The Growing Edge Newsletter & Podcast with Carrie Newcomer & Parker J. Palmer: Feb., 2024
A conversation w/ Buddy Huffaker of The Aldo Leopold Foundation & Book News!
An updated edition of Parker’s book 2011 book Healing the Heart of Democracy is now available, with a Study Guide! (Just in time for the 2024 election year!)
• The Growing Edge Podcast, Episode 54: “Revisiting A Sand County Almanac”—with Buddy Huffaker, Executive Director of the Aldo Leopold Foundation
• Notes from the Edge
• Community Question of the Month
• Parker’s Events & Appearances
• Carrie’s Events & Appearances
Notes from the Edge
A Note from Parker
Living in Wisconsin comes with certain liabilities, such as the minus-10 temps (with minus-20 wind chills) we’re enduring as I write. But the many advantages include the fact that I live just an hour away from the place where Aldo Leopold did the work that resulted in his 1949 masterpiece, A Sand County Almanac.
2024 is the 75th Anniversary of this groundbreaking book, a book that gave the author the status of a prophet in the world-wide conservation and environmental movements. It’s a book that ranks alongside Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring as a wakeup call to all who care about the wellbeing of the community to which we belong—a community that extends far beyond “We the People.” As Leopold wrote,
All ethics so far evolved rest upon a single premise; that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts. … The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land. … In short, a land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it. It implies respect for his fellow-members, and also respect for the community as such.
On this month’s podcast, Carrie and I interview Buddy Huffaker, executive director of the Aldo Leopold Foundation near Baraboo, Wisconsin. I’ve had the pleasure of visiting the site, meeting Buddy, and seeing first-hand what it looks like when people live by the land ethic and keep taking human-scale steps in service of the common good. Being there inspired me to keep the faith that small steps toward the world we want to live in can take us a long way.
I’m also full of admiration for the way Buddy and his staff are helping to keep the land ethic alive. And as you’ll learn on this podcast, he’s is a walking encyclopedia of all things Aldo Leopold and a persuasive spokesperson for the land ethic who walks his talk.
After you’ve listened to the podcast, please check out A Sand County Almanac (this edition has a brilliant introduction by Barbara Kingsolver) and the Aldo Leopold Foundation. At the Foundation’s site, don’t miss two upcoming online events, both of which promise to be great experiences: Aldo Leopold and the Wilderness Movement and Leopold Week 2024: Natural, Wild, and Free.
Carrie’s Note
First - I hope you’ll check out the now available updated edition of Parker’s book 2011 book Healing the Heart of Democracy ! I’m so excited this important work, with its updated Introduction by Parker (and a Study Guide) is here in time for the 2024 election season! I have loved revisiting this insightful and timely book!
About the podcast — This particular podcast came at a good time for me personally. In the past year we’ve experienced the hottest year on record globally. Climate destabilization has brought continuous news of wildfires, drought and all kinds of unprecedented weather events including super tornados, super hurricanes, floods, extreme cold, extreme heat waves and more. As our precious natural world is groaning many of us are experiencing a sense of deep and abiding loss, grief, anger and alarm. I was very encouraged by speaking with Buddy Huffaker, as he describe how the overused, over-logged farm Aldo Leopold purchased in the 1940’s is now covered with healthy forests supporting a wide variety of flora and fauna. First Leopold and his family, then Buddy Huffaker and a widening community of care, have faithfully nurtured the healing of the land. Leopold did not live to see those small trees he planted grow into a beautiful canopy of deciduous trees, but trusted that the daily actions he took on the lands behalf would matter. The climate crisis we are facing is large, complex and overwhelming in its scope. But we have tremendous power in how we choose to live our daily lives. Change happens one tree at a time, one conversation at a time, one daily action that heals the world three feet around us, that narrows our divides and honors our interconnected place in the natural scheme of things.
The Growing Edge Podcast
You can listen here, or on Substack, I-Tunes, Spotify or where ever you get your podcasts!
The Growing Edge February Podcast: Episode 54: Revisiting A Sand County Almanac"—A Conversation with Leapold Foundation Exec. Director Buddy Huffaker
In this episode Parker J. Palmer and Carrie Newcomer have a conversation with Buddy Huffaker, Executive Director of the Aldo Leopold Foundation . We discuss the 75th anniversary of Aldos Leopold’s environmental classic A Sand County Almanac, the continuing work of the Leopold Foundation, the concept of a land ethic, climate change and our individual and community work to heal the natural world.
Visit our website for the full archives of The Growing Edge Podcast.
Question of the Month
Where do you experience delight in the natural world? Have you have you ever planted something (physically or personally) that you knew you might not see come to full fruit —but did it anyway? Why?
BOOK NEWS!
An updated edition of Parker’s book 2011 book Healing the Heart of Democracy is now available—with a Study Guide and author videos—just in time for the start of the 2024 election year. In this era of deep divides and threats to our democracy, many have found this book a practical and inspiring guide to citizen action. Order the book HERE—and if you know the book and feel so inclined, please leave a review.
To quote the book, “The democratic experiment is endless, unless we blow up the lab, and the explosives to do the job are found within us. But so also is the heart’s alchemy that can turn suffering into community, conflict into the energy of creativity, and tension into an opening toward the common good.”
Parker’s Online Appearances
Tami Simon of Sounds True is one of the best interviewers I know. In this edition of the Sounds True podcast, Tami and I discuss the widely-shared experience of depression under the title, “Welcome to the Human Race.” Listen HERE…
NetVUE stand for “Network for Vocation in Undergraduate Education.” It was good to talk with hosts Erin VanLaningham and John Barton—I share their passion for helping the rising generation find meaning and purpose in life. And I love the title they gave this conversation: “Parker Palmer on Muddling Through”!
A few months ago, I sat down with Jenna Abdou, host and producer of 33 Voices, “a global conversation about things that matter in business and in life.” Jenna is one of the young leaders who have been enriching my life for the past quarter century. It was a great pleasure to talk with her, and feel the good energy that can emerge when younger and older folks make a creative connection. If you’d like to see what we have to say about “the soul’s imperative”, check out our conversation HERE.
I loved talking with Heidi Brooks, Senior Lecturer at the Yale School of Management. She told me she wanted to talk about my book Let Your Life Speak, which she called “the scariest book I have ever read.” How could I turn down an invitation like that?! I’m so glad I said yes—it was a great joy to talk with her. Listen in HERE.
Carrie’s Great Wild Mercy Winter/Spring 2024 Tour
A Great Wild Mercy - Available for Streaming Now!
I hope you’ll check out my new album now available on I-Tunes, Spotify, or where ever you stream your music. You can find my CDs and Books at my website store, Amazon or all the usual outlets :-)