It's September. And that means stepping again into a new year for our podcast. Season #6. WOW!
The whole thing started because of Covid. Our friend Joe Loviska came to us in the late summer of 2020 and said he thought Full Ecology should have a podcast. We weren't 100% sure what a podcast was but liked Joe's energy for the idea. At the time, we were living in Bozeman and, like you, watching as the uncertainty and panic built around the pandemic.
We were still swabbing our mail with bleach; we’d just graduated from bandanas to actual protective masks. We were tuned in on vaccine possibilities, even though nothing would be released until December of that year. Likely you, too, were minimizing your time in public spaces. All of us were painfully aware of the tragic deaths, the risks to and heroics of healthcare professionals. But none of us had much sense of what was really going on.
So, we decided to start our podcast with a Full Ecology focus on HILFH - Life in the Time of COVID. We knew that social isolation meant there were profound limitations to what we could know about how the world was looking to people outside our homes. Thus, the idea of tuning in to "how it looks" to people from all backgrounds. We all needed to know more than our own narratives were telling us. The first nine episodes were rich. The guests brilliant and willing to speak from what they were seeing and experiencing.
Optimistically thinking Covid was winding down, we switched our focus in September of 2021 with an episode featuring Gary. This was the beginning our long run with the subtitle - Life in the Time of Climate Change. We'd always intended this focus for Full Ecology, seeing our podcast as kind of meeting place as we navigate what's truly an even longer collective crisis.
This year, with Covid seemingly in the rearview, we find ourselves struck again by the immediate and enduring relevance of how repairing human relationship with the natural world looks from differing perspectives.
In this episode, we lean into our original orientations: Gary's focus on conservation science, coming together with Mary's decades of experience in the social sciences. The overlapping edges of those two attentions is an incredibly rich place to be – today with Gary continuing his work on post climate-change landscapes, and Mary exploring and elaborating the Inner Elder. Ours is a classic case of the sum being more than the parts. And not a day passes without it influencing how we think and act in the world.
For more information on what Gary & Mary mentioned, visit our website. Scroll to the bottom of the homepage and sign up for our monthly newsletter to keep up with all things Full Ecology - especially the short-form publications Gary's generating these days. For an example, check out his May essay in the New York Times on the Ponderosa and water.
And make a note in your calendar for Mary's 90 minute session on Meeting Your Inner Elder No Matter Your Age - an invited presentation with Sage-ing International midday October 20, 2026.
Finally, it's not too early to sign up for our retreats next summer in the Centennial Valley of Montana.
We've got hot-off-the-press tentative dates!! Come join us.
The Full Ecology of a Writer's Life ~ June 28-July 2
Full Ecology & the Inner Elder ~ July 3-July 7
And such thanks for listening. We so appreciate your companionship over the years.
MUSIC
Harvest Moon Smile. Music by Diana DiDI from Pixabay
As the Wind Blows. Music by Paul Winter from Pixabay
Easygoing Guitar and Piano. Music by Johnny Hoeve.
Original theme music composed and performed by Gary Ferguson.
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HILFH is an educational project of Full Ecology. Check us out and let us hear from you.
