Anthropology and Archaeology graduate (Oxford, 2024), Daniel Creutzfeldt, presents a deeply personal and insightful reflection on their experience at Schumacher College's
"Reimagining Climate" course. Through vivid descriptions and thoughtful observations, the author weaves together themes of community, embodied learning, and reconnection with nature. This piece offers a unique perspective on addressing climate change that goes beyond traditional academic approaches.
Introduction: A Glimpse into Schumacher College
Before coming into this 5-day course, I had been aware of Schumacher College as an institution focused on engaging with nature and ecology in deep and unorthodox ways, but I had not delved much deeper into their driving philosophies. Reimagining Climate presented an opportunity to further reflect on issues I had been grappling with for some time. One of the course convenors, Per Espen Stoknes, works closely with the Earth 4 All initiative by the Club of Rome, an organisation that brings together world leaders and experts to think differently about global challenges. A lot of the research that he presented in the course therefore drew on and would feed back into policy proposals made by this institution. Anne Solgaard, the other course convenor and Per Espen's partner, had shifted focus after a lengthy UN career. Feeling her work no longer had direct impact, she chose to explore more fulfilling paths centered on embodiment and inner well-being.
Community Living and Experiential Learning
Over the intense few days we spent at the Old Postern, our small cohort got a taste of what it was like to study at Schumacher. The focus was not solely on thinking differently, but also on being differently with others. The college fostered a genuine community by involving each student in daily operations. We were each assigned to rotating schedules for cooking meals and cleaning up. Tutors enriched mealtimes with short poems or speeches of gratitude. Each morning began with a group session where individuals shared readings for collective reflection. This all contributed to a sense of coherence between lessons and the time in between. Learning didn't only happen in classrooms but also in conversations with course mates as we stacked plates or shared dessert.
Embodied Understanding: The Forest Walk
We explored the idea that climate could be thought of in ways that evoked our embeddedness within the world system. One image I found particularly evocative was that of the Earth's surface being the atmosphere's riverbed. Thinking of it this way makes it feel
like we are part of a giant air-river's ecosystem that goes on for thousands of miles above our heads. This impression became especially apparent to me when we went on a group hike in the nearby redwood forest. As we walked down the footpaths, I fell silent at times and listened to the conversations happening around me. In those moments, their conversations influenced my thoughts and triggered ideas of my own without them being aware.
The information emanating from conversations in the form of sound made me think of algae releasing nutrients that were then consumed by fish swimming in the same water without ever directly interacting. The intelligible sounds we call language were like nutrients for each other's minds and souls, and the fresh air the trees had made for us over the millennia framed the contemplative mindset we all collectively were sinking into. As such, all beings in the forest at that time were contributing to my state of mind, and I reflected on the ludicrousness of seeing ideas as some kind of private property that were the sole result of an individual's internal mental state. In that moment, even the notion of my own individuality seemed to melt into my surroundings.
Wisdom from Unexpected Guests
A highpoint of my time at Schumacher came with the surprise visit of the college's founder, Satish Kumar, who spent decades of his life as a Jain monk and now dedicates himself to ecological education around the world. On the night of his arrival, all students gathered by the hearth in the manor's main hall to hear him speak. This occasion was particularly exciting for me given that he had brought a group of Yanomami people as guest speakers alongside him.
The Yanomami are an indigenous community from the Brazilian Amazon that have been at the forefront of the fight against anthropogenic climate devastation for the past decades. Members of the community have gained prominence at a global level as advocates against climate change. One such member is the shaman Davi Kopenawa, whose book "The Falling Sky" has immensely influenced me and my interest in Indigenous environmental struggle.
Nature's Lessons: Abundance and Unconditional Love
Satish's talk was all about the inherent abundance of nature, illustrated through what he termed 'mangonomics'. A mango tree, once planted, will reliably bear fruit for generations to come. There is no necessary renewal of a licensing agreement when it comes to planting a tree. Not only this, but each mango contains within it the seeds of another tree that itself can provide food for generations. No machine has yet been invented by humans that can itself produce the basic elements that will automatically grow into thousands of new
machines in the future. And most unbelievable of all, the mango tree does this all for free! The tree itself does not charge you for picking its fruit. No matter what you have done in life, whether you be saint or sinner, you are still welcome to its mangoes. In the same way, the air all around us does not place conditions on our right to breathe it. Nor does the earth expect those who harvest it to be upstanding citizens. The sun shines on all beings and water sustains all life. Through his talk, I began to understand that nature is the teacher from whom we learn the art of unconditional love.
Following Satish's intervention, one of the Yanomami said a few words of his own. He spoke of his experience visiting Europe for the first time, and how puzzled he was at the way we treated nature. He asked himself why in cities we cover the roots of trees with cement, when this makes it harder for them to breathe. This statement in particular struck me as containing a clear mandate for the path forward with respect to climate collapse: remove that which makes it harder for trees to breathe. Throughout my time at Schumacher, this is something I kept coming back to. Many of the things that are currently killing the planet are artificial barriers to the natural flow of existence. It can seem at times as though we as humans are doomed to end the world by a system that demands we focus solely on wealth accumulation. It is important to remember therefore that much of what is causing so much damage, from ways of thinking to kinds of building, are actively separating that which is, by nature, united. We have become accustomed to living in a contrived system that goes against the simplest and healthy ways of being in the world. Our adaptability as humans is both our greatest strength and weakness, because it has allowed us to grow accustomed to and even embrace an ecocidal world order, but also provides the means of finding a better way of life once more.
We are testing the limits of nature’s unconditional love. The only thing that is required is for us to express and act on the natural gratitude that arises from existence’s constant acts of love. This is necessary to keep things in balance. By seeing ourselves as separate from the rest of nature we have abdicated our responsibility in making the world. We take what we can from the earth without giving back, and this creates a destructive dynamic. Instead of growing healthy forests full of diverse beings, we plant monocultures that maximise the production of a single good to the detriment of everything around it. When the land is burnt through and no longer has productive value, it is abandoned without second thought. By not reciprocating the rest of nature’s unconditional support, we destroy our symbiotic relationship with the rest of existence. One way to move away from this is to begin to see nature as alive again. Just as alive as us. As Davi Kopenawa says, by seeing the forest as dead/inanimate, we end up actually killing it. We need to re-enter into relationships with the rest of nature on equal terms, instead of seeing it as subordinate and ripe for exploitation.
Reflection: Reconnecting with Nature
On my last day at Schumacher, I decided to take a barefoot stroll around the yard. As I stepped onto the grass, I noticed some small insects crawling over my toes and back into the ground. I thought about how to them, my feet were no different to the roots of a tree. I felt as though they were welcoming me back as part of their world. I thought in that moment that no matter how far we strayed from our connection with the rest of nature, we were already forgiven for all our transgressions against it, and our return was eagerly awaited.