{"id":166,"date":"2020-07-22T06:17:38","date_gmt":"2020-07-22T06:17:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/animacenter.org\/blog\/?p=166"},"modified":"2020-07-22T06:17:38","modified_gmt":"2020-07-22T06:17:38","slug":"gaian-voices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/animacenter.org\/blog\/gaian-voices\/","title":{"rendered":"Gaian Voices Interview With Jesse Wolf Hardin -Nov 2011"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Gaian Voices<\/strong>\u00a0was a digital and print magazine that got very little distribution over the years, but that was as heartful and earthy a publication as there\u2019s ever been.\u00a0 Founder and editor Susan Meeker Lowry recently released what is the final issue, as she moves on from this act of love to a beloved herbal practice.\u00a0 It contains the full version of the interview with Wolf that we\u2019ve excerpted below, and Susan has generously made the entire issue available for us to give to you.\u00a0 Simply click here to download the FREE full color pdf:<\/em>
Gaian Voices<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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ESSENTIAL CONNECTIONS:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interview With Jesse Wolf Hardin<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In dialog with Susan Meeker Lowry
Excerpted From the Final Issue of Gaian Voices Magazine \u2013 Autumn 2011<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Jesse Wolf Hardin<\/strong>\u00a0has taught awareness and deep ecological wisdom for nearly four decades.\u00a0 He is the author of numerous books including \u201cGaia Eros\u201d and an illustrated book for children \u201cI\u2019m A Medicine Woman Too!\u201d.\u00a0 He is the coeditor with Kiva Rose of the acclaimed \u201cPlant Healer Magazine\u201d journal of folk herbalism (www.PlantHealerMagazine.com<\/strong>), and codirector of the Traditions In Western Herbalism Conference each September (www.TraditionsInWesternHerbalism.org<\/strong>) in the Coconino forest of northern Arizona.\u00a0 He writes and teaches at the Anima School and Sanctuary in a remote river canyon ecosystem he restored, hosting wilderness Retreats (www.AnimaCenter.org<\/strong>), and publishing the Anima blog (www.AnimaCenter.org\/blog<\/strong>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.GV: <\/strong>Over the years I\u2019ve noticed the core message of your work has stayed the same, though the way it manifests has shifted, from the early roadshow days when we first met, to your early years in the Canyon, then Loba came and your art and music seemed to blossom, then with the arrival of Kiva Rose your teachings expanded and deepened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wolf: <\/strong>The core has remained consistent, grounded in earthen purpose and informed by the lessons of nature.  And in every form, this Anima teaching has conveyed the necessity of not only increased awareness and connection, but of manifestation and action as well.  And I find it interesting that even as an activist inspiring direct action in the 1980s, I called our concerts and talks \u201cDeep Ecology Medicine Shows\u201d after the traveling inspirational speakers and healers of history.  My role at that point was getting hard core activists to include healing themselves, their communities and the environment as part of their activism, and lately I teach herbalists and other healers how vital it is to integrate action to heal political, social and environmental imbalance with their treating of personal and client illness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019ve effectively raised awareness and affected thousands of people\u2019s lives through this 38+ years process.  Yet the work must go on, for at the same time, wild places and plant and animal diversity have continued to contract, and even the most \u201cprogressive\u201d president presides over environmental destruction, expanding wars, decreasing liberties and rule by the elite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

.<\/a>Wolf as a young and shirtless naturalist, with his ever-lovin\u2019 Pa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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GV: <\/strong>I agree. Even though more people have become aware of the ecological degradation, climate change and all, things are getting worse. It\u2019s disempowering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wolf: <\/strong>Not so much disempowering, since it is truly only we ourselves, and not authority, that can empower us.  I wish it was as simple as the system or the paradigm of the government or religious institutions taking away our power. You\u2019d know which mouse to root for in that Redwall tale.  More problematically, the very idea of taking power in their own hands is unthinkable for most people, imagining that we can\u2019t have an impact, or that the cost we\u2019d pay is too high.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Jesse Wolf Hardin lets his hair down, 2009, Anima Sanctuary, NM<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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GV: <\/strong>People often say that the only thing we can do is take care of ourselves, that striving to change anything more is impossible. And of course that\u2019s totally the antithesis of what I believe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wolf:<\/strong> It is, to put it bluntly, utter bullshit. We know from reading history that it only takes only from 5 to 15 percent of a population responding to a situation to initiate a change. Things don\u2019t necessarily change for the better of course, but it only takes a small number of people to usher in major cultural and political transformation.  The few could indeed change the entire ways that we relate to each other and to the natural world, if it was our priority as well as committed goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Paul Bergner & Jesse Wolf Hardin, Traditions In Western Herbalism Conference 2010<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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GV: <\/strong>But something happened. It seemed like something shifted. People went inside. Maybe it was the economy . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wolf: <\/strong>Definitely the economy had something to do with it, in a society where ecological health and giving time to activism are both treated as luxuries.  But people also need to rotate out of full-on activism, with others rotating in, so that we can feed our other needs and interests, explore other ways of giving to ourselves and the world.  Gardening, restoring land, home schooling our children, or even taking time to learn a musical instrument are not inward so much as grounding, providing strength for the ways we reach out including our activism.  The people we worked with decades ago are still doing the good work, though perhaps more regionally and intimately, in their communities and watersheds.
What is still needed most is the coming together, not just sharing values but sharing life, building an active, participatory community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

.<\/a>Jesse Wolf Hardin with Rising Appalachia, Traditions In Western Herbalism Conference 2010<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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GV: <\/strong>One of the things you said after the last Traditions In Western Herbalism Conference is that you felt it was the tribe coming together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wolf: <\/strong>Yes. And once again that will require instigating, inciting, developing the kind of tribal interactions that survive throughout the year, that aren\u2019t just dependent on an event or personality.  Of the TWHC participants, 2\/3 say they don\u2019t go to any other conferences because they usually don\u2019t like them, many sleep in their cars because they\u2019re free clinic volunteers and people working for next to nothing in their communities. These are people who are in resistance to the paradigm in every way.  Herbalism is simply one important way in which this manifests. If Kiva and I can feed this so that it grows and spreads roots throughout the winters between the summer events, we\u2019ll be satisfied that the tribe is indeed gathering and coalescing. But the next step has to be the one that most contemporary movements haven\u2019t taken, which is to make it real and continuous in our daily lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

GV: <\/strong>What do you think about all the Occupy movements that are happening around the country right now?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wolf:<\/strong> There\u2019s not going to be any real environmental or social change in this country or the world until there\u2019s been a complete confrontation of and collapse of the economic system that rules the world.  At the same time, I wish it didn\u2019t require financial hardship to make people aware of and responsive to a need for change.  I\u2019m tickled that it\u2019s happening but I wish the uniting inspiration could have been something besides the fact that folks are getting paid so much less than the bankers who are screwing them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

GV: <\/strong>Like coming together because we love the earth and want to live differently. For years people would ask me, \u201cWhat is it going to take?\u201d And for years I\u2019ve been saying, \u201cIt\u2019s going to take thousands of people in the streets, not just in one place at one time, but everywhere at once.\u201d Like you said, we need the economic system to collapse, and the consumer system to collapse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wolf: <\/strong>Crazy, though, would be waiting to be sure we\u2019ll succeed before initiating changes in our lives and our community, or trying to ensure our security before taking risks. The good work, and the rewards that come with it, always happen in the now. The party is now, the activism is now, the garden is now, the love is now, and the resistance, \u2013 the fight \u2013 is now. Regardless of outcome or the chances of success, in the face of almost impossible odds, it has to be done.  And this glad doing, hard as it can be, tastes ever so sweet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/a>Portrait of Jesse Wolf Hardin by Marloe \u2013 Thank you again Marloe!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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GV: <\/strong>Yes. I\u2019ve tried to live my life that way, then I came here because my sister can\u2019t live alone. It\u2019s a beautiful here with mountain views and really old trees, but it\u2019s not what I would have chosen. My vision was for a place much more rustic, ideally off-grid, more sustainable. I also wanted to have a small do-it-yourself kind of herb store. But this year I started Gaia\u2019s Garden Herbals, so that\u2019s kind of going back to those roots. And I\u2019m going to offer some workshops, even though I\u2019m nervous about putting myself out there as \u201cteacher\u201d. I feel I don\u2019t know enough, more what I want to do is share a perspective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wolf: <\/strong>That\u2019s what teaching is. It\u2019s sharing tools and perspective. Both of which you present in a way that is optional. And you know the nice thing is, no matter where you are, healing is a bridge because most people, regardless of lifestyle or income, understand that our modern allopathic medical system does more damage, is unfair and unjust, is too expensive with limited access, and so on. In other words we can take a retired person out of Aspen or a cowboy out of Reverse, NM and have them immediately understand the language of empowerment when it comes to self-care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

GV: <\/strong>And learning what\u2019s growing around you. Like goldenrod. Most people think of it as a weed but it\u2019s so much more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wolf: <\/strong>If goldenrod helps what ails them, they\u2019ll realize it\u2019s not a \u201cweed\u201d to be denigrated and removed, which could open them up to other possibilities. Maybe they\u2019ll want to know more about other uninvited plant guests growing in their yard rather than yanking them out. The next step might be for them to plant some native medicinals that used to be prolific but had become rare.  In this way, herbalism becomes a language people can hear, and perceptual as well as clinical tools for them to use. That\u2019s why I\u2019m so heavily into herbs now. If it were just about fixing one\u2019s physical \u201cowies\u201d, I wouldn\u2019t give myself so fully to this effort. What excites me is the way that the study and use of herbs can be a bridge to a larger concept of healing and living, to healing others, our disjointed and denatured culture, and the living land of which we are a part.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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GV: <\/strong>I want to talk about the Wallow Fire of 2011. In one of your updates during that time, you wrote that you always loved the wind, but the wind brought the fire closer and closer. Did it change the nature of your relationship with it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wolf: <\/strong>It was especially hard for me because I\u2019ve always heard from everybody, from my mother to my friends, that the wind is unsettling, they just wish it would stop. But for me, it was always a way that I felt connected to everything around me, awakening a sense of air\u2019s molecules connecting us physically to the breath and being of every living thing. Experiencing wind as a connective force uniting me physically with everything, was a spiritual sense made physical for me. And when it got too strong, I was proud that I was the one who stayed out because I liked being humbled by something I could barely walk headfirst into.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But during the Wallow Fire, every time the wind slowed we could see on the progression maps that the fire had stopped moving in our direction. And every time it picked up, we\u2019d see it suddenly rush three or four miles in a single night in our direction, until by the time the fire finally stopped at the end of June it was in some places only seven miles from the Anima School and Botanical Sanctuary. You can drive just a short ways from here and see where the trees are burned and dead. The ponderosas will be replaced by a succession of junipers and not by old growth pines, because of the drought cycle the Southwest is in. The pain from this thought and threat was indescribable.  All the trees in the canyon, except for the ponderosas, are in a sense my babies. None were here until I mercilessly started chasing cows out when I first arrived, swinging my rusty Confederate sword, screaming at them at the top of my lungs. Until then, there were no cottonwoods, no willows, no medicinal plants growing because the cows had eaten everything. So here\u2019s this wind that I experience as an extension of my spirit \u2013 the anima \u2013 also feeding the flames of impending forest destruction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ll tell you a story.  Not so awfully long before, I\u2019d hit a low point, mourning that no lover chose to stay and make a home in this wilderness with me, that my children were taken from me and no longer under my protection and influence, and that it seemed I needed to travel in order to properly champion these and all wild places.  At one point while on the road, a sweetheart wrote to say she didn\u2019t want to see me because I was \u201ctoo intense\u201d, the caretaker I left tending my home bailed and the borrowed vehicle I was touring in blew up.  Hitchhiking home, I then walked straight away to the sacred cliffs below our property to do the one thing that felt most authentic for a mixed blood Cossack to do\u2026 I cried.  And in the process of crying I felt my heart saying to the cliffs, to this canyon and region, \u201cI\u2019m yours. I will not leave you. No matter what happens, I will not leave you. If I never have a mate, if I never have an income, if I can\u2019t get my art and writing out to the people, it still won\u2019t drive me away. I am here for you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And so, if the Wallow Fire had come through, after that force of life and death that is the wind had roared over this land, I knew I would still be here.  In case I couldn\u2019t save the cabin where we write, I had picking the spot where I\u2019d set up my tent in the midst of the black ash, from which I would start planting the seeds of green and home and wildness anew.
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San Francisco River, Anima Sanctuary in the Fall. Photo by J. W. Hardin<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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GV: <\/strong>That had to be really intense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wolf: <\/strong>Yeah, and especially happening right before the conference and when our Plant Healer Magazine was due out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

GV:<\/strong> I know! It was unreal. I\u2019ve never visited your home, but I feel a real connection, because of you of course, and the way you live and your commitment to the land. So the thought of that fire coming through \u2013 there wasn\u2019t a moment in the day during that time that I wasn\u2019t aware of it in some way. And there were many, many people who felt the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part of it is the commitment you\u2019ve all made to the place, and the relationship that\u2019s reciprocal back and forth between you humans and the rest of life there. It\u2019s also the writing and photography you and Kiva share. I think it helps people to become more aware of and open to their own places. The fire also got me thinking about my own fears. To acknowledge and honor that beauty that is all around me and then to have it destroyed by a fire and still remain here, to be able to see the potential of the beauty that would still be there, that would be revealed over time but in a different way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Wolf:<\/strong> There\u2019s two things we teach in the Anima courses with regards to place. One is to feel at home everywhere you are, even on a park bench in the largest city, connecting deeply wherever we are, sending out not necessarily roots but feelers, like tendrils that sense the being and messages of where we are now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second thing is, in my heart of hearts I believe there\u2019s one place in all the world for everybody that calls to them louder and more insistently than all others, a place that will support them in being their most authentic selves, and that perhaps needs us the most. Finding that one place is kind of like the child\u2019s game where one kid tries to find a hidden treasure while blindfolded, with the only clues being the other children shouting out \u201cwarm or warmer\u201d as they stumble closer to the prize, and \u201ccold and colder\u201d whenever they moved away.  When we travel even a few miles from this home, things will feel a little colder in a sense, and on the way back it will feel increasingly warmer until we\u2019re settled into the heart and center of that place again.  It\u2019s not just a matter of thinking \u201cI like pine trees, so I should be in a pine forest.\u201d  Sure, it\u2019s a hint.  But it will be more than pines that distinguish your home, more like the qualities of a particular forest, a specific grove, a certain watershed or section of coast, a definitive square mile.  And it will be the site of greatest potential when it comes to being at home in both your self and your place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I ask that people connect with, learn from, honor and repay any place where we might be.  But at the same time, we have a responsibility to seek the place that brings us into our power and best aids our gifting to the world\u2026 regardless of income potential, inconvenience or disruption, and even \u2013 if I may be so personal \u2013 if caring for a handicapped sister makes it more complicated and difficult.  The search for that one place to root and settle, is in itself an unsettling process, just as is following the calling of your gifts and what to do with them.  It requires discomfort and movement, with great sensitivity to the signs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Wolf Hardin with daughter Rhiannon in 2010, Anima Sanctuary, NM<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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GV:<\/strong> I still have the interview you did with me so many years ago. We talked about Gaian Economics, among other things. It\u2019s strange, but I still feel exactly the same way I did back then. All the stuff we talked about \u2013 the economic alternatives people were starting, still exist. If I were to do a Google search I\u2019d find all kinds of cool stuff, but they seem isolated from each other, and the potential comes from connection and working consciously together. For that to happen we need more than email, we need face-to-face communication. That\u2019s one of the things I miss so much from the days of the bioregional congresses. When we stopped getting together regularly it was like losing a part of myself. The times we\u2019re living in need us to have that kind of connection again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wolf: <\/strong>In part, we need to break bonds, because so many of the bonds in this paradigm, in this society, are unhealthy. They\u2019re obligations instead of responsibilities.  They\u2019re laws that we obey instead of things that we do out of consideration and care. We need to rip ourselves asunder from our own comforts, from our imaginary limitations, and from this gawdawful system, yet at the same time we need to make and nourish existing connections.  As much enjoyment as I get from needed revolutionary acts, it seems my main job now is not to go around severing with scissors so much as casting the luminous threads of co-mingled purpose and shared values that might possibly lead to the re-creation of a living, organic, Gaian tribe.  It\u2019s funny that the wild eyed hell-raiser that I always took pride in being, is now so dedicated to the nearly impossible work of mending existing conduits and creating new connections, pathways and circuits\u2026 for drawing us together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

.<\/a>Sculptue by Oberon Zell, a masterful and heartful evoking of Gaia, the living Earth in whole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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GV:<\/strong> A lot of people are being connected because of your work. You, Loba, and Kiva Rose have created a vehicle for people to be attracted to. You\u2019re bringing people together and helping to make those connections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wolf:<\/strong> I\u2019ve always been afraid of just entertaining or affirming the \u201cchoir\u201d, as they say.  Each of us has to reach out to those who still buy into the lies of the old paradigm, who are by far the majority. To find common ground, common loves, common language with people who aren\u2019t that much like me, to have an effect on them that they may not even be aware of until after the fact, that\u2019s very Loki or Coyote \u2013 the Trickster, as we say in the southwest \u2013 and it\u2019s absolutely delightful.  And we need never miss an opportunity to do this magic. So if I briefly have a local carpenter\u2019s attention, for example, I\u2019m going to find things to say in the metaphor of his tools and livelihood that are very much Gaian and deep ecological, very much incendiary and revolutionary and that lead him to thinking.  I council everybody to do this.  Whether you\u2019re 18 years old or 80, whether you\u2019re in front of a class or client, or if you temporarily have the attention of a distracted checker in a grocery store, that\u2019s your opportunity to teach, affirm or disrupt as needed.  That\u2019s your audience in the moment. You can rock that checker\u2019s world!  There\u2019s something you can give her that\u2019s exactly what she may be least ready to hear but most in need of understanding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s each and every minute that we need to do this work, every minute that we need to be resisting injustice, and every minute seeking our home, our place and purpose until we\u2019ve found it, and it has found us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re certainly not waiting for anybody\u2019s qualification or certification.  We\u2019re not even waiting for our own self-confidence to catch up.
As is necessary, we\u2019re doing it now<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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(Please take time to repost and share this interview\u2026 so as many as possible can get the free, final Gaian Voices magazine)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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