Legend of Inter-species Collaboration, Vail Fletcher
Introducing the legend of, Vail Fletcher. Vail is a New York native and an Associate Professor at a local university. She spends her days teaching on-campus or at home researching, reading, writing, and envisioning what's next for their farm. Her research often takes her abroad (most recently to China, Tanzania, Zanzibar, Rwanda, Nicaragua, Austria, Ethiopia, Uganda, and South Africa) to explore nature, ecology, and environmental conflict. She loves: supporting local artisans, big thinking, creative endeavors, flowers/perfumes, pretty things, and a Mexican textile venture with dear friends: Xuxo
“Discomfort is the birthplace of learning.”
“Spend time in awe.”
"Our language reflects our reality.”
This episode is dedicated to William Robert and Ruby Tuesday.
We have a few technical difficulties throughout this - luckily the sticking is fast and doesn’t cause too much interruption so we just move through it.
Vail has recently published an academic tome:
Communicating in the Anthropocene
Intimate relations
https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B08S6WBTF7/ref=rdr_kindle_ext_tmb
From an upstate New York suburban upbringing to the unseated land of Wapato, Portland Oregon, which also goes by the name of Sauvie Island, Vail introduced me to ideas that turned me around inside and shifted my perspective. Seriously part way through Vail says something so profoundly moving that I gasp and go crosseyed (luckily you can’t see that on the podcast). Vail is an incredible mix of intellect, absolute clarity, and earth dweller. Vail’s intellect and humanity and inter-species collaboration is mind-shifting. She is absolutely the real deal and has me questioning my next move and where I want to take things going forward. She schooled me on Flypaths, and the ordinance of dark nights. She also says that love should be something we are thinking about and talking about and intellectualising more. “Why are my girlfriend relationships less important than my romantic relationships?”. Questions that we, in my coaching group, ask again and again. This is a conversation that I will come back to again and again.
We get directly into colonial conversations and trauma bodies
Also in the episode:
Insights into decolonizing our bookshelves and diversifying information
Deep dive into trauma and racism and the effects
The power of language and the vernacular
The idea of foregrounding different histories in addition
WAIT WHAT? Climate change is not about Carbon … find out why
At one point Vail takes my breath away with her insight …
Reimagining economies (it’s more a return)
What Vail has to say about children’s books
Is art the only way out of this?
Paying attention and becoming intimate with her surroundings and non-human neighbours
Co-creators and her reframing of neighbours, inter-species collaboration
AWE as a way of life and the Orcagasm and nests
Find Vail at:
http://www.thecroftfarm.com/
https://www.instagram.com/thecroftfarm/
Dwell Magazine- https://www.dwell.com/article/tu-casa-croft-farm-yianni-doulis-364d98c3
Other mentions in the podcast & further reading:
The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma - Bessel van der Kolk
It Didn’t Start With You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle Mark Wolynn
Beyond the Periphery of the Skin: Rethining, remaking, and Reclaiming the Body in Contemporary Capitalism (Kairos)- Silvia Federici
All About Love bell hooks
The Mad Farmer’s Liberation Front- https://cals.arizona.edu/~steidl/Liberation.html