Imagine for a moment that you live in a small farming community in rural California. Your community has a long history of growing the food that people from all over the world eat, and lately there have been more and more advances in renewable agriculture technology that make your work less cumbersome and more rewarding. For you, the farmer, this means that the sensors you use, the seeds from which you grow your crops, the tools and equipment that you maintain, and all technology available to you are all ethically (and equitably) produced and sourced. The development of sustainable technology, like what you use to grow the food that feeds the world, is made possible by advances in carbon-free energy like wind, solar, and fusion. Your job, as a farmer in our Solarpunk world, is to support and enrich both land and people. Throughout this article we will discuss the ways in which we, as cultivators and supporters of student experiences in rural communities, endeavor to bring Solarpunk to rural STEM education.

Naturalism is a view of the world that includes those things which we can observe or directly conclude from observations. Naturalists’ conception of reality consists of the natural world as outlined by the latest scientific understanding. As for claims for which we have no evidence, we do not hold any beliefs in these and do not make any other claims about them. It is quite possible, even likely, that many things exist which we cannot detect, but we believe in a humble approach to knowledge. With humility, we can recognize that human beings are imperfect in their ability to know all things. Therefore, we are careful to limit our claims about reality to what we can experience and measure, as well as reproduce and show to others. On all else, we are content to admit “we don’t know”.

Spirituality is the other word in Spiritual Naturalism. For many, the word ‘spirituality’ has an association with the supernatural. However, we mean the term in its more general and original sense. The Latin root word spiritus meant ‘wind’ or ‘breath’, or the essence of something. As we might speak of the ‘spirit of the law’ or ‘school spirit’, the spiritual is that which is concerned with the essence of life – or the essential things in life. Thus, a person with no sense of spirituality would be a person that lives on the surface, always dealing only with the shallow or the mundane; perhaps even a materialistic person. But to have spirituality is to be concerned with the larger, deeper, and essential matters of life and to apply ourselves consciously toward them in a committed practice or ‘walk’. This includes, as Socrates put it, the ‘examined life’, and this is what we mean by spirituality.

In the Wild Ones National Webinar Rethinking Horticulture with Real Ecology, field botanist and science communicator Joey Santore, creator of Crime Pays But Botany Doesn’t, examines how inherited design norms like straight lines, uniform spacing, tidy edges, and color-grouped plantings shape expectations for native landscapes.

Thanks to @greatwhitebuffalo41@slrpnk.net for posting a reminder a few days ago :)

An introduction to drought tolerant, Xeriscape design for the home gardener. Learn through the 7 principles of Xeriscape how to plan, design, implement, and maintain a decorative and sustainable landscape that thrives with little to no irrigation.

My guest is David Wengrow, an archeologist and professor at University College London. He joins me to discuss his best-selling book "The Dawn of Everything", co-authored with the late David Graeber, published in 2021.

David Wengrow takes us on a powerful journey into the deep history of human societies. "The Dawn of Everything" offers a staggering historical survey and philosophical argument that reframes many of today’s assumptions about the origins of inequality.

Like a glittering tide, light pollution—also known as ALAN, or “artificial light at night”—is spreading across the globe, brightening even the planet’s remaining dark corners.

From space, cities resemble iridescent amoebae, their luminous tendrils pushing outward into rural landscapes. On the ground, that expansion is even more dramatic. Data collected by citizen scientists analyzed by German and American researchers suggest that sky glow has increased by roughly 10% annually between 2011 and 2022, doubling in brightness every eight years. That pace is far faster than what satellites alone have typically captured, and it helps explain why more than 80% of the world’s population, and more than 99% of people in the United States and Europe, now live under light-polluted skies, with the Milky Way hidden from more than a third of humanity.

“I’m very happy that people enjoy the strip and have become devoted to it,” Watterson said. They certainly have. After little more than a year of syndication, Calvin and Hobbes appears in 250 newspapers. “But it seems that with a lot of the marketing stuff, the incentive is just to cash in. It’s not understanding what makes the strip work.”

So despite dangled millions, Watterson has ended discussions to license Calvin and Hobbes for greeting cards. Proposals to animate the strip for television have been placed on hold. One day, there could be a Calvin doll or a stuffed Hobbes because “they (items) are pretty much advertisements for the strip . . . they’re not trying to do the job of the comic strip, they’re not giving jokes or developing characters.”

Preserving the integrity and fullness of his characters, is cardinal with Watterson.

Similarly, he’s opposing attempts to intrude upon his unassuming life style. Sleeping late, enjoying slow moments, knowing only simple concerns are his pleasures. Maybe as a superstition, he feels that if anything is allowed to change Watterson it also will change Calvin and Hobbes.

when the world gets crazy - it can start to feel like we're literally living in a dystopian reality. But what if I told you there was some secret (and somewhat radical) optimism that lowkey working in our favor as we speak? That's Solarpunk - if you haven't heard of it already.

From style, to aesthetic, to values - Solarpunk is pretty much the inverse of Cyberpunk in a number of different categories. Perhaps not as "cool" as the edgy, cyber vibe - but still a unique and refreshing vibe within itself. And has some interesting and promising sustainability developments as well.

It also has some interesting parallels to Frutiger Aero - mostly superficial, but perhaps there's room for a "Neo" Frutiger Aero - to help bridge the gap between our reality/an impending Cyberpunk dystopia - and Solarpunk.

Let's use our imaginations and talk about it.

In this week’s episode of The Nature Of, Willow sits down with Robin Wall Kimmerer, beloved scientist, author of Braiding Sweetgrass, and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. They explore the shift from learning about to learning from nature, understanding that the land loves us back, and her new initiative Plant Baby Plant. Robin invites us to step back into belonging, and to see the natural world not as something separate from us, but as a generous teacher offering guidance every single day. This conversation is full of wonder and clarity, and it just might change the way you walk outside.

Transcript available on the website. Video version is on YouTube.