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From the 2019 New Mexico Writers dinner in Santa Fe, celebrating the lifelong contributions of Luci Tapahonso (center), Professor Emeritus of the University of New Mexico and Poet Laureate of the Navajo Nation; pictured with grant recipients Sylvia Rains Dennis, Poet-Ecologist (left) and Laurie Goodluck, youth indigenous storytelling (right).

For more information, please see New Mexico Writers website: https://www.nmwriters.org 

IDEAS & ACTIVITIES TO SHARE 

With best wishes from WILDLANDANCE, please enjoy the following ideas for sharing & engaging with our biodiverse world:

What is biodiversity?

= The variety, abundance and distribution of species and the processes through which they interact. Biodiversity is concerned with species, genetic and ecosystem diversity; it can be described according to habitat, along an environmental gradient, and on a landscape level. ​

Biodiversity also reflects the continuum of every being’s presence in any life stage, for example from the germination of a pinecone seed on the forest floor to the oldest member of an old growth overstory tree, like the Ponderosa Pine trees in this photo.

Biodiversity is not just a list, but acknowledges the presence of ALL beings within the whole. That must include us, and we derive who we are from so many interconnections! Find a quiet place or sit beneath a shady tree and draw or describe your links to the world that surrounds you.

Would you enjoy making a scrapbook or keeping a journal of your thoughts and experiences, then seeing how they change for you and how the circumstances around you may shift? 


It could include descriptions, photographs, ideas, drawings, notes, poetry . . you could even tape a small piece of reflective paper or aluminum foil into a journal to serve as a mirror, helping you remember how you are part of a larger whole.

Most of all: THANK YOU FOR BEING HERE!

Here are some things to wonder about:

  • How are you connected to what you see, what you remember?  Use your imagination as well as observe through your senses:  for example, are you connected by scent, touch, breathing, more? 
  • What do you hear? Who lives near or far or maybe has moved elsewhere? 
  • Are you part of a spiral of what you see? For example, are you sitting near a flower you can smell as a bee visits the pollen, gathering nectar, helping create seeds and fruit that another may rely upon for food or habitat? Are you providing shade to another being, perhaps a resting butterfly or a tiny seedling?
  • If you draw a spider’s web, with a member of your natural community at every connecting link, where would you find yourself? Is this a flat web, or an endlessly rotating, expanding connection?

Who do you already know or expect to visit?

Who would you like to meet?

Who do you belong to in your habitat?

Who lives with all of us?

Are you resting at the Heart of Home?


The following activity is dedicated in honor of the 50th Earth Day:

WRITE A POEM, SING A STORY with your EARTH DAY FLOWER! Who will you share it with? From the flower’s point of view, is every day Earth Day?


There are endless leaves of thought, sunlit ideas, so many living possibilities . . when you spend Earth Day with a flower:


Plant company: If you stick around for another century or longer, you could plant a living companion for most of your lifetime! Would you choose a native tree? A yucca or a cactus, if you live in the desert? Or a tundra willow, if you live in the alpine or arctic zone? Just imagine: generations to come would find shade, cleaner air, birds nesting, butterflies hovering . .


Describe your soil & rocks: What do you see near your planting site? What color, shape, texture, and scent describes your soil or rocks? Is there a major landscape feature nearby? How far is the nearest river, mountain, desert, beach? If you stand near the center of home, with the best view, what do you see?


Where do you find water? Is it dry, damp, or maybe very wet where you live? Salty or freshwater? Are there springs, streams, ponds, lakes, or even an ocean in your area? How do plants find water? Does it rain often? Snow? Who relies upon the water?


Who shares your habitat? Who visits your home? Are there tracks? Wild animal scat? Are there sounds at night, birdsong and buzzing bees in the morning? Horses, cows, chickens, dogs? What does home smell like? Who lives there? Is your company feathered, furry, finned, scaly, slimy? Do they have sharp teeth? Forked tongues? Do you have neighbors? How many people live nearby?


Watch the weather change! Describe the clouds, wind, temperature, rain, and snow . . . CRAZY storms? Wild seasons!

P.S.:  If you’d like to share your ideas, please write to: learn@wildlandance.net or see www.wildlandance.net for examples from our Rocky Mountain corner of home!

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Thanks to Everyone who joined in for our

2019 Seasonal Gatherings on Poetry & our Natural Heritage & Biodiversity

Please join us to celebrate International Biodiversity Day and the return of Springtime in the Southern Rocky Mountains with Native Plant Seeds and conversation on May 22nd, from 4:30-7 PM, at the historic La Fonda Hotel, Taos Plaza, New Mexico (FREE!)

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