Daniella Roze lives this stuff. Seriously. She has spent years living off grid in a small community of folks learning how to live in closer connection with their land base out West. She has done month long adventures with a crew of women living with only the hides on their backs and whatever they could harvest from the land. She is also the founder, and was the former director and lead instructor at the Thriving Roots Wilderness School. Land based learner, educator, ecopsychologist, and PhD candidate, Daniella is well acquainted with the healing and possibility in the work of helping folks connect with the land, but she is also aware of the harms.
Together we discuss how can our nature based organizations work towards “justice” when we have blinders imposed by the dominant culture? When we replicate racist hiring practices, when we speak of the land in ways that erase the indigenous histories of the places where we work? How can we do the work to be more equitable, inclusive and welcoming to black, indigenous and other folks of colour?
When Daniella approaches these questions she seems to keep ever present her own goals of working towards “fostering resilient culture on the courageous journey of whole hearted living”. A goal I believe we should all be striving for.
This is the second interview in an ongoing series. Check out the first interview with Jenna Rudolph here.
To learn more :
Thriving Roots Nature School
Unsettling Ecopsychology: Addressing Settler Colonialism in Ecopsychology Practice