Polar Bear Son, an Inuit folktale about an elderly childless woman who finds a lost polar bear cub and raises him as her own. When he grows up and the elderly woman finds herself unable to look after herself, he brings her food.

Wild Kin: Folktales & Fellowship with the Wild

May 24, 2024

Befriending the “monster”, or overcoming one’s fear of the “other”, is a common theme in many folktales where the relationship between the two main characters, one human and the other a wild animal, shifts from one of hunter and prey, to one of parent and child, ancestor and descendant, brother and sister, or lovers. It is a voice from the past that shows up again and again in stories from around the world suggesting that planetary ecological restoration may depend not only on conservation efforts but is, at its heart, a relational job calling for us to re-story ourselves into belonging with the wild.

Tern Teachings: Guests that Nest & Give

April 10, 2024

It is not only humans that tell stories. . . In the voice of bright white feathers and a charming black cap, a story darts its way through gusts of wind off the coast of Massachusetts hatching out of makeshift nests of pebbles and dry grasses. during the months of April and May. It is a seasonal story with themes of reciprocity and interdependence between the arctic tern, a migrating bird, and local coastal cloudberry flowers suggesting that even temporary guest can still contribute to a landscape’s thriving.

Owl and Raven: A Folktale of Beauty and Reciprocity

November 21, 2023

There is an ancient Inuit folktale featuring two friends: a snowy owl and a raven and how they came to have two strikingly different colors and decorative patterns. The story reveals how beauty is not attributable to an individual, but arises as a result of reciprocity, and mutual respect. In contrast to the ways we understand beauty in the dominant culture of today, this folktale offers us deep wisdom about how how beauty ought to be a celebration of those who create the objects of adornment, as well as the one adorned. . .and how beauty arises as a result of their collaborative effort.