carolyn madison

It was through Tom Brown Jr and his Tracker School that I came to meet John. It was 1984, on a farm in western New Jersey, and he was an instructor at the school, and spending seven days with him and the rest of the staff and Tom changed the direction of my life in a radical way. John was pulled to New Mexico in 1986, where he founded The Tracking Project, and began running rites of passage camps for boys and girls, as well as adult trainings and retreats. I was incredibly fortunate to spend time in his Nurturing the Roots Mentoring Program, where he had gathered elders from Australia, ...

When we remove all of the 'non-teaching stuff' that surrounds our profession, we educators are left with an opportunity- to connect with the 'still maturing' mind of our young students. We can have all the trappings and bells and whistles and laptops or digital projectors or classroom props and decorations, but if we don't have the ability to make a real, personal, one on one connection to these human beings, we won't really have a positive, lasting impact. Wendolyn Bird shares from her decades of experience working with very young children, parents and also other educators, and we ...

If it weren’t for Emma Johnson, Caryn Johnson would have never become Whoopi Goldberg. Emma gave her children the loving care and wisdom they needed to succeed in life, always encouraging them to be true to themselves. When Whoopi lost her mother in 2010—and then her older brother, Clyde, five years later—she felt deeply alone; the only people who truly knew her were gone. Emma raised her children not just to survive, but to thrive. In this intimate and heartfelt memoir, Whoopi shares many of the deeply personal stories of their lives together for the first time.

Twenty-one years after Cheryl Strayed set off on the Pacific Crest Trail to heal from the death of her beloved mother, Cheryl’s mother-in-law, Joan, is given weeks to live. As she and her husband help see Joan through her final days, Cheryl reckons with their complicated relationship, determined to connect with a woman who both showed her love and (sometimes hilariously) held her at a distance. Cheryl reflects on their two decades together as she comes to a deeper understanding of the secrets and sorrows in Joan’s complicated past.

Ethical dilemmas happen when we are faced with situations where all of the options have conflicts with our morals or personal philosophy or beliefs.    In Forest Education, this happens around a number of issues, like employee compensation, or wildcrafting resources, or program pricing. Thirty years ago, I faced these issues alone, and did the best I could, as you will hear in this episode, but in today's digital world, we have new resources and connections and networks so we don't have to navigate them on our own.    We have new program models, other directors and leaders who can share ...

For most nature educators, getting into a public school can be daunting and even a little intimidating.  The desire to offer forest education to ALL children is balanced against the number of hoops we have to jump through to make it happen.   Enter April Zajko, who is a nature preschool teacher with a keen understanding of how to find ways to collaborate with schools and organizations in a variety of settings.   She's a 'Jill of All Trades', when it comes to Forest Education.   She presents at conferences.  She leads 'teacher retreats' in the woods.  She moderates a massive ...

This episode explores the work of the Natural Artists, the Crafters and the Makers, and all of those who make useful and beautiful things from nature. Sandra Kehoe weaves experiences with her students like the willows they bend, their fingers full of the rich scent of green bark and tree sap. There is a longing by many women to form something that will last, but that impulse is paired with the feeling of warmth and connection that occurs when women share their lives in these classes. Basketmaking, like so many 'nature crafts', is meditative, and at the same time, energizing, as new skills are ...

If there is one area in nature that many people 'fear to tread', it's wetlands, bogs and swamps. These areas are difficult to traverse, especially if you are afraid to get dirty.  There are mosquitoes.  There are snapping turtles.  Water snakes slither under the banks, and great blue herons stalk frogs along the lily pads.  There is often a rich, moist smell of decaying leaves, tree bark and plants that a lot of people find objectionable. I get it.  We're used to clean environments, fabric softener scented clothing and staying dry in today's world.  That's understandable and it ...

Ice-T rose to fame in the late 1980s, earning acclaim for his music before going on to enthrall television audiences as Odafin “Fin” Tutuola in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. But it could have gone much differently. In this “poignant and powerful” (Library Journal, starred review) memoir, Ice-T and Spike, his former crime partner—collaborating with New York Times bestselling author Douglas Century—relate the shocking stories of their shared pasts, and how just a handful of decisions led to their incredibly different lives.

I started my Hawk Circle Wilderness Camp in the summer of 1989, but it had been a dream of mine for about four years earlier.    It was glorious, and it was amazing.   It was also a process of trial and error, and I made a lot of mistakes, mostly minor, but still, mistakes all the same.  Despite being a relatively quick learner, it still took years to really hone the 'recipe' and build something that created consistent results.  Once the program was in a good place, there were hundreds of different ways that I learned to refine, hone, reimagine and re-work to help Hawk Circle be a ...