITT, Ph.D.
THE ICE AGE AND ITS IMPRINT
ON OUR ENVIRONMENT
LEE CLAYTON, Ph.D.
WOODLAND TRADITIONS Artist’s slide show
TRUMAN LOWE, MFA
Tuesday, Aug. 20 AN ARCHETYPAL VIEW OF THE MIDWEST ENVIRONMENT
DENNIS MERRITT, Ph.D.
CONVERSATIONS WITH THE SOIL Slide show, violin music and
songs
FRANCIS HOLE, Ph.D.
WALKING IN THE SPIRIT OF NATURE Nature walk
MARION MORAN
ZEN GARDENS; ART BORN OF NATURE’S POETRY Multimedia presentation,
meditation
BRYAN WALTON
Wednesday, Aug 21
MEETING MYSELF COMING ‘ROUND CORNERS
Nationally acclaimed author BEN LOGAN
SPIRIT, EROS AND THE PSYCHOLOGICAL DIMENSIONS OF RELATIONSHIPS Includes video
clips from operas
JOHN HAULE, Ph.D.
SEASONS OF THE SOUL--ARCHETYPAL PATTERNS IN
WEATHER AND CLIMATE
DENNIS MERRITT, Ph.D.
SHAMANIC IMAGES OF THE RELATIONSHIP OF
SPIRIT AND BODY Slide show
JOHN HAULE, Ph.D.
Thursday, Aug. 22
TOUR: NATURAL BRIDGE STATE PARK Plants used by Native Americans
LUNCH at FRANK
LLOYD WRIGHT designed restaurant, Spring Green
TOUR: HILLSIDE HOME
SCHOOL—TALIESIN Frank Lloyd Wright’s Architectural School and Grounds
Tour
Leader…BRYAN WALTON
TRANSFORMATIVE EDUCATION IN AN INTEGRATED ELEMENTARY SOCIAL
STUDIES CURRICULUM
HERB MARTIN, Ph.D.
Friday, Aug. 23
ANIMAL FROLICS AND OTHER CHINESE EXERCISES Exercise, T’ai Chi
DONNA SILVER
WINNEBAGO ANIMAL TALES AND MYTHS
KAREN MARTIN
FINDING YOUR SPIRIT ANIMAL
Workshop, drumming
MYRON ESHOWSKY, M.S.
THE MENDOTA EFFIGY MOUND GROUP Slide
presentation
GARY MAIER, M.D.
Saturday, Aug. 24
Morning in Madison – State Street, Farmer’s Market, John Muir Exhibit, Woodland
Indians Exhibit, Boating on the Lake, etc.
TOUR: EFFIGY MOUNDS Eagle, turtle,
deer, etc. and Frank Lloyd Wright designed Unitarian Church
Tour Leader…..GARY
MAIER, M.D.
BANQUET: Address AESTHETICS, LAND-USE AND THE ENVIRONMENT
Mayor of
Madison - PAUL SOGLIN, LL.B.
Sunday,Aug. 25
THE BLACK MADONNA--THE DARK FEMININE, AN IMAGE FOR THE EARTH
FRED GUSTAFSON,
D.Min.
CLOSING CEREMONY 11:00 –11:30 am
HEDWIG WEILER, M.S.N.,R.N.
PRESENTERS:
LEE CLAYTON, Ph.D. Geologist with the Wisconsin Geological and Natural History
Survey. Special interest in the glacial geology and history of the Ice Age in
the Midwest.
MYRON ESHOWSHY, M.S. Psychotherapist in private practice in Madison
and teaching faculty member of Michael Harner’s Foundation for Shamanic Studies.
Has taught shamanism workshops across the U.S. Much of his current work involves
the integration of ancient shamanic methods with modern psychotherapeutic
practice.
FRED GUSTAFSON, D. Min. Graduate of the C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich
and an ordained Lutheran minister. Practices in Watertown, WI as both Jungian
Analyst and Pastoral Counselor. Contributing author of Betwixt and Between and
author of The Black Madonna. Sundancer for the last 4 years at the Rosebud
Reservation in South Dakota under the leadership of Medicine Man, Norbert Elmer
Running.
JOHN HAULE, Ph.D. Doctorate in Religious Studies from Temple
University. Graduate of the C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich and practicing Jungian
Analyst in Newton, Massachusetts. Faculty member and ex-President of the New
England Society of Jungian Analysts where he has been on the training board for
a number of years. Author of Divine Madness —Archetypes of Romantic Love.
FRANCIS HOLE, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus, University of Wisconsin-Madison,
Departments of Geography and Soil Science. Author of Soils of Wisconsin,
co-author of Soil Genesis and Classification and Soil Landscape Analysis. His
main interest before and after retirement is in the soul and its connection to
the soil.
BEN LOGAN Nationally acclaimed author of The Land Remembers—The Story
of a Farm and Its People. Novelist, non-fiction writer, teacher and
writer/producer of films and Emmy award winning network television. Born in
Southwest Wisconsin, he has remained rooted in that hill country.
TRUMAN LOWE,
MFA Wisconsin Winnebago and a UW-Madison Art Professor specializing in
environmental art. Past director of the Native American Studies Program at UW.
Recipient of numerous awards. Has exhibited throughout the US, in embassies, in
Canada and the Palais de Nations, United Nations, Geneva, Switzerland. His
environmental sculptures are personal investigations into the peoples and
traditions of the Great Lakes and Plains.
GARY MAIER, M.D. Head of Forensic
Psychiatry at Mendota Mental Health Institute, Clinical Assistant Professor in
the Department of Psychiatry at UW-Madison and a national consultant on
aggression management. His longstanding interest in Native American culture goes
back to his childhood. Since being in Madison, he has developed a particular
interest in the mounds of this area.
HERB MARTIN, Ph.D. Assistant professor in
the Department of Teacher Education at California State University, Sacramento.
Has won awards for teaching excellence at Louisiana and California State
Universities. Specializes in world cultural mythologies and their application to
multicultural education in elementary education. His cultural heritage as
African American and Cherokee provides a more personal insight into these
topics.
KAREN MARTIN A Wisconsin Winnebago and graduate from UW-Madison in
Consumer Science and Financial Planning. For several years Karen has been doing
outreach programs in Wisconsin public schools sharing her culture with children
through myths, tales, dance, music and art.
DENNIS MERRITT, Ph.D. [DIRECTOR]
Doctorate in Insect Pathology, UC-Berkeley. Graduate of the C.G. Jung Institute
in Zurich and a Jungian Analyst and sandplay therapist in private practice in
Madison. A contributing author in The Analytic Life, “Jungian Psychology and
Science—A Strained Relationship.”
MARION MORAN Naturalist, previously associated
with the UW Arboretum and the UW Environmental Resource Unit. She provides
courses and environmental programs across Wisconsin, with an emphasis on the
interdependent relationships of all living things.
DONNA SILVER Has been
practicing T’ai Chi Chuan since 1977. Has taught T’ai Chi and various forms of
Chi Kung exercises for nine years based at the T’ai Chi Center in Madison.
PAUL
SOGLIN, LL.B, Mayor of Madison Graduate from UW Law School. A student activist
when elected to the City Council in 1968. Served as Mayor of Madison 1973-79.
Left office for a private law practice. Elected Mayor in 1989 and re-elected for
a second four-year term in 1991.
BRYAN WALTON Has traveled the world as a
professional photographer. His focus has been on helping people of different
cultures achieve mutual understanding through art. He established a craft and
training center in Auroville, South India and was one of the founders of the
International Community at Global View, Spring Green, WI.
HEDWIG WEILER, M.S.N.,
R.N. Has been a practitioner in health care, mental health, healing and teaching
for over 30 years. In private practice at Midwestern Psychological Services, she
is founder and Director of the Psychosynthesis Center of Wisconsin.
LOCATION:
ST. BENEDICT CENTER, WISCONSIN Provides comfortable lodging in a pleasant rural
setting. Facilities include an outdoor swimming pool, hiking trails, volleyball,
badminton, tennis, baseball and basketball. The Center is located 15 minutes
away from the Dane County Regional Airport which is serviced by 6 major
airlines.
1992 Madison Summer Institute Education for the 21st Century
SPIRIT IN THE LAND, SPIRIT IN ANIMALS, SPIRIT IN PEOPLE
From the Director…
We hope to build on the success of last years Institute as we
continue to develop the themes of an integrative approach to environmental
education and an experience that incorporates Jungian depth psychological and
Native American perspectives. The contributions of science to our understanding
and appreciation of the world around us will be respected and put in
perspective. The spiritual dimensions of our relationships to the plants,
animals and the land will be explored by looking at Christian, Buddhist, Native
American and Jungian world views. It is necessary to examine how our conception
of the human psyche affects our relatedness to the surrounding organic and
“inorganic” realms. It is not enough to talk about the environment—we must also
experience being fully in the environment. Music, dance, ritual, poetry and art
are integral aspects of the relationship to our bodies, each other and the
world—“we are all related”—at many different levels. Personal experience and
knowledge forms the basis for consideration of new models for our educational
systems and avenues to pursue in the political arena. These themes and ideas
will take form during a week long program in a beautiful glen near one of the
oldest landforms on the continent—the Baraboo Hills. We will also be privileged
this year to tour the land and hear from a daughter of one of the giants of
ecology—Aldo Leopold.
We received a grant to develop a program for satellite
teacher inservice education—New Approaches to Environmental Education K-12. It
will air nationwide on October 7, 14, and 21, 1992. Three of the presenters from
last year’s Institute, Prof. Francis Hole, writer Ben Logan and Dr. Herb Martin
will each present two hour interactive programs via satellite TV…We have applied
for ECH credits (32.5 hours) for the 1992 Institute…A one day workshop has also
been developed incorporating the three talks I gave at last year’s Institute.
Dennis L. Merritt, Ph.D.
PROGRAM:
Monday, June 22 Registration 1-2:00pm
ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION FOR THE
21ST CENTURY—A JUNGIAN APPROACH
DENNIS MERRITT, Ph.D.
HO-CHUNK (WINNEBAGO)
DANCES (Group participation)
JIM GREEN
THE HO-CHUNK RELATIONSHIP WITH THE
ENVIRONMENT—PERSONAL REFLECTIONS
JIM GREEN
Tuesday, June 23
PSYCHOLOGY, THEOLOGY AND DENDROLOGY (TREES)
LARRY COLLINS
NATURE SPIRITS AND THE
HUMAN PSYCHE (Part I) Includes video clips from operas
JOHN HAULE, Ph.D.
THE
NATURAL AND HUMAN HISTORY OF DEVIL’S LAKE (“SPIRIT LAKE”)
KEN LANGE
NATURE
SPIRITS AND THE HUMAN PSYCHE (Part II)
JOHN HAULE, Ph.D.
Wednesday, June 24
THE OJIBWA CONCEPT OF THE FULLNESS OF LIFE—PRACTICAL ASPECTS
LOUISE MAHDI
EARTH
SCULPTURES Experiential
LOUISE MAHDI
EVENING of meditation, poetry, music,
drumming and yoga
Thursday, June 25
FREEDOM OF THE SPIRIT IN RESPONSE TO MOVEMENT, MUSIC AND COLOR
KAY ORTMANS
THE
WORLD OF INSECTS—AND OTHER ANIMALS
DENNIS MERRITT, Ph.D.
INDIAN EFFIGY MOUNDS AS
EARTH WRITING
GARY MAIER, M.D.
THE MEDICINE WHEEL—THE WHEEL OF LIFE, AS USED IN
AN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL SETTING
HERB MARTIN, Ph.D.
SUMMER NIGHT WALK
MARION MORAN
Friday, June 26
TOUR: THE INTERNATIONAL CRANE FOUNDATION
TOUR: THE ALDO LEOPOLD FARM AND “SHACK”
THE FATE OF THE EARTH
NINA LEOPOLD BRADLEY
WALKING the Leopold farm trails
MARION MORAN
Saturday, June 27
MATTER ENSOULDED—REFLECTIONS ON INDIAN COUNTRY
FRED GUSTAFSON, D.Min.
THE
POLITICS OF THE ENVIRONMENT
Secretary of State DOUGLAS LAFOLLETTE
TIBETAN
BUDDHISM AND THE ENVIRONMENT
GESHE SOPA
OUTING to the Gustafson Farm—Singing,
drumming, barbecue
Sunday, June 28
MEDICINE SHIELD PRESENTATION (Group)
HERB MARTIN, Ph.D.
CLOSING CEREMONY
PRESENTERS:
NINA LEOPOLD BRADLEY Daughter of Aldo Leopold. She and her husband are in charge
of the research done on the Leopold Reserve. She continues her father’s attempt
to restore the land.
LARRY COLLINS Ordained Presbyterian minister. Dendrologist
and lecturer at Grinnell College Summer School, Iowa. Owner of the Riverside
Nursery and Arboretum in Mazomanie, Wisconsin.
JIM GREEN Wisconsin Ho-Chunk and
member of the Bear Clan. Outreach in local schools, pow-wow dancer and artist.
In the tradition of the Bear Clan of maintaining law and order, he is training
at the Madison Area Technical College to be a policeman.
FRED GUSTAFSON, D.Min.
Graduate of the C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich and an ordained Lutheran minister.
Practices in Watertown and Milwaukee, WI as both Jungian Analyst and Pastoral
Counselor. Contributing author to Betwixt and Between and author of The Black
Madonna. Sundancer for the last 5 years at the Rosebud Reservation in South
Dakota under the leadership of Medicine Man, Elmer Running.
JOHN HAULE, Ph.D.
Doctorate in Religious Studies from Temple University. Graduate of the C.G. Jung
Institute in Zurich and practicing Jungian Analyst in Chestnut Hill,
Massachusetts. Faculty member and ex-President of the New England Society of
Jungian Analysts, where he has been on the Training Board for a number of years.
Author of Divine Madness—Archetypes of Romantic Love.
DOUGLAS LAFOLLETTE,
Secretary of State Gained a national reputation during post-1970 Earth Day for
articulating our environmental population resource crisis. Doctorate in
Chemistry from Columbia University and was Asst. Prof. at UW-Parkside. Founded
Wisconsin’s Environmental Decade, served in the State Senate and is currently
Wisconsin Secretary of State. Has worked as Public Affairs Director for the
Union of Concerned Scientists. Asst. Director of the Mid-American Solar Energy
Complex and national board member of Friends of the Earth. Member of 1990
National Earth Day organization and author of The Survival Handbook: A Strategy
for Saving Planet Earth.
KEN LANGE Naturalist at Devil’s Lake State Park for 26
years. Author of several books and other publications on the Park and Sauk
County. Worked for the Smithsonian Institution and attended UW and the
University of Arizona.
LOUISE MAHDI Graduate of the C.G. Jung Institute in
Zurich. Practicing Jungian Analyst in Illinois. Founder of the Temogami Vision
Quest Camps in Canada. Editor of Betwixt and Between, The Reality of the Psyche
Series of Open Court Publishing Co. Producer of a film in progress of adolescent
dreams of nuclear holocaust, filmed in Russia, Japan, Europe and USA.
GARY
MAIER, M.D. Head of Forensic Psychiatry at Mendota Mental Health Institute,
Clinical Asst. Prof. in the Dept. of Psychiatry at UW-Madison and a National
consultant on aggression management. His longstanding interest in Native
American culture goes back to his childhood. Since being in Madison, he has
developed a particular interest in the mounds of this area.
HERB MARTIN, Ph.D.
Asst. Professor in the Dept. of Teacher Education at California State
University, Sacramento. Has won awards for teaching excellence at Louisiana and
California State Universities. Specializes in world cultural mythologies and
their application to multicultural education in elementary education. His
cultural heritage as African American and Cherokee provides a more personal
insight into these topics.
DENNIS MERRITT, Ph.D. [DIRECTOR] Doctorate in Insect
Pathology, UC-Berkeley. Graduate of the C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich and a
Jungian Analyst and sandplay therapist in private practice in Madison. A
contributing author to The Analytic Life, “Jungian Psychology and Science—A
Strained Relationship.”
MARION MORAN Environmental educator for 25 years.
Naturalist, previously associated with the UW Arboretum and UW Environmental
Resources Unit. She provides courses and environmental programs across
Wisconsin, with an emphasis on the interdependent relationship of all living
things.
KAY ORTMANS Founder-Director of Well Springs Foundation. Trained at the
Royal Academy of Music, the Dalcroze School of Eurhythmics, London, UK and the
Rudolph Steiner School in Germany. Taught at Teacher Training Colleges in
England, University of British Columbia, UC-Berkeley and San Francisco State.
Won Canadian National Radio Award for her programs for children. Received
Holistic Health Achievement Award in 1983. Currently involved in the Well
Springs Discovery House Pilot Project in Madison, WI.
GESHE SOPA Tibetan
Buddhist and spiritual teacher at Deer Park Tibetan Center, Oregon, WI. Chair of
the Board of the Deer Park Corporation. Born in Tsang province, Tibet and began
his monastic training at the age of nine. Formal education from Sera-Je College,
Tibet. Professor in the Dept. of South Asian Studies, UW-Madison. Escaped across
the mountains to India with the Dalai Lama in 1959 after the Chinese invasion.
Asked by the Dalai Lama in 1963 to accompany three lamas to America. Awarded a
Fulbright to study in India and Tibet. Author of The Wheel of Time and The
Practice and Theory of Tibetan Buddhism.
LOCATION:
DURWARD’S GLEN, WISCONSIN A unique place--a monastery in a canyon--provides
seclusion and natural beauty with its springs and flora that date from the Ice
Age. The log building is on the National Register of Historic Buildings and the
new accommodation center provides comfortable lodging close to the Wisconsin
River and Devil’s Lake. The Glen in located one hour away from the Dane County
Regional Airport which is serviced by 6 major airlines. Thanks to the Van
Waveren Foundation, New York for a grant to help in funding and support of this
years Institute.
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN EXTENSION PROGRAM
“SPIRIT IN THE LAND”
Because of the success of the week-long “Spirit in the Land, Spirit in Animals,
Spirit in People” programs described above, my wife and I were invited to
arrange a program for the University of Wisconsin Extension Education. We chose
several presenters from the seminars and reduced the program to two days, which
meant we had to eliminate most of the experiential dimensions of the program. My
wife and associate director, Chris Merritt, arranged an art exhibit to accompany
the program with the theme “Spirit in the Land.” The “early birds” were able to
venture out on the morning of the second day of the program to a buffalo farm to
see and learn about these magnificent animals. A tasty farmer’s breakfast was
served atop a hay wagon that included grilled buffalo meat. The fifty people,
mostly teachers, who attended the program gave it one of the highest ratings
ever for an extension program. What follows is the content of the brochure
advertising the program which will give readers a sense of my concept of
interdisciplinary environmental education.
Spirit in the Land:
An Interdisciplinary Approach to Environmental Education
Monday, June 20, 1994 Tuesday, June 21, 1994 8:30 a.m.-9:30 p.m. 8:30 a.m.-4:15
p.m.
Wisconsin Center 702 Langdon Street University of Wisconsin Madison Campus
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
From the Director…
The
rapid rate of environmental degradation challenges us to learn more about
environmental problems and cultivate new ways of relating to nature. This
two-day workshop meets the challenge in a holistic manner, integrating the
dimensions of science, art, music, depth psychology, politics, Native American
perspectives and storytelling. Experiencing a variety of perspectives encourages
participants to develop an ecological way of using various disciplines and the
arts to educate themselves and others. The focus will be on approaches to
teaching and an awareness of educational resources that teachers can draw upon
to enrich both their personal lives and their school curricula.
The workshop is
designed for all teachers and community members—not only those in the sciences
and environmental education. It is hoped that this affective dimension of
teaching will reach across subject area boundaries. Participants will explore
new ways of perceiving and relating to the environment that provide the
foundation for our attempts to save it. They will learn about the excellent
resources of the Environmental Awareness Center on the UW-Madison campus and the
UW Arboretum’s training program for teachers and students on Prairie Restoration
for Wisconsin Schools. Each presenter embodies a different mode of environmental
awareness and will provide handouts, reading lists and suggestions for classroom
activities.
The Spirit in the Land experience will be augmented by an art
exhibit and special video showings in the evening. The Madison setting will
serve as a wonderful locus for “placing” this instruction. In addition to its
beautiful physical setting, Madison was a center of Indian mound building and
has the excellent resources of the University of Wisconsin with its rich legacy
of leadership in the area of environmental concerns and education.
- Dennis L.
Merritt, Ph.D.
A two-day workshop for • K-12 Classroom Teachers • Teachers of
Psychology, Art, Science, Music, Drama, Language Arts, and Social Studies •
Curriculum/Learning Coordinators • TAG coordinators • All People Interested in
Environmental Education and Issues
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Program
Monday, June 20
8:30 a.m. Registration (Coffee and rolls)
9:00 Welcome Linda Shriberg, program
manager UW-Madison School of Education
9:15 New Approaches to Environmental
Education
Dennis Merritt
10:30 Break (Beverage refills)
10:45 Mythical
Dimensions of Trees: Their Impact on the Human Psyche As Revealed by Dreams,
Myths and Cultural Attitudes
Herb Schroeder
12:00 Lunch (On your own)
1:00 p.m.
Indian Effigy Mounds—Their Function As Symbolic Earth Writing, Astronomical
Calendars and Nodal Points for Connecting People to the Earth
Gary Maier
2:15
Break (Juice and soda)
2:30 Visit to Environmental Awareness Center and Indian
Effigy Mounds
Regional Design for Sustainability—A Vision For Sustainable
Natural and Urban Systems in the Upper Midwest
Phil Lewis
4:30 Dinner Break (On
your own)
6:30 Art Exhibit and Video Showings Art exhibit: Spirit in the Land
Exhibit and Reception: Porter Butts Gallery Memorial Union
Video Showings:
Development of videos funded by a 1992-93 grant from SERC (Satellite Educational
Resources Consortium) Showings: Wisconsin Center
Meeting Myself Coming ‘Round
Corners Ben Logan, author of The Land Remembers: The Story of a Farm and its
People
Transformative Education in an Integrated Social Studies Curriculum Herb
Martin, professor of Education, University of Maine at Machias
9:00 Adjourn
Tuesday, June 21
8:30 a.m. Hello Again (Coffee and rolls)
9:00 Conversations with the Soil Using
Soil Songs, Violin Music, Slide Show and Puppets
Francis Hole
10:30 Break (Beverage refills)
10:45 The Politics of the Environment
Douglas
LaFollette
12:00 Lunch (On your own)
1:00 p.m. Animal Tales and Myths
Karen Martin
2:15
Break (Juice and soda)
2:30 Living Out the Land Ethic
Gregory Armstrong
4:00
Concluding Remarks
Dennis Merritt
4:15 Adjourn
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
About the Presenters:
Gregory Armstrong, M.S., received his
graduate training in Botany from Smith College in Massachusetts, and is a
recipient of the Kew Diploma from the Royal Botanical Gardens in Kew, England.
He spent 13 years as director of the Botanical Gardens and lecturer at Smith
College. For the past 10 years, as director of the UW Arboretum, Mr. Armstrong
has been carrying on Aldo Leopold’s legacy of the land ethic.
Francis Hole,
Ph.D., is emeritus professor in the Departments of Geography and Soil Science.
As author of Soils of Wisconsin, and co-author of Soil Genesis and
Classification and Soil Landscape Analysis, his main interest is how to instill
a deep sense of our profound connection to the soil.
Douglas LaFollette, Ph.D.,
received his doctorate from Columbia University, taught at UW-Parkside, and
gained a national reputation during post-1970 Earth Day for articulating our
environmental population-resource crisis. He founded Wisconsin’s Environmental
Decade, served in the State Senate and is currently Wisconsin’s Secretary of
State. Mr. LaFollette has been public affairs director for the Union of
Concerned Scientists, assistant director of the Mid-American Solar Energy
Complex and national board member of Friends of the Earth. He is a member of the
1990 National Earth Day organization and author of The Survival Handbook: A
Strategy for Saving Planet Earth.
Phil Lewis, M.L.A., A.S.L.A., A.I.C.P.,
received his landscape architecture degree from Harvard University, and is Jens
Jensen professor of landscape architecture, director of the Environmental
Awareness Center and instructor at UW-Madison for 42 years. He is a recent
recipient of the Gold Medal of the American Society of Landscape Architecture,
the Wisconsin Idea Award and the James Graaskamp Award from Capitol Community
Citizens. Mr. Lewis also is author of Regional Design for Human Impact and of
Tomorrow by Design: An Interdisciplinary Process for Sustainability (in press).
Gary Maier, M.D., is head of forensic psychiatry at Mendota Mental Health
Institute, clinical assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry at
UW-Madison, a national consultant on aggression management, and is a regular
guest on WHA radio with Jean Feraca. He has a long-standing interest in Native
American culture, particularly in the Indian Mounds of the Madison area.
Karen
Martin, B.S., is a Wisconsin Winnebago and a graduate of UW-Madison in consumer
science and financial planning. For several years she has been conducting
outreach programs in Wisconsin public schools, sharing her culture with the
children through myths, tales, dance, music and art. She is currently working on
the WINGS Project, an outreach program through the Department of Genetics at
UW-Madison that provides genetic counseling for Native Americans.
Dennis
Merritt, Ph.D., received a doctorate in insect pathology from UC-Berkeley,
graduated from the C.G. Jung Institute of Analytical Psychology in Zurich,
Switzerland, and is a Jungian analyst, sandplay therapist, and eco-psychologist
in Madison. He authored “Jungian Psychology and Science—A Strained Relationship”
for The Analytic Life, and was recipient of a 1992-93 SERC (Satellite
Educational Resources Consortium) grant on New Approaches to Environmental
Education for national teacher in-service.
Herb Schroeder, Ph.D., received a
doctorate in environmental psychology from the University of Arizona-Tucson, and
for the past 13 years had been a Research Social Scientist with North Central
Forestry Experimental Station in Chicago, a branch of USDA Forest Service. His
focus is on people’s experiences and values regarding the natural environment
and how this relates to forest management.
SERC Wisconsin
Satellite Educational Resources Consortium
Strategies for Improving Schools/1992-93 Teacher In-service Teleworkshop
Series
>
New Approaches to Environmental Education K-12
October 7, 14, and 21, 1992
Introduction
The main theme of this series is cultivating and expressing a sense of
relationship with the environment. This goes hand in hand with having an intense
curiosity about the environment and developing a deep understanding of it.
Scientific facts about nature can increase our curiosity and interest in nature,
thereby deepening our relationship with nature. But facts presented too
intellectually or as masses of information to memorize are counterproductive to
establishing that relationship.
Teachers must have a deep sense of relatedness
to the environment before they can imbue such a sense in their students. The
relationship is subsequent to, and the foundation for, how we treat the
environment and our efforts to protect it. Unless we have or can develop that
Native American sense that “we are all related” to the two legged, four legged,
the standing brothers (the trees), etc., all will be lost. Even the scientist
Carl Sagan said, “Efforts to safeguard and cherish the environment need to be
infused with a vision of the sacred”.
The three instructors in this series are
well prepared to help us see our environment differently and move us into a new
relationship with it. They will focus on the environment’s impact on our psyches
if we open ourselves to it and become more conscious of its effect on us. They
will emphasize the affective dimension of teaching while conveying content,
offering many innovative approaches and techniques for doing this.
Professor
Emeritus Francis Hole is a living example of how science and passion can be
brought together to deepen our appreciation to a vital element most would
consider uninteresting and irrelevant—the soil. Dr. Herb Martin, an Assistant
Professor of Education, champions an approach to environmental education
practically ignored in current curriculums by emphasizing the symbolic and
mythic dimensions of our connections to animals and nature. Writer Ben Logan
articulates and helps bring to consciousness, as only a writer can, how the land
impacts our psyches and captures us at deeper levels we are largely ignorant of.
Overview
In Dr. Hole’s program, “Conversations with the Soil”, there are two goals: To
provide participants with a deeper appreciation for soil in terms of its
importance, complexity, variety, aesthetics, and impact on our psyches; and to
provide a variety of approaches and procedures teachers can use in the classroom
to increase knowledge and appreciation of the soil.
Dr. Martin’s Program,
“Transformative Education in an Integrated Elementary Social Studies
Curriculum”, is designed to help participants: Work with students to develop a
sense of relationship to the environment by emphasizing symbolism and world
mythologies; and use the Native American concept of the Medicine Wheel as a
teaching device and means of connecting students to the environment and gain an
appreciation of the Native American world view.
Ben Logan’s program, “Meeting
Myself Coming ‘Round Corners”, will give participants a deeper appreciation of
the land and its effect on the psyche and character of a person, including the
influence of the family farm on the individual’s life. It also looks at
attitudes and teaching approaches to increase student’s creativity, writing
ability and connection to the environment.
Contents
Teleworkshop Session I
Conversations With the Soil
The Earth Beneath Our Feet
What is Earth Soil?
Terra Loam Encounters Erosion—a puppet play
Bibliography
Teleworkshop Session II
Transformative Education in an Integrated Elementary
Social Studies Curriculum
“Running Wolf” story
Where is the Eagle? Gone.
Teaching Philosophy and Commitment to Interdisciplinary, Multicultural Studies
An excerpt from “The Corn is Red” by Pekay Shore
California State University,
Sacramento, School of Education Course Syllabus
Introduction to the use of
Folklore, Mythology and Children’s Literature in the Classroom
The Medicine
Wheel
Teleworkshop Session III
Meeting Myself Coming ‘Round Corners
Thoughts
about Environment, Conservation and Ecology
The Sleeping Seed—excerpt from a
magazine article by Ben Logan
Which Came First? An excerpt from a work in
progress titled “Hillborn” by Ben Logan
An excerpt from a work in progress
titled “A Small Holliday” by Ben Logan
Some Thoughts About Classroom Teaching
