Past Events

Saturday, May 13, 2006

Butterflies and Blues 2

with poet/essayist Alison Hawthorne Deming (The Monarchs, Temporary Homelands, Genius Loci)and the Plaehn / Hino Acoustic Blues Duo. A concert to celebrate critters, music and live literature.

Alison Deming is the author of Science and Other Poems, The Monarchs: A Poem Sequence, and a new poetry collection Genius Loci, as well as three nonfiction books, including Temporary Homelands. She currently is Professor in Creative Writing at the University of Arizona and lives in Tucson. She is coming to Corvallis after doing a weeklong writing residency at the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest as part of the Long-Term Ecological Reflections program. You can learn more about Deming on her UA webpage: http://www.u.arizona.edu/~ademing/index.html

“Butterflies and Blues 2" was sponsored by the Spring Creek Project and the Andrews Forest LTEResearch program.

April 29-30, 2006

Courage and Hope/The Call of the Sandhill Crane

Spring Creek hosted two inspiring Alaskans, singer/songwriter Libby Roderick and writer Hank Lentfer, for a workshop for people who love the earth and a free concert for courage and hope (scroll down for information about the concert).

--The Workshop: Courage and Hope/The Call of the Sandhill Crane: for Environmentalist Activists, Writers, Artists, and All who yearn to make the World a better place. With essayist and subsistence poet Hank Lentfer (Arctic Refuge) and singer/songwriter Libby Roderick ( Thinking Like a Mountain)
Saturday, April 29 10a.m. to 7p.m. and Sunday, April 30, 9a.m. to 1p.m.
at The Cabin at Shotpouch Creek

About the Workshop: The Spring Creek Project for Ideas, Nature, and the Written Word invites you to a workshop for anyone who yearns to make the world a better place. The path of this work is sometimes riddled with defeat and disappointment. Still, each day we try to make healthy, loving, ethical choices and to throw whatever material and spiritual weight we have toward what affirms and sustains life on this beautiful planet.

This weekend offers an opportunity, together, to explore what sustains us, what brings us joy or brings us to our knees with sorrow and regret; to ask what keeps us going, what keeps us sane, where we need to grieve and surrender, and where to hold fast -- the spiritual aikido required to bring joy, healing, strength, and sustenance to the hard work of hope.

In the forest along Shotpouch Creek, we will walk, talk, sing, listen, share meals and stories and explore the terrain of courage and hope. Our explorations will be led by Hank Lentfer and Libby Roderick. Hank is an Alaskan essayist, activist, and coyote, coeditor of Arctic Refuge. Libby is a singer and songwriter from Anchorage, beloved for her songs, How Can Anyone?, Thinking Like a Mountain, and Winter Wheat.

About the Concert: Thursday, April 27, Unitarian Fellowship

Birds calling out at dusk remind us of the urgency of our work to preserve the earth's thriving. But the path is riddled with defeat and discouragement. How can we who deeply care overcome the deadening effects of disappointment, open our hearts to moments of beauty and grace, and go on with our good work?

Join singer/songwriter Libby Roderick (How Could Anyone? Thinking Like a Mountain), essayist and subsistence poet Hank Lentfer (Arctic Refuge), local writer Kathleen Dean Moore, and writer David James Duncan for an evening of music and ideas, courage and hope.

"I wish to transform fear of the future into gratitude born of small acts done with great love." –Hank Lentfer, The Faith of Cranes

July 20-24, 2005

Catastrophe and Renewal: Mount St. Helens Foray

Twenty writers and scientists gathered on a ridge within the blast area northeast of Mount St. Helens for a four-day retreat to consider lessons from human and ecological responses to 1980 volcanic eruption. The retreat closed with an afternoon discussion with two dozen additional people with deep knowledge of that landscape. An anthology of essays, poems and photographs is in preparation.

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Field Trip. "The Long View of the Forest." June 25, 2005. An essential element of communications in field sciences is "the field trip," a technique that can be effectively adapted to collaborations of scientists and creative writers. In this adventure, environmental writers and scholars of environmental writing from the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment national meeting in Eugene, Oregon, traipsed through the ancient forests and new burns of the Long-Term Ecological Reflections plots at the Andrews Forest, learning about the long-term ecological research and writing reflections on their experience.

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Roundtable Discussion. June 21, 2005. A roundtable of discussion and readings was held at the Association for Study of Literature and Environment at the University of Oregon, Eugene. Writers in residence Robert Michael Pyle, Robin Kimmerer, and Scott Slovic read from writings during their time at the Andrews Forest. Kathleen Dean Moore and Fred Swanson commented on the idea of the Reflections program in a discussion hosted by Charles Goodrich.

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Public lecture. "Lessons from Cataclysms." May 18, 2005. On the 25th anniversary of the eruption of Mount St. Helens, poet Gary Snyder and forest ecologist Jerry Franklin appeared on the stage together in Portland, Oregon, to discuss catastrophe and renewal on the mountain. As part of the Illahee lecture series in Portland, more than 1600 people gathered to hear Snyder and Franklin, who together have more than a century of personal experience in that landscape, which has given them guidance about finding hope in troubling times (Snyder 2004) and ideas about fresh approaches to forest ecology (Franklin et al. 2000). To prepare for the public event, Snyder, Franklin, and Spring Creek and Illahee folks visited Mount St. Helens on May 17 to discuss lessons and commune with the muse.

October 28-30, 2004

Nature and the Sacred: A Fierce Green Fire

Speakers

Marcus Borg, scholar and best-selling author
Joanna Macy, eco-philosopher and scholar of Buddhism
N. Scott Momaday, Native American scholar, poet, author
Kathleen Dean Moore, writer and nature philosopher
Seyyid Hossein Nasr, renowned Islamic scholar
Chet Raymo, writer and physicist

About the Symposium

What is the relation between nature and the sacred? Is nature sacred? Does the sacred manifest itself in nature? Suppose it is and it does: What can that mean? In what way could it possibly be true? What does it demand of us? What does it tell us about how we ought to live our lives?

"Nature and the Sacred: A Fierce Green Fire" promises to stimulate serious thinking and creative conversation about the relation of nature to the sacred, and what that means for our lives.

For more details, registration forms, and contact information, please visit the archived site: nature and the sacred

Scheduled of Events

Thursday, October 28

7 p.m.—N. Scott Momaday

Friday, October 29

9:00 a.m.—Marcus Borg

10:30 a.m.—Joanna Macy
12 noon—Lunch / conversation tables
1:30 p.m.—Seyyid Hossein Nasr
3:00 p.m.—Kathleen Dean Moore