Falling with Heron
Writing, Teaching & Healing Practices
Select Publications
My writing arises from walking in the forests along Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River, the bodies of water where I was born and have lived most of my life. Inspired by the relations of these places, I have written on the Christian/Canadian dimensions of colonial expansion in the northeast of Turtle Island (Canada), canadien-Indigenous dialogues that highlight the interdisciplinary scope of various global environmental issues, and the central role of cultural/religious ways in envisioning a wholistic response to our climate of change. Below are a sample of my published articles with a few quotes in relation to some of these themes.
Land/Earth-Based Education & Knowledge
When we are out in the woods and hear something beyond what the eyes can see, perhaps at night while around a fire, the senses become piqued as we quiet down our human chatter to attend what is around us. In a real sense, interdisciplinary thought and education represents a comparable attentiveness to an uncertain surround of emerging local and global environmental issues; it is our collective attention to something wild moving toward us which we know we must attend more closely. Such a view contrasts the more common assumption that interdisciplinarity is simply a kind of human creation to manage complexity, for it highlights we are in a co-creative dance with a mysterious and more encompassing partner. – Renewing Awe 2016, 174
Sitting quiet with Bittern as it stands motionless in the reeds, my mind is drawn from these mysterious origin stories to the more recent experience of a conservationist from the Ship who is local to this urban isle. In the early part of the twentieth century, John Livingston lived in Toron:to’s east-side where he came into relation with the marshes of Ashbridge’s Bay which in precolonial times were one of the largest wetlands in eastern Canada… Venturing into these wetlands often, Livingston wrote of being imprinted on the seasonal change of bird arrivals and departures; of becoming Friends with the birds. – Falling with Heron 2000, 6
Sample Articles:
(2024). Re-Planting the [Montreal] Tree of Peace: Renewing Relations in an Age of Extinction. In Religion and Extinction, S. Skirmshire & J. Kidwell (eds.), Indiana University Press.
(2020). Falling with Heron: Kaswen:ta teachings on our roughening waters. Social and Cultural Geography, 21(7), 925-939.
(2018) “Let us continue free as the air”: Reconciling social work education to Indigenous lands. Journal of Social Work Education, 54(3), 412-425.
(2017). Renewing awe in the urban experience: Historic changes in land-based education. Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, 21, 121-135.
(2013, with S. Crate). Reflexive shifts in climate research and education: Towards re-localizing our lives. Nature & Culture (2), 134-161.
(2010). The fallacy of Environmental Studies? An interdisciplinary foray thru Canada’s academic programs. Environments: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, 37(2), 1-28.
Looking at a Western culture where people were starting to pick-up aspects of Eastern spiritual practices such as meditation and yoga, Jung asked whether it is possible to “put on, like a new suit of clothes, ready-made symbols grown on foreign soil […] We are surely the rightful heirs of Christian symbolism, but somehow we have squandered this heritage.” Whether it be the current extremes of a Christian fundamentalism that harkens back to the surety of colonial missions or a kind of liberal secularism that rationalizes everything, the lack of a spiritual practice that can renew relations with a changing creation was for Jung another dimension of the modern soul dis-ease. – Reconciling to the Ancestors 2024, 38
Whether understood as a vessel, bridge, or Toron:to isle, I have been guided to this place of repose by a host of Herons for over a decade to learn what is needed to reweave the ways of the Ship into the Two Row. They call me to make many crossings between the two rows of conservation and Indigenous knowledge as I affirm the integrity of each, but also recognize the need for the Ship to learn something that is vital for our common future. – Falling with Heron 2020, 4
Sample Articles:
(2021). “Reconciling to the Ancestors: The Spirit of Decolonization in Times of Pandemic.” In Religion in North America, W. Baumann & L. Kearns (eds.). Bloomsbury Publishing: London.
(2018) “Let us continue free as the air”: Reconciling social work education to Indigenous lands. Journal of Social Work Education, 54(3), 412-425.
(with W. Woodworth Raweno:kwas) "We are renewable", in Alternatives Journal
"A Climate for Wisdom", in Tikkun
"A Thanksgiving Species", in Questions for a Resilient Future, Centre for Humans & Nature
(2015). Sila dialogues on climate change: Inuit wisdom for a cross-cultural interdisciplinarity. In M. Hulme (Ed.), Climates and Cultures, Volume 1, pp.235-252. New York: SAGE Publications.
Intercultural Dialogue
Our Climate of Change & Spiritus
To be wise is to allow Sila “to own us”, to allow that uncertain sentience that surrounds the human field of experience to inform knowledge of the world so that human actions can embody Silatuniq. In Jaypeetee’s words: “Wisdom is a specific inquiry as to the context and consequence of applying knowledge and/or how our interacting with the surround affects that surround”. This interconnection of “Sila without” and “Sila within” – of the cosmos and the mind – is not unique to Inuit culture… the most ancient Latin understanding of spiritus associates the breath “with the animating power of life” and “the life-sustaining air” that unites “inner and outer” in a spirit of continuous mediation. These diverse cultural descriptions of the air as a spiritual force that surrounds and permeates life with every inhalation would appear to resonate with aspects of Sila. – Sila Dialogues 2007, 245
The multi-headed pipeline is writhing to stay alive in the face of all the signs that indicate we are moving toward a downturn. How do we kill a multi-headed Black Hydra?... When a hydra appeared in Europe’s ancient past, the myths cycled toward stories of civilizations whose fate hung in the balance. Its immensity and regenerative capacity signified that an epoch of significant change was coming. A reactive world was bringing society against its limits and capacity to respond. In fact, the hydra often appeared because its underground treasure had been taken by people without a sense of responsibility and duty. Our time is not that different as we come upon a crossroad of our own making. – Living in the Shadow of a Black Hydra 20, 42-43
Sample Articles:
(2022). In the Wake of COVID-19: Reflecting on Social Work's Climatic Future. Canadian Social Work Review, 39(2), 83-91.
(2020, with Theriault, Mitchell, & Rubis). Special Issue Introduction – Living protocols: Remaking worlds in the face of extinction. Social and Cultural Geography, 21(7), 893-908.
"Living in the Shadow of a Black Snake", in Minding Nature, Centre for Humans & Nature
"In a Climatic Realm of Hungry Ghosts", in Minding Nature, Centre for Humans & Nature
(2015). Sila dialogues on climate change: Inuit wisdom for a cross-cultural interdisciplinarity. In M. Hulme (Ed.), Climates and Cultures, Volume 1, pp.235-252. New York: SAGE Publications.
(2014). Climates of ontological change: Past wisdom in current binds? Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 5, 247-260.