Since we don’t have Elephants on this continent, David Vanderhoop and I (Saskia Vanderhoop) propose to have conversation around the Mastodon in the room.
Recently, you may have seen some email trains zoom by that were prompted by an anti-racism training and resulting in a bunch of intense conversations around racism, decolonization and cultural appropriation. With many perspectives fresh in our mind and hearts, David and I would like to turn to our Nature Connection Network for related conversation about the following:
(1) David – with the support of a panel – is going to lead a workshop on cultural appropriation during our upcoming Nature Connection Leadership Conference, in the assumption that it is time to address the Mastodon in the room. The room being our approach and our teachings that heavily “borrowed” from natives, and the Mastodon being cultural appropriation versus appropriate cultural sharing.
(2) We would like to invite all to a webinar style conversation on that same topic to allow us to kickstart conversation prior to the conference, AND to allow those, that are not able to join the conference, to participate. For this webinar – or zoom call – David and I hope to be supported by several others that have shown up passionately during the recent conversations and are committed to doing this work.
(3) We welcome all of us to start another email train conversation, so we can begin to exchange the work we do at home and in our organizations. We recognize that this is a sensitive, deep rooted, and complex topic, and we encourage conversation as we are trying to figure out what this Mastodon is really like, up close and personal.
A video/audio Zoom call was held on Sunday, Dec 9 and was recorded. A recording of the call is available on the Nature Connection Network website.