Booklist 2: The Insatiable Human Nature Connection

I’m sure many of us have experienced their own scale of life lessons throughout this pandemic. For me, my life has recently gone through some major shifts. Earlier this year I made the courageous move (literally) to unburden myself from the things in my life limiting me from my highest potential. I recently separated from my husband, moved my daughter and I out of the home we were sharing for 6 years and found myself a gorgeous apartment in Downtown Oakland.

Along this journey I realized I was also RECLAIMING who I was before this marriage. The house we lived in was so small that a lot of my beloved books and personal belongings were left in boxes the whole time! Now that I was able to find a place of my own with much more physical space then the previous home, I found myself resurfacing these personal belongings and also resurfacing things I had loved so much about who I am and what my passions were.

And that’s when I started to reunite with some of the books I always loved having around. These books are what kept me so close to the wonders of the natural world. And as a kid who didn’t enjoy humans so much, it was nature that kept me safe and fed my insatiable appetite for curiosity of the natural world.

So with this short book list #2, I want to share with you some of the most intriguing finds I’ve kept over the many years. Enjoy looking through this and the key teachings I’ve drawn out of each book and continue on to see what I’m currently reading! You can also follow me on my Goodreads site to look at a bunch more brain food items I’ve got listed!

OUR TRUE NATURE AS LOVING BEINGS

Biological Exuberance
Bruce Bagemihl

My college Bio 101 teacher once told me that the point of all animal life is to eat, shit, and reproduce. A few years later my Mammalogy professor shared with us this book that defies all scientific belief about animals, showing that most animal groups have shown evidence of same sex interactions and gender bending behaviors. And this book is a THICK 655 pages of research articles, without the Appendix! It's a fascinating reference book.

If you ever need the evidence that nature isn’t as simple as you think, this is the book to pick up! At least rummage through it by checking it out from the library. I find it very fascinating every time I come across information about nature I never expected.

Like a text book on animal behavior and sexuality, this book covers it all and in fashion of a sort of field guide on the matters. Where each animal species is catalogued for their biology and researched sexual behavior, the studies behind the evidence are also a part of the book that makes it a solid source of information!

Dabble a little more into the book and you’ll find some interesting references related to the findings where articles cite other aspects of explaining the behavior in animals, often referencing indigenous cosmologies and beliefs about sexual behavior. Or other forms of psychoanalysis from other areas of study.

What I really appreciate in this book is that it continually keeps teaching me things that also make me think about the many different ways us humans find intimacy, sexual interaction, and even domination and power in social context. I highly recommend it!

---

LISTENING TO OUR ANCESTORS

Listening to Whales, what the Orcas Have Taught Us

Alexandra Morton

Science researcher and author, Alexandra Morton shares with us the years of experience and knowledge following families of Orcas and the unethical practices of marine aquatic attractions like Sea World. This book is super intense at times and reveals just how much Orcas are just like us, deeply connected to their family systems and emotional life experiences.

This book is also close to my experience and beliefs about whales and our relationship with them. As a scientist it’s fascinating to know that structurally (by examining whale bones) they are physically our ancestors. Fused bones in their fins indicate a connection to our own human feet and hands! Spiritually, these beings represent our ancestors. Being connected to them spiritually, many of my dreams where whales have been there have been dreams of messages being sent my way. That each time I had a dream about whales I looked at the context and paid attention to what they wanted me to know. They have always shown up in times of seeking guidance! To me, they are our protectors!

---

PLANTS HAVE FEELINGS TOO

The Secret Life of Plants

Peter Tompkins & Christopher Bird

I call this the OG of plant studies showing that we can form close bonds with plants, essentially a book about how plants have feelings AND that we surely influence those feelings in them. Think Emoto's water experiment, but the plant version. I love this book as it takes you through story after story of how scientists measured plant "feelings" and reactions to negative and positive emotions AND relationships with humans.

How many of you have increased the amount of plants or time with plants since the pandemic? Plants have surely shown up as those organisms in this world that can provide healing in many forms. From the need to care and nurture something outside of you, to needing a thing to talk to while in isolation, this book is the proof that it’s not a one-way interaction!

Read this one to take you through many experiments where plants were put to the feelings tests and probed to track reactions to things like a negative or violent person in the room to sending your beloved plants loving affirmations from afar, resulting in synchronous “good feelings”! I absolutely love the stories in this book and can surely do without some of the dry science explanations, especially in the last half of the book.

Either way, if you can find this original version, great! But chances are you’ll be picking up a newer version of this book if you can find it!

THANK YOU FOR READING!
 IF YOU FOUND THIS RESOURCE HELPFUL
AND WOULD LIKE MORE LIKE THIS, SUBSCRIBE
TO MY NEWSLETTER BELOW!

Booklist 1: Gathering the Guides

I get asked a lot to share what books I read. So here’s a very short list of the key guides that have really shaped my work today. It’s not the whole list, but they are the few that have informed my nature-based coaching process. Keep in mind they’re not newly released books, best sellers per se, or on some trend right now; that’s not really how I pick books.

Enjoy looking through this and the key teachings I’ve drawn out of each book and continue on to see what I’m currently reading! You can also follow me on my Goodreads site to look at a bunch more brain food items I’ve got listed!

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CARE & LOVE

All About Love New Visions
bell hooks

“Without love there is no justice” -bell hooks

My master guide, right here! Ever since I’ve read this one, I’ve recommended it, shared physical copies of it, talked about it, heard other people share how mind-blowing it is, and I just think its one to keep on your shelves forever. bell hooks is one of my “crucible guides”. You know, those key people or creators that offer you those precious gifts that heal you all along the way? You might see me quote her often!

This book in particular really shined the light on what parenting really is about and why we see the needs of youth of color show up the way they do. It also shines the light on what the consequences are for adult relationships if we don’t get THIS LOVE THING down, like fo’-real, fo’-real.

At the time I really read this book I was just beginning my career of youth education and development as a program manager with Standford University. I was also full-on in the dating game! But I was new to teaching teens and I had all the responsibilities; designing their program, partnering with the teacher community, remembering my science, booking field trips and interns, etc...I knew I wanted to get it right with the youth so I stared reading bell hooks. I wanted (and had the autonomy) to bring in whatever pedagogy felt right to make my program successful.

What I realized about my work after reading this book was that as a child, I WAS CARED FOR WELL, BUT NOT LOVED. Heartbreaking, yes. Most importantly, validating. There wasn’t as much “love” in my household as I thought. No one really said “I love you”. And I realized I was cared for well into my adulthood with a super middle class amount of privilege all around. But love in my family, well it was uncomfortable to really go there, resulting in all kinds of relationship experiences all the way into my marriage.

Read it if you haven’t. You might find it a fierce approach to love as well as…

• drawing up a strong connection between knowing what love is to justice work

• truly understanding what to be aware of when it comes to love and youth’s needs to be taught how to love

• hard truths about how we go about our relationships, not knowing or naming the things that are missing or that are impacting our behaviors

NATURE’S NOT INVENTED, BUT I GET IT

The Invention of Nature, Alexander von Humboldt’s New World
Andrea Wulf

This book blew my mind personally because when I picked it up, I was many years an alum of Humboldt State University and would have had the tattoo on my arm for over 10 years already. This tattoo, I realized was connected to my passion for science and to Alexander von Humboldt’s work!

Anyway, the gist is that I’ve always loved existentialist views and writing. I was always drawn to the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thoreau, Coolidge, etc...but didn’t know much about Humboldt, let alone that he was a major influence on these Existentialists. Well, this book took care of that and then some.

The things I most appreciate about this book is that it brings back the forgotten and powerful stories of this man’s expeditions, his discoveries as it relates to civilization/society during his time, and the immense influence he had on the people he worked with. He was one of those that advocated for natural law being the sustainable way for us humans to interact with the planet and very outspoken about the injustice of slavery and ‘monopoly’ as referenced during his time.

“Humboldt claimed that the colonies could only be liberated and self-sufficient when they were ‘freed from the fetters of the odious monopolyI’. It was the ‘European barbarity’, Humboldt insisted, that had created this unjust world.”

As a result of reading it I found it most empowering to know that Humboldt:

• Used to be globally celebrated because of his infectious love for nature, science, and its diversity and advocated for indigenous people from whatever land he was exploring

• Influenced Simon Bolivar to liberate his people of Venezuela from Spanish rule, slavery, and the destruction of his country’s natural resources

• In the context of what was happening around the world at the time the US was becoming the “United States” I appreciated that he was always in disagreement with how the country was being built; off of exploitation and slavery of its people. He was one of the first and few voices to take a strong stance against the “European barbarity” and injustice he was observing in the locations he visited.

RECONCILING THE REMAINS OF ANCESTORS

Trace; Memory, History, Race, and the American Landscape
Lauret Savoy

This one’s a quick, informative, memoir-like poetic read. I love that it was a personal journey for Savoy, well equip with a historical lens on places, historical events, including the time’s social norms around land and race politics. I do recommend this book for folks doing work with land-based agencies like Trusts, Conservation, Stewardship, Recreation because it adds depth to the present experience of how we make decisions, create policies, and honor those who have been directly tied to this land in some way. She uncovers the past (her past) and connects it directly to where we are today as a society.

Some key things I think this book informed me about was:

• The African American perspective of seeing, reclaiming, and bringing dignity back to her people, her specific family of origin

• Additional context to our current struggle with anti-blackness and the origins of this ‘land ethic’

• How and why places were named what they are

• The common theme amongst people of color on this land is the feeling of not belonging to a land  and not really having another option from that

• How even a Geologist can bring her identity into her analysis, love this!

“How a society remembers can’t be separated from how it wants to be remembered or from what it wishes it was - that is, if we believe stories of ancestors reflect who we are and how we came to be. The past is remembered and told by desire.”

HOW REAL IS THIS DNA STUFF?

The Invisible History of the Human Race
Christine Kenneally

I literally had just landed in Washington State when my DNA results came to my inbox. I was there for a weekend meeting and remember getting into the rental car, astonished but not surprised by the results. I was slightly distracted the whole weekend with questions about myself and my past and ancestors. As soon as I had a break I hit the bookstore and this book popped out to me and screamed, “pick me up!”

This book has soo much intriguing information about the study of genealogy and the origins of DNA testing. The depth and detail about human history and how DNA provides the evidence of our migration are some of the more impressive parts of the author’s research, in my opinion. She doesn’t shy away from the history of genealogy’s hard truths and the destructive and evil acts that have occurred over time due to certain ideologies. There are some real truth bombs in this book!

The one thing I did leave myself a tiny bit disappointing is that this book is coming from a Eurocentric analysis of DNA. Although much of the data of DNA and human migration include points from China, I kept wondering if samples were taken of my people of East Asia and the Pacific Islands. But, perhaps the research for that is happening now, or has happened and I don’t know of it. Can someone please tell me where THAT book is?

Read this one, especially if you’ve done your DNA test and I promise it’ll add more life to your journey! Key teachings for me are:

• “DNA confirmation” that racism is a social construct and genealogy has a much richer and disarming past

• So much harm has been done to each other all because of the ideas we have in our mind about who is worthy or belonging to a particular group

• There’s a subculture of people claiming to be decendents of Ganges Kahn, to the point of lawsuits and such. Like whoa, had no idea!

• From a spiritual perspective, looking at DNA data only scratches the surface of who we are as a human organism in this world, a good stepping stone for a deeper exploration of Self

I’m really excited about what’s next for DNA research because she does talk about some of the work being done to further our understanding of our history and identity such as the intergenerational impacts to our search for ‘ourselves’. I’ve always been really interested in understanding the impacts of intergenerational trauma on our health and well-being as I wrote about in a previous blog on Soul Wounds. This book is like a good recourse to understanding the complexities of our identities!

WHAT I’M CURRENTLY READING…

Way of the Ancient Healer, Sacred Teachings from the Philippine Ancestral Traditions
Virgil Mayor Apostol

Words can’t even begin to describe how precious this book is to me right now. I think my love for my people is becoming even more profound now that I’m deep into some ancestral healing and discovering the ways that my people worked to heal others and what our relationship was like to our land. This book is such a comprehensive, yet surface dwelling understanding of how my people moved about this world. I’m floored by the information and how much I really identify with all the things I’m reading in this book!

And by surface dwelling, I mean I don’t honestly know how one book can really capture the depth and power of my people. So this book leaves me so intrigued by the traditions and stories included in here. Sometimes it’s soo hard to believe, the ways in which my ancestors did their healing work and to know that I can possibly bring some of these back. I can tell we come from a long line of very deeply rooted origins to this Universe.

If you are finding yourself on any level of spiritual awakening or curiosity to indigenous ways, I highly encourage you to pick this one up. And be open to the information as it may bring up some triggers or limited beliefs that come with a colonized mind!

How to Be an Adult in Relationships
David Richo

As a Transformational Coach I always drool at the opportunity to know more about struggles in ourselves and our shadows. This book, although its title sounds like it’s stuck in an industry of self help books, it’s SOOOO GOOD!!! It really is. Break into it and you’ll find page after page of truth bombs and stylistic prose like,

“Nature cannot afford to lose any of her stewards, so she has calibrated the heart so it is never permanently fulfilled”

Or

“Can I stand in the moonlight and feel its reflection as nature’s mirroring and let that be enough for now?

I just broke this open a few months ago and try really hard not to highlight almost every other sentence. It’s dense but in the best way possible! This, no doubt is going to be another permanent one on my bookshelf!

THANK YOU FOR READING!
 IF YOU FOUND THIS RESOURCE HELPFUL
AND WOULD LIKE MORE LIKE THIS, SUBSCRIBE
TO MY NEWSLETTER BELOW!

Racial Justice Every Step of the Way

Back in 2014 I published what would be a key blog post of my career; taking a stand against what I felt were problematic practices of “diversity and inclusion” panels and discussions. My Shapeshifting the Panel piece was me taking a stand against the tokenization, the parading of our POC identities and experiences to predominantly white audiences as an illusion that we were doing something to “solve the problem” of diversity. It was a key post in my career because the article was picked up by a manager in the US Forest Service and I was invited to participate on an advisory council for the Pacific Northwest National Scenic Trail, which then landed me a board appointment for an award winning news magazine, High Country News.

This blog post opened up my voice.

I remember writing the piece over the course of just a couple of hours. I started with my heart rapidly beating in frustration and determination because I knew what I did and experienced on my last diversity panel was something I wanted to let the world know. I wanted the community to know why it was problematic. I also knew I wasn’t going to let my voice be violated by opening up the pathway for defensive responses, blame, or ranting. It needed to come from ME in every sense of the wording, flow, and emotion.

I knew I needed TO OWN this piece.

So looking back on where I was in my personal AND professional development, I can see how those parts of my story are now being implemented in how I function as an independent agent with Rino Consulting Solutions. My values of social and racial justice are more clear.

So how does it show up in my practice?

I focus on THE WORK from a JUSTICE LENS
When I was vetted to serve for the US Forest Service I had to make sure this wasn’t exactly what I was standing against. I asked what would my positionality be with the council, why they wanted me there, and made sure this was an invested working group, not just a talking piece for the agency. I made sure the entire council as a whole was diverse in participation and perspective.

In my Open Space Equity Presentation I challenge the notions of where our separations in environmental engagement come from by looking at the evidence in land use, historical colonization, and the socio-economic impacts of how we engage with the environment today. I show the systems at play and how our personal value sets influence the decisions made in our urban environments. I connect the evidence to show how social and racial justice are embedded in the landscape. Doing the work means presenting a different perspective and understanding how that impacts our personal value sets, which then drive our passion to participate in change and make choices.

We talk about the systems at play for perspective and knowledge

I do racial justice, NOT diversity and inclusion
I remember one presentation I did for a college group really bombed. I mean, really bombed. I lost the audience, there was silence when I was done, and the post Q & A session seemed to just perpetuate my frustrations with diversity work. I heard later that I left the audience drained of their energy, lost, and I seemed really bitter to them. And I was.

I became stuck. I didn’t know how to think differently about how I felt about “diversifying the industry” and my participation in this work in my career. Until a close friend of mine listened to how I spoke about my frustrations with diversity work. And when she said to me, “You know, I’ve always been confused about why so many organizations don’t understand that there’s a big difference between ‘diversity’ work and ‘racial justice’ work. They’re not the same thing.” Instantly it became clear to me! I do racial justice work, not diversity work!

Mind you, diversity as a “body of work” is more than a thing, it’s a BEING. And some strategies like increasing the number of POC staff is a stopgap to cultivating your being a more diverse entity, culturally. It just gets you the numbers. Racial justice on the other hand, focuses on the actual systems of society that create the separation of communities, land, economics, power, status, and the disparities in industry engagement. It gets to the belly of the beast and works from the core. And I'm presenting THAT as the take away or starting point for the work. That’s what I do.  

So, going back to my bombed presentation. I had another opportunity to present to a similar audience. This time I changed the words on my presentation from “Diversity Engagement Strategist” to “Racial Justice Centered Engagement”. And I focused in on the language and content from a racial justice lens. What was the response from the audience? They wanted to know more about racial justice and what I meant by that. They shared stories of feeling the same ways in the workplace or in internships, and one student  even came to me after the presentation crying because it brought up similar emotions and challenges in her identity at her agency. She found deeper moments of relating to me and my experience as a WOC. I have to say, I think I landed that presentation!

Calling IN, not calling OUT
I consider myself a super-duper empath. The level of sensitivities I have with people and energies  around me are so enormous sometimes that I’ve actually had to devote intentional time and investment understanding how to manage my sensitivities. That’s the healer in me. So, when I see people in pain emotionally and physically it affects me A LOT.

In previous experiences as a training participant AND facilitator I’ve seen too many instances when activities done around power and privilege go nowhere the next day or just go south. I see and feel the pain and frustration. If not held and cared for in its delicacy and safety, triggers can bring out the ugly parts of us. I could shovel out a bazillion articles of what happens here, but I think we've all been around the tension in a room with diverse perspectives talking about race, power, and privilege. Why do I (1) want to risk being a part of that and (2) make efforts to try and manage and facilitate those types of incidents? That work drains me and always just leaves me with all kinds of negative feels. Or I have to go home and do all this extra work to decompress and level my emotions out. 

What’s my conclusion and solution to this? I believe in doing A DEEPER KIND of work in these trainings. At the root of all of this we long to be seen and heard on our own individual terms AND as a source of greatness to the world. I want to see EVERYONE achieve THIS. So, bringing in deeper practices of communication skills to the individual level allows people to OWN their experiences. Also, understanding when and if the processing needs to happen in the safety and privacy of the individual, within a shared identity group, or in solitude. Identifying safety is a key approach I began to implement in my trainings and a key component of how I coach. 

So, instead of asking folks to role play their power position or act out some implicit biases, I challenge folks to focus on language and deep listening during dialogue. I challenge folks to reach deep into their life and values and understand WHO THEY ARE FIRST before taking action. I offer tools that reach into our human condition after presenting our divided societal condition. I guide the development of individual growth towards impacting community growth, safely and effectively.

By knowing who we are in the world can we navigate it to create a world we want so that we are seen and heard on our terms

I CALL YOU INTO YOUR IDENTITY and reveal your unique gifts.

Check out what I did with Gateway Mountain Center’s Team by subscribing to my newsletter!

I choose to begin with the INDIVIDUAL
developing deeper communication skills IN SAFETY

Personally, this choice brought me some NEXT LEVEL adulting and resulted in some major shifts in my life and the people around me. And because I've practice this approach myself, I know how to hold this process for others. More importantly, when we take personal responsibility, it lands the overall responsibility of creating change in the world to the individual, not others!

Racial justice IS self-care
I have to credit my business coach, Anthem for handing this one to me! He said that when we’re not working on racial justice we’re not taking care of ourselves. It was a reminder and validation that all the self-care time and investment I have done and continue to do in my work simultaneously informs and develops me. All of these challenging times; the times I felt stuck and times I felt like I was talking to crickets in the room were all meant to be there for me as 'trail markers' for which direction to walk next.  

And the way I feel about my walk is that it is more in alignment today with who I am and the values I hold in my life. What's your walk like?

What are your thoughts on a racial justice lens? Does any of this resonate or trigger you? Let me know by commenting below or forwarding to your awesome community of change makers!