Ecological Education: A New Code for EducationInstilling in children the confidence and capacities to tackle the complex issues that are hurtling toward them is Coleen O'Connell's mission. O'Connell is on the faculty of the Environmental Studies Divsion at Lesley University in Cambridge, MA. She designed and has been the lead faculty member in the Ecological Teaching and Learning MS Program. This is a first of its kind program in the countryworking with educators both formal and informal to make complex systems thinking and ecological principles the foundation of their teaching practices. As an ecological educator for the past 25 years she has traveled extensively with the Audubon Expedition Institute and Living Routes program exploring the elements of sustainable living. She has been active in the New England Environmental Education community and cofounded the Ravenwood Sustainability education program with colleagues on 170 acres in midcoast Maine. She is now on the Development team for the Belfast Cohousing & Ecovillage being designed and about to break ground in Belfast, Maine.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Coho Member Coleen to speak at the New England Aquarium!
On Monday, March 28th, Belfast Cohousing member Coleen O'Connell will be speaking on ecological education at the New England Aquarium in Boston. It'll be an informative and interesting evening, so come join us!
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Upcoming presentations in Boston, Portland
We're excited to share our spring calendar with everyone - we have a lot of great events coming up, including several in the Boston area! We hope you'll join us for some meet & greet Q&As, our monthly Open House, and informational sessions on our project. Email for more information!
Thursday, March 31st, 7-9pm @ Cambridge Cohousing (Boston)
Tuesday, April 5th, 6:30-8:30 @ Greenward (Boston)
Thursday, April 21st, time/location TBA in Portland, ME
Tuesday, May 3rd, 7-9pm @ Life Alive Cafe (Boston)
Thursday, May 5th, 6-9pm @ On Centre in Jamaica Plan (Boston)
Spread the word, invite your friends, come along and learn more about cohousing, ecovillages and Belfast!
Thursday, March 31st, 7-9pm @ Cambridge Cohousing (Boston)
Tuesday, April 5th, 6:30-8:30 @ Greenward (Boston)
Thursday, April 21st, time/location TBA in Portland, ME
Tuesday, May 3rd, 7-9pm @ Life Alive Cafe (Boston)
Thursday, May 5th, 6-9pm @ On Centre in Jamaica Plan (Boston)
Spread the word, invite your friends, come along and learn more about cohousing, ecovillages and Belfast!
Friday, March 18, 2011
Prototype Home on cover of Maine Home + Design
"Imagine that, instead of building just a custom home for your family, you could build a custom neighborhood. Shoulder to shoulder with your future neighbors, you would come up with ideas and designs. Once it was built, you would have your own private home, but also access to shared resources, common spaces, and a supportive living environment. Imagine raising your children in this close-knit neighborhood, which comes with built-in playmates and backyard gardens in which they learn to grow vegetables and compost. “It takes a village,” after all, but what if the modern-day equivalent is “It takes an ecovillage”?"
- Passive Impressive, by Rebecca Falzano | Photography Trent Bell | Styling Meagan Gilpatrick
You can pick up a copy at the newsstands and it's also live on the Maine Home + Design website. Share it with your friends!
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Enter the New Country — Coleen O’Connell
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Coleen helps Cat with her costume. |
Belfast Cohousing & Ecovillage is a true social, ecological experiment that we are all planning together. Though there are over 130 built cohousing communities in America that have accomplished their mission, each developing community is still its own organism with its own personality. That would be true for us. The metaphor I shared with Joline that day on the telephone is one of having my foot on one bank of a rushing stream with the other foot on the other side – straddling the rushing water, hoping not to fall in, and trying to get up the momentum to jump to the other side. I want to be on the other side, working with a group of people to be an example of how to live elegantly, simply, off oil, raising food sustainably, having fun with one another, while the whole village raises our children. But the independent, isolated life I know is so familiar. Why would I throw my time and energy into a bunch of people I don’t know that well? How will we ever work it out together? Humans are so testy. Can we really do this? Will we really do the hard work of sustainability or will this all be green wash? I worry about these things.
The following reflection has soothed my worries on many occasions. I sent it to Joline after our phone conversation and her response was positive - that we all need this wisdom to get us through these difficult times in our earth history and to move into the world that is possible... the world that will sustain our children and their many ancestors to follow. The work of social transformation is not easy.
Enter the New Country
You have no idea of what the new country looks like. Still, you are very much at home, although not truly at peace, in the old country. You know the ways of the old country, its joys and pains, its happy and sad moments. You have spent most of your days there. Even though you know that you have not found there what your heart most desires, you remain quite attached to it. It has become part of your very bones. Now you have come to realize that you must leave it and enter the new country, where your Beloved dwells. You know that what helped and guided you in the old country no longer works, but what else do you have to go by? You are being asked to trust that you will find what you need in the new country. That requires the death of what has become so precious to you: influence, success, yes, even affection and praise.
You have no idea of what the new country looks like. Still, you are very much at home, although not truly at peace, in the old country. You know the ways of the old country, its joys and pains, its happy and sad moments. You have spent most of your days there. Even though you know that you have not found there what your heart most desires, you remain quite attached to it. It has become part of your very bones. Now you have come to realize that you must leave it and enter the new country, where your Beloved dwells. You know that what helped and guided you in the old country no longer works, but what else do you have to go by? You are being asked to trust that you will find what you need in the new country. That requires the death of what has become so precious to you: influence, success, yes, even affection and praise.
Trust is so hard since you have nothing to fall back on. Still, trust is what is essential. The new country is where you are called to go and the only way to go there is naked and vulnerable.
It seems that you keep crossing and recrossing the border. For a while you experience a real joy in the new country. But then you feel afraid and start longing again for all you left behind, so you go back to the old country. To your dismay, you discover that the old country has lost its charm. Risk a few more steps into the new country, trusting that each time you enter it, you will feel more comfortable and be able to stay longer.
From The Inner Voice of Love: A Journey through Anguish to Freedom
by Henri J. M. Nouwen p. 21. NY: NY: Random House
From The Inner Voice of Love: A Journey through Anguish to Freedom
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