[Full Length] Urban Ecologies: Where’s Nature in the City? — with Gavin Van Horn

Written By alexa firmenich

“How do we think like a landscape? How do we think like a river?

How do we imagine ourselves into these other types of being which would expand our empathic imaginations?”

- Gavin Van Horn

 

SYNOPSIS:

Where does the city begin ? How do animals disrupt our associations of what cities are ? What even is urban wilderness?

Gavin Van Horn, Executive Editor of the Center for Humans and Nature and author of the books The Way of Coyote: Shared Journeys in the Urban Wilds and Animal Encounters In The Chicago Wilderness, is here to disrupt long-held notions that cities are just concrete masses devoid of other life.

Gavin shares his tales from the city of Chicago, stories of brave citizens who transformed their neighbourhoods and rewove a social fabric with pollinator pathways, migratory bird preserves, and a catalytic Greencorps program. We hear about the mutual gaze that is shared between us and other life, and how to dial in to the stories that animals are telling about us among all that urban noise.

Teaser quote: “I think it also is helpful to follow good old Aldo Leopold's advice and try to think like a mountain. How do we think like a landscape? How do we think like a river? How do we imagine ourselves into these other types of being which would expand our empathic imaginations?”

 

GUEST BIO:

Gavin van Horn is Executive Editor of the Center for Humans and Nature, and is the author of the books The Way of Coyote: Shared Journeys in the Urban Wilds and City Creatures: Animal Encounters In The Chicago Wilderness.

As a story forager, Gavin develops and directs transdisciplinary projects that illuminate what it means to become human within a more-than-human world. He received a Master of Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary, and his doctorate from the University of Florida with a specialization in Religion and Nature. His dissertation research examined the religious, cultural, and ethical values involved in the reintroduction of wolves to the southwestern United States.

Gavin wants stories to navigate with and get lost within—stories that crack shells, melt wax, and sprout wings. Stories that open paths to living well in a living world.a collaboration and a living together with the bees.

QUOTES:

  • It doesn't start with being in awe, or somehow having an epiphany. It starts with everyday intimacies that build our capacity for care, our capacity for extending our empathic imagination into other spaces that we're a part of.

  • Having our gaze returned or hearing the languages of other species is a reminder that we're not alone, that we are not a species that is apart from other species. We're not the only ones telling stories about them, they're also telling stories to each other about us.

  • It all started with thinking like a bee.

  • Think about a bee seeing an ultraviolet spectrum. Think about a hawk, being able to see pinpoint precision two miles away to see a mouse. Think about the speed of a peregrine falcon through the air. Think about all the perceptual attributes that other animals have that we do not. What's it like to be an elephant and perceive the world through our feet?

  • I think it also is helpful to follow good old Aldo Leopold's advice and try to think like a mountain. How do we think like a landscape? How do we think like a river? How do we imagine ourselves into these other types of being which would expand our empathic imaginations?

  • It's humbling to see all the different ways that life can express itself in bodily form. Eight legs, four legs, two legs, no legs, wings and fur and fin and feathered - it’s all just overwhelmingly beautiful and amazing to me.

SHOW NOTES

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alexa firmenich
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[Full Length] Urban Ecologies: Where’s Nature in the City? — with John Thackara