20. Vail Fletcher: Legend of Inter-species Collaboration

Introducing the legend of Inter-species Collaboration, Vail Fletcher.  Vail is a New York native and an Associate Professor at a local university. She spends her days teaching on-campus or at home researching, reading, writing, and envisioning what's next for their farm. Her research often takes her abroad (most recently to China, Tanzania, Zanzibar, Rwanda, Nicaragua, Austria, Ethiopia, Uganda, and South Africa) to explore nature, ecology, and environmental conflict. She loves: supporting local artisans, big thinking, creative endeavors, flowers/perfumes, pretty things, and a Mexican textile venture with dear friends: Xuxo

“Discomfort is the birthplace of learning.”

“Spend time in awe.”

"Our language reflects our reality.”

This episode is dedicated to William Robert and Ruby Tuesday.



We have a few technical difficulties throughout this - luckily the sticking is fast and doesn’t cause too much interruption so we just move through it.



Vail has recently published an academic tome:

Communicating in the Anthropocene

Intimate relations

https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B08S6WBTF7/ref=rdr_kindle_ext_tmb



From an upstate New York suburban upbringing to the unseated land of Wapato, Portland Oregon, which also goes by the name of Sauvie Island, Vail introduced me to ideas that turned me around inside and shifted my perspective. Seriously part way through Vail says something so profoundly moving that I gasp and go crosseyed (luckily you can’t see that on the podcast). Vail is an incredible mix of intellect, absolute clarity, and earth dweller. Vail’s intellect and humanity and inter-species collaboration is mind-shifting. She is absolutely the real deal and has me questioning my next move and where I want to take things going forward. She schooled me on Flypaths, and the ordinance of dark nights. She also says that love should be something we are thinking about and talking about and intellectualising more. “Why are my girlfriend relationships less important than my romantic relationships?”. Questions that we, in my coaching group, ask again and again.



This is a conversation that I will come back to again and again.



We get directly into colonial conversations and trauma bodies



Also in the episode:

Insights into decolonizing our bookshelves and diversifying information

Deep dive into trauma and racism and the effects

The power of language and the vernacular

The idea of foregrounding different histories in addition

WAIT WHAT? Climate change is not about Carbon … find out why

At one point Vail takes my breath away with her insight …

Reimagining economies (it’s more a return)

What Vail has to say about children’s books

Is art the only way out of this?

Paying attention and becoming intimate with her surroundings and non-human neighbours

Co-creators and her reframing of neighbours, inter-species collaboration

AWE as a way of life and the Orcagasm and nests



Find Vail at:



http://www.thecroftfarm.com/

https://www.instagram.com/thecroftfarm/

Dwell Magazine- https://www.dwell.com/article/tu-casa-croft-farm-yianni-doulis-364d98c3



See my blog for full write up of other mentions in the podcast.