Your Name | Danielle Delhaes |
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Email Address | danielle@doornumberone.org |
Cohort Assignment | Americas with Online Intensive, Winter-Spring 2024 |
1. What do you see as your primary work at this stage of your life? | The focus of my work is bold and systemic climate action through regenerative community projects. I am an enthusiastic climate change educator working to co-design and implement a whole-school climate action program (Climate Action Accelerator Program-CAAP) anchored in hope and regeneration. I believe that a key to the transformation and transition (paradigme shifts) that humans must go through to align our "ways" with those of the natural world, is a spiritual connection with Nature, a reverence for life, for the Earth. |
2. What role do you see as yours to play? | With great humility, I see myself as a voice FOR Nature. I have always worked in the field of environmental education, focussing my work on developing in others a respect, appreciation and deep sense of belonging to Nature. I have always been a voice FOR Nature. But the planet, and humanity, are in a different reality at this point. There is an urgency to act and, for most of us, shift the nature of our relationship with Nature. I want to continue to contribute making that shift happen for humanity, for the Earth, through my work in my own community of humans, to the best of my capacity. |
3. What goals or aims do you have in regard to the above? | To that end, I aspire and challenge myself to learn from Nature everyday as I observe the more-than-human world through a lens of biomimicry and systems thinking with curiosity and humility. I experiment with the application of Nature's wisdom and intelligence to my life choices and projects (permaculture gardens, community engagement, regenerative forestry projects, regenerative food production, artistic creations, etc.) I have chosen to take this course to further my learning and support my goals of contributing to meaningful change. |
4. Where do you feel your next arenas for personal growth are? | At this point in my life, I do not really separate the professional and personal spheres. It all just flows seamlessly and various aspirations and projects just evolve in symbiosis. I engage in my life from a holistic perspective. The main area of growth that I want to nurture is to evolve on this planet through a profound, meaningful, sacred connection with all forms of life, the land, the water, the air... the living systems. It is a spiritual and intellectual pursuit that is expressed through my choices and actions. It builds my values system and guides what I share with others as an educator, a mother, a daughter, a sister, a friend, an earthling... |
5. And for professional growth? | see above |
6. What have you invested in to get you where you are? | Through my 40-year career as an environmental/climate change educator and my pursuits as a naturalist and gardener, I have continuously sought to learn, grow, understand and DO! I am a doer, a practitioner. I create, experiment, test, evaluate, adapt, share... A turning point for me was my participation in a one-week Immersive Biomimicry Workshop with Biomimicry 3.8. It transformed my understanding of the world and the nature of my engagement with Nature. To learn to decode, appreciate and emulate Nature's wisdom was life-changing. To have life's principles revealed to me as a form of intelligence was reassuring... It answered a longing that followed me my whole life. I can't quite express the feeling in words but I guess I could describe it as a void. As if I finally got to know and understand my dearest friend. As a naturalist and educator, I thought I knew a lot about Nature. But I had learned it all in the context of a dualistic and extractive perspective, in spite of trying to move away from that worldview. |
7. What fields of learning and which thinkers have been important in your life? | Janine Benyus-Biomimicry, David Abram-Ecophilosophy, Robin Wall Kimmerer-Indigenous Wisdom, Joanna Macy-Deep Ecology, David Hinton-Deep Ecology, Laure Waridel-Environmental Activism, Suzanne Simard-Forest Ecology, Toby Hemenway-Permaculture, Thich Nhat Hanh-Buddism, Dacher Keltner-Science of Awe, Roman Krznaric-Long Term Thinking, Doughnut Economics-Kate Raworth |
8. Can you frame your philosophy or cosmology of life? What role(s) do humans play in it? | Nature always creates conditions conducive to life. Humans are Nature. We need to embrace this principle in all aspects of our existence on this planet. |
Date Created | January 27, 2024 |