Cultivating Kinship: The Art of Becoming an Ecosystem

Abstract: In a blend of lyric essay, poetry and spiritual storytelling, this performance seeks to investigate the lineage of ecological movements—creative and destructive, evolving and transformative—into which we emerge as humans, and whose life-giving music we learn and honor to our collective flourishment, or ignore and abuse to our collective peril. Drawing lessons from the plant world—where native, invasive and naturalized species shape, threaten and seek refuge in their ecosystems—and drawing parallels in the lives, movements and deaths of ecosystems themselves, it examines the embattled processes of nativity and colonialism, often entwined in the same species and creature. It then offers a path toward intentional integration into our places, where, once aware of our endangerments and practical means of alignment, we can begin to cultivate the art of reciprocity: living as ecosystems inhabiting people as much as people inhabiting lands.

Presenter bio: Ricky Ray is a poet, essayist and eco-mystic who lives with his wife and his own brown dog in the old green hills of New England. He is the author of three books of poetry, and the forthcoming collection The Soul We Share, along with a critical study of the poet Brigit Pegeen Kelly. He was educated at Columbia University and Bennington College, and he lectures on poetry, animism and integral ecology.

Affiliation: Columbia University