Offerings for Families & Community Members from Audrey Kindred

A note from Audrey Kindred, Ethical NYC’s Ethical Education Director for Children, Youth & Families,

“I have two huge gifts I would love to offer community members and families. It is my greatest wish that you will actively engage in each. I hope you will feel welcome to share with me what these gifts bring up for you…. so I can thank you for receiving them. I can be easily reached at Akindred@nysec.org”

The first is a free course I collaboratively wrote with Leader Emeritus Dr. Anne Klaeysen for people to creatively engage in and create a life full of deeply humane celebration of life. It offers people a deep guided experience of applying humanist values to daily life and holidays through active engagement and creative choice making.

https://americanhumanistcenterforeducation.org/free-courses/humanist-family-life-ceremonies/

The second gift I want to offer is a recorded platform that I created for the American Ethical Union’s All Society Platform on the cusp of this new year, 2024. The title is Human-I-Tree.

It’s an hour and 15 minutes long with wonderful artistic experiences embedded throughout. These include collaborations with artists who have brought their gifts to us at Ethical Culture through our intergenerational festivals.

Featured is: Ethical NYC’s Eco-Artist in Residence Jody Sperling,

Young Ethical Explorers teacher Simba Yangala,

Fall Festival 2023 collaborator, Alexa Babakhanian,

Winter Festival 2019 collaborators, Annie Lanzillotto and Bonita Oliver,

and Poet of the Essex County Ethical Society, Daniella Gioseffi.

The program opens with a wonderful sharing by American Ethical Union Board President, Khandra Sears, and is hosted by Dr. Anne Klaeysen!

This offering invites us to TREE together! And to develop, invigorate and share our ECO-VOICES in order to invigorate our own relationships to and explorations of climate justice issues. In this presentation I bring together three concepts that I have been developing and co-creating with the Ethical NYC community through intergenerational festivals over the last few years: Human-I-Tree…. Communi-Tree….. and Uni-Tree. While workshopping these notions with Ethical Community of all ages, I have simultaneously been working on a Masters Thesis in Educational Curriculum and Instruction through SUNY Empire University, developing these themes as an educational vision for climate justice education for young people growing up in these challenging times. Here is the video gift I have to offer. Below that is an exhibit of some responses I have received to the embedded requests/invitations I make within it.

Video: December All-Societies Platform: Human-I-Tree

Please feel encouraged and welcome to participate by sending your own responses to Growing.Eco.Voices@gmail.com

Below are a few “Tree & Me” responses:

From Trish Taylor, Ethical Society of Austin

“I live in the north central part of Louisiana in the piney woods. This town has always been a sawmill town, but now there is a lumber mill and also a pellet mill here. All day, and even at night, loaded log trucks run back and forth in front of my house. It’s hard to imagine that there are that many trees in the state. A timber company owns most of the land around the town, and they are clear cutting it, cutting pine and hardwood down to the dirt and wreaking havoc on the wildlife. The infuriating thing is that the pellets from that mill are sent over to England where they are burned to generate electricity.

I could really get myself worked up into a rant here, but I’ll spare you that. Anyway, I found so much value from your presentation that I just had to respond to your request for artwork. When you talked about it, this picture came immediately to my mind. I thought about trying to come up with something more positive, but this image was persistent. When I see the damage left behind by the loggers, it breaks my heart.”

Your sister in Ethics, Trish Taylor

Urania, Louisiana. ~ Ethical Society of Austin

From Elaine Durbach from the Washington Ethical Society