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  • From: Wesley Roe and Marjorie Lakin Erickson <lakinroe@silcom.com>
  • To: International Permaculture List <permaculture@openpermaculture.org>, permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [permaculture] Oil and Water: Can They Mix? Western and Indigenous Approaches to Economy, Ecology and Community. October 28 to November 1, Sante Fe
  • Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2006 05:52:46 -0700

SANTA FE CONFERENCE BRINGS TOGETHER INDIGENOUS PEOPLE, POLITICIANS, ACTIVISTS AND BUSINESS LEADERS
Schumacher College is co-sponsoring SEED Graduate Institute's upcoming conference: Oil and Water: Can They Mix? Western and Indigenous Approaches to Economy, Ecology and Community. It takes places from October 28 to November 1 in Santa Fe, USA, and brings together indigenous scholars, elders and educators from across the continent with sustainable business leaders, politicians, activists and scientists dialogue about the important issues of our time. In addition to keynote speakers such as Richard Douthwaite, Hazel Henderson, Oscar Kawagley, Gregory Cajete and Linda Hogan and smaller break out sessions, the conference will feature a unique dialogue process based on a hybrid of Native American talking circle and Bohmian dialogue moderated by Leroy Little Bear, former Director of Native Studies at Harvard. To find out more, visit www.seedgraduateinstitute.org and click on the "Oil and Water Conference" links.

Western and Indigenous Approaches to
Economy, Ecology & Community

October 28 - Nov. 1, 2006
La Fonda Hotel, Santa Fe, New Mexico

Oil and water: We were always taught they couldn’t mix. In the same way, we are taught the old must make way for the new; that the march of progress must go on. But is that really true? Can we mix indigenous and Western approaches? Can we create “original thought” that brings the best of the old and new to bear upon today’s complex problems?

Oil and water. Oil comes from inside the earth, water from the sky. Water flows down from our mountains to our rivers to the ocean and returns to where it came.

We are water. Water is life.

Water has traditionally been thought of as a commons because it is the ecological basis of all life. In the last century, water is becoming private property, moving from community to commodity. While everyone has been concerned with the price of gasoline, bottled water is now far more expensive than gasoline.

Oil is nature’s way of recycling plant material. It is created over millions of years, but we are using it up over decades, years, and weeks, faster and faster. Oil has become the symbol of greed, a magnet for war, the main ingredient of the petrochemical age. Nations that possess oil possess power. Those nations don’t want the status quo to change. But it is time for an oil change.
* * *

Most importantly of all, it is time for a change in our thinking. Fragmented thinking = a fragmented society. It is time for a deep change in the way the mind works. The products of fragmented society – a feeling of social disintegration and alienation, have too often been exported along with the products of capitalism – the alluring comforts of a modern technological society.

The world is an interrelated whole. If we see the world as an interrelated whole, our ecology is ultimately our community. Responsibility begins first for our local communities, and then in understanding the interconnection of all the systems we are nested in around the globe.

There is a great opportunity for healing if our consciousness can mature to the point of holding different ways of knowing without judgment. If we are to return to an ecological way of thinking, we cannot ignore nature’s economy and the interrelation of all that live on this planet. We can also not ignore the human-made money economy or simply wish it away. Money is not bad in itself. Economy and ecology are at their root about maintaining house (from the Greek oikos). It is possible to think of the money economy in terms of the natural world, to look for pattern and synergy rather than isolated accounting apart from the whole. Money can be a powerful tool for social good. And consumers have the power of their pocketbook to change the habits of the corporate world. All of this begins with a change in consciousness.

This conference is a ground-breaking conference that brings the leading thinkers of the West together with strong indigenous voices, women and men, elders and youth. We come together in the spirit of community, seeking to learn from each other and from the Earth herself. The mix of people is as profound as the topic.

The tools of the conference are in keeping with our message. We have many diverse speakers presenting in both plenary and small group sessions, and we will also come together for group dialogue, special events, and community building on particular topics of interest. The conference is dialogic-based as opposed to simply informational based. Our central purpose is to gather together to co-create and re-envision the future in sustainable ways that honor our traditional wisdom and future generations.



For more about our presenters, click the link above

Riane Eisler
Lynne Twist
Walter Echo-Hawk, Jr. (Pawnee)
Hazel Henderson
Angayuqaq Oscar Kawagley (Yupiaq)
Leroy Little Bear (Blackfoot)
Ralph Metzner
Gregory Cajete (Santa Clara)
David Abram
Lloyd Pinkham (River People)
Linda Hogan (Chickasaw)
Ashok Gangadean
Nancy Maryboy (Dineh/Cherokee)
David Bacon
Tony Clarke
Phillip H. Duran (Tigua)
Chellis Glendinning
Allan Savory
Leon Secatero (Canoncito Band of Navajo)
Lynn Trojahn
Estevan Arellano
Dennis Martinez (O'odham/Chicano)
Christina Selby
Larry Littlebird (Laguna and Santo Domingo Pueblos)
Taylor Selby
Elaine Cimino
Jesse Wolf Hardin
David Riley (Laguna Pueblo)
Gary Deason
Kathy Sanchez (Powohge Oweenge)
Richard Douthwaite
Alfonso Montuori

To register call
505-792-2900
or register online

SEED Graduate Institute - 1700 Atrisco Dr NW, Albuquerque, NM 87105 - tel: 505-792-2900 / Fax: 505-792-5060 / email: seed@seedgraduateinstitute.org


SEED (Source for Educational Empowerment and Community Development) was founded in 1996 to bridge indigenous wisdom and modern knowledge, established disciplines and new leading edge fields, and experiential and academic learning. SEED is a 501c3 tax-exempt non-profit educational organization. In the year 2005, SEED is launching a Graduate school, called SEED Graduate Institute, granting an MA degree in "Original Thought" with areas of study in Indgenous Ways of Knowing, Global Ecology, Science and Cosmology, Integral Healing, and the Expressive Arts.

The mission of SEED Graduate Institute is to provide a synergistic, interconnected holistic education that can empower individuals to find their true calling in service to their community and the natural world. For more about SEED Graduate Institute. Our school is located in the heart of Albuquerque's West Side community, just south of I-40 and Coors Blvd.

History of the Organization

For its first five years of existence, SEED operated exclusively as an open university, establishing a learning network of classes, seminars and workshops in northern New Mexico and beyond. An open university is about teachers teaching their life passion to students who want to be there; not for credit, but because they are genuinely interested in the course material and because it can make an immediate difference in their lives. Since 1996, over 8000 students have participated in SEED programs.

Since 1999, SEED has sponsored an annual summer camp for children, called SEEDlings, and the Language of Spirituality Conference, featuring quantum physicists, Native American elders and linguists. SEEDlings Summer Camp seeks to bring to our future generations much of what we offer to adults. The camp emphasizes environmental education, Native American practices and story-telling, mind-body disciplines, and the expressive arts. It is held in conjunction with Hummingbird Music Camp in the beautiful Jemez Mountains.

The Language of Spirituality Conference is an international conference conducted primarily in a talking circle dialogue format, and has included Nobel Laureate physicist Brian Josephson, Leroy Little Bear, former Director of Native Studies at Harvard University, and authors Fred Alan Wolf, Joseph Rael and Nancy Maryboy, among others. The history of the conference goes back to 1992, when Leroy Little Bear first approached David Bohm, and initiated a dialogue with Bohm, David Peat, Sagesh Youngblood Henderson, Dan Moonhawk Alford, and others, sponsored initially by the Fetzer Institute and then MIT. The 1992 dialogue coincided with the 500th year since Columbus came to Turtle Island, and completed a cycle in which indigenous, holistic thinking, once suppressed and disregarded, reemerged on equal footing with leading edge Western science. SEED agreed to sponsor these historic dialogues when funding sources ran dry, as they are the embodiment of our mission. Leroy Little Bear has been the moderator of all the dialogues.

SEED now sponsors four annual conferences: The Language of Spirit (formerly the Language of Spirituality) in the summer, the Art and Soul conference in the winter, the Ecology Conference in the spring, and the Integral Healing conference in the autumn.

The current plan calls for the establishment of a leadership track for Native Americans in the spring of 2005. This track will be an MA track that is integral to the Indigenous ways of Knowing degree program and the overall Graduate school. The full Graduate school is scheduled to commence in fall of 2006.

SEED Graduate Institute

In the coming seven to ten years, SEED intends to build a campus for The SEED Graduate Institute and for continuing education on the 3 plus acre plot where we are currently located. The budget for the campus is 7.5 million and will include 9 total buildings and beautiful, indigenous landscaping that will integrate the interior of the buildings with the exterior of the property. The existing 5000 sq foot building now serves as both the administrative offices and classroom space.

A second building is planned for groundbreaking in 2006. The second building will be a Library, for SEED, and for the West Side of Albuquerque, and will initially also serve as classroom space for the Graduate program prior to construction of the Department Buildings (Target Date 2007). The final buildings on the property to be constructed will be the Performing Arts and Conference Retreat Center, and the Student Union, Coffee House and Book Store (Target Date 2010).




  • [permaculture] Oil and Water: Can They Mix? Western and Indigenous Approaches to Economy, Ecology and Community. October 28 to November 1, Sante Fe, Wesley Roe and Marjorie Lakin Erickson, 08/15/2006

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