Peter McLean grew up during the time of a great and powerful spell. The spell had him believing he was separate from nature, that he was sinful at birth, and that the path towards happiness and wholeness required a lot of accumulating, purchasing and consuming.
Of Earth and Soul is his war cry, his grief song, his moon-aimed howl, his belly busting laugh, his game of tag with the divine, his quiet sip of the sunrise.
Of Earth and Soul is his antidote, his charm of spell reversal. To come back under the enchantment of the earth, her power, wisdom, intelligence and all the beauty waiting to be brought forth in feeling the truth of a deep belonging in, and among, all that is wild and free.
Pete comes to this work wholeheartedly, honestly, and circuitously.
For many years, a farmer, a facilitator, a coach, a part-time carpenter, a full-time community member, a man, a being questing after his soul.
And that soul, that insistent, persistent, resistant, wild-wailing-infant of a soul, has brought him into the forest. Into the marsh. Into the river. Into the cave. Into the sunrise and set. The new and full moons. Into circle. Calling in circles. Calling in gatherings. Calling in collective focus and intention. Calling in others who also hear the song of their soul and are risking listening. For what the soul asks, or demands, or commands of them.
Just like the monarch is made of the milkweed. Pete is made of all he has consumed. And if you know him, you know he feasts on relationships.
Pete is his mother and his father. Both of his sisters. The Maumee River. The Yellow Breeches. Pete is Eric Lind and Richard Anderson from Constitution Marsh Audubon Center and Sanctuary. Is Dan Kaplan and Karen Romanowski of Brookfield Farm. Is Darryl Slim. Is Therese Jornlin. Is Judy Hall. Is Neill Bovaird. Is Malidoma Some. Is Martin Shaw. Is Martin Prechtel. Is Robin Wall Kimmerer. Is Mary Oliver. Is Etheridge Knight. Pablo Neruda. Rainer Maria Rilke. Lawrence Quigly. Al Miller. And Pete is Kelly Kietzman, her songs, her love, her spirit, her fire, and their love that they share like a sunrise. Pete is the Sawmill River. The nighthawks flying over Lake Pleasant. Is the tupelo burl. The Alabama morning his Pa Pa called those turkeys in. The sun coyote. The basswood blossoms. The dogbane cordage. The northern watersnakes slithering up the falls. Is Altair. Alberio. Aquilla. Arcturus. Deneb. Vega. Rigel and Betelgeuse. Pete is all the episodes of The Simpsons. Is a head buried in an iPhone. Is the era of school and mass shootings. The time of selfie deaths. Is the poverty of a lost culture. Pete is made up of it all. All of it. And still more. And you, now, are made up of just a little bit of him, and all, of the all, of the all, of all of that.
Pete McLean’s formal training has followed three main paths: indigeneity, soul work, and shadow work.
His indigenous training has been through Therese Jornlin, Neill Bovaird, Darryl Slim, and Malidoma Some and have taught him that nature is our first teacher, first mother, first place to go and is longing for our return.
His soul work training has come through Judy Hall and has taught him that our souls are powerful and our relationship to them can be cultivated through dreams, nature, and the liminal.
His shadow work training has come through his 10 years in participation and leadership within Men’s Work organizations like Mankind Project, Jericho Circle, and Young Men Awake.
Judy Hall (she/her) is at home on an off-grid homestead built at the edge of the Wendell State Forest on land impacted by a tornado in 2006. She is committed to restoration, renovation, and cooperation with the natural forces and more-than-human beings who are her neighbors.
Judy is a 2008 graduate of the Animas Valley Institute's five-year Soulcraft Apprenticeship and Initiation Program. Her recent ancestors are Scott-Irish fisher and dairy folk. She is a daughter of the Sawtooth Mountains (Idaho), the Mad River Valley (Vermont), and the hills and forests of western Massachusetts. She is a student of Bill Plotkin (15 years), Carl Jung (31 years), and Marion Woodman (lifetimes).
She is a lover of wild places and has guided curious wanderers in the mountains of Idaho, the deserts of Utah, and the river valleys of New England. She could be called dream tracker, underworld guide, practicing naturalist, permie-gardener, poet, a pupil of the crescent moon, she-who-walks-with-crippled feet. She answers to all of them. She is currently mentored by Fran and Courtney Forti of Vermont Wilderness Rites to co-create a Wilderness Rites of Passage Program for 13-15-year-old girls. And she is teaching a monthly nature-based program titled 13 Moons, based on Bill Plotkin's book: Wild Mind with Pete McLean. Most recently, Judy has entered a joyful and demanding initiation under the guidance of her four-year-old grandson and 1-year-old granddaughter.
Below is a poem that speaks to who Judy is right now.
Cargo
BY GREG KIMURA
You enter life a ship laden with meaning, purpose and gifts
sent to be delivered to a hungry world.
And as much as the world needs your cargo,
you need to give it away.
Everything depends on this.
But the world forgets its needs,
and you forget your mission,
and the ancestral maps used to guide you
have become faded scrawls on the parchment of dead Pharaohs.
The cargo weighs you heavy the longer it is held
and spoilage becomes a risk.
The ship sputters from port to port and at each you ask:
"Is this the way?"
But the way cannot be found without knowing the cargo,
and the cargo cannot be known without recognizing there is a way,
and it is simply this:
You have gifts.
The world needs your gifts.
You must deliver them.
The world may not know it is starving,
but the hungry know,
and they will find you
when you discover your cargo
and start to give it away.
Magdalena Toran comes from salty skin and mudflats and eelgrass, from sweet fern, white oak, and beach rose. She comes from the sweet foothills of the Berkshires and daily celebrates the gentle, generous South River. She lives from the knowing that we are one whole, interconnected being, inseparable. This awareness, passionately inspires her to be with her own self in kindness and with courage and to love fiercely all those, human and more-than-human with whom she comes into contact. She loves and struggles with the reality of being human and is committed to doing what can only be done here and now, in this body, in this time.
A daily meditant and spiritual seeker since the unripe age of 16, she has traveled the inner landscape with dedication and curiosity. Recently, this journey led her into a most intimate relationship with the natural world. She loves it, belongs to it and delights in it. Her heart sings the loudest when she communes with others while in it.
Kelly Kietzman loves stories. As a child, she used them to escape herself, for most of her young adulthood, she called on them to mask herself and now, she sees them as maps guiding her back to herself. Kelly uses the power of storytelling to illuminate her own life and the lives of those around her. There is nothing she'd rather be doing than sitting around a fire, under a starry sky, allowing the magic of myth and fairy tale to pour out of her.
When not telling stories, Kelly lives her own real-life fairy tale in Northern Idaho where she runs and teaches at a Waldorf-inspired earth-honoring school called The Hedge. She is raising two beautiful children with her vibrant community. She loves to create with anything she can get her hands on and has a giant net that she uses to catch songs.