7 minute read

Charting the Way Party Engage Your Community on the Green Map Platform

Make Soil at Home Continued...

Celebrate your community’s unique environment using Green Map’s new online interactive mapping platform - see it at new.opengreenmap.org. Mapmakers can invite everyone to add details, stories, photos and sound files during a mapmaking party. Cook up a gathering and connect local sustainable and green resources to broader climate, social justice and wellbeing movements around the world! Based on the GISCollective’s open source infrastructure, the new Platform makes Green Mapmaking easier and more inclusive than ever.

A Green Map Party is a great way to explore your community, make friends, and create a useful engaging tool that activates participation in greener living. By the end of your event, you’ll have co-created a really useful Green Map that can be expanded over time. This guide will help you plan it all, step by step.

Before the Party!

• Start by logging in at new. opengreenmap.org. Review the Quick Start Guide (docs.giscollective.com) and make sure you know how to use the Platform before the big event! There are videos and tutorials at About, too.

• You’ll start by making a team (and it can be one person, add to your team and assign roles any time).

• Pick a workable area to map - a town, a neighborhood, a single park or a campus. You can expand anytime. You can set the initial (default) view of the map to zone in on the party’s area temporarily by editing the map’s extent.

• Who is this map for? Answering this question will help you focus on the area and theme. For example, a map aimed at visitors will include different sites than one aimed at families living in the community.

• What to map? Is there a particularly interesting area in terms of innovation, preservation, wildlife, active transport city planning or pollution and environmental concerns?

You can use the map to instill new habits, too.

Your Green Map can be about:

- community gardening, where people can learn about growing food and flowers

- local options for getting around without owning a car

- preservation of historical and popular places, as remembered by longtime residents

- youth perspectives on ways to make their school campus more sustainable

Need ideas? Visit GreenMap.org – see the Mapmakers’ Stories for inspiration – also check the Blog for news!

Party Planning:

• Is this a day-long event, or a couple

Celebrate your community’s unique environment using Green Map’s new online interactive mapping platformsee it at new.opengreenmap.org. Mapmakers can invite everyone to add details, stories, photos and sound files during a mapmaking party. Cook up a gathering and connect local sustainable and green resources to broader climate, social justice and wellbeing movements around the world! Based on the GISCollective’s open source infrastructure, the new Platform makes Green Mapmaking easier and more inclusive than ever.

Before the Party!

• Start by logging in at new.opengreenmap. org. Review the Quick Start Guide (docs. giscollective.com) and make sure you know how to use the Platform before the big event! There are videos and tutorials at About, too.

• You’ll start by making a team (and it can be one person, add to your team and assign roles any time).

• Who is this map for? Answering this question will help you focus on the area and theme. For example, a map aimed at visitors will include different excitement a day or two ahead, you can even use social media or your newsletter etc. to invite site suggestions from people who cannot make it to the party, too.

At the Party

• Introduce yourself, your project, and your map on the Green Map Platform website. Talk about why creating an Open Green Map of this area is important, perhaps show a couple of other maps to inspire people.

• Ask participants what makes this site special, why does it belong on the Green Map? Expand upon your theme.

• Explain how the Party is set up, so people know what to expect. Will you have an hour or two of exploration and mapping - refreshments and discussion, then on to next steps?

• Participants can explore in groups, or by themselves. Make sure children have adult supervision.

• Be positive when it’s time to reconvene, assess each other’s ﬁndings, talk, and socialize.

• Using either the Campaign or the Propose a Site from the menu, people can quickly chart their sites.

• As you publish each site, you can watch the map build up! A projector makes that easy with a big group.

• Once the party is over, the map is a great resource for all. People may want to continue adding sites to it, and you can make them part of the team. You can even give some people a Team Role and they can help edit.

• Reach map users - promote it via social media, your newsletter, with another party, etc.! One of the really neat things is that anyone can add their own site suggestions anytime, you will be notified by email, so you can review, edit if needed.

Have Fun from everyone at See GreenMap.org for more info!

During this hibernation and reflection time I find myself asking, what are my art values? Can my artwork and process become more sustainable?

Since 2020 when I started making and using plant pigments and then making botanical prints, I wanted to move towards a more sustainable art practice. Inspired by artist Beth Grossman and her WEAD (Women’s Eco Art Dialogues) presentation about creating an artist manifesto, I started by identifying a set of values. They would be a way of redirecting my practice to both choose sustainability and name what matters most to me. Here’s what I came up with. I made sure that I added values that feed me and keep me going. After all, I am part of nature, too.

1. Follow the plants. That means listening to and respecting the plants I collaborate with.

2. Reuse and source materials locally. This asks me to think deeply about materials and if possible, choose those that support rather than harm life on the planet.

3. Make spiritual connections. This keeps my work alive and inspiring to me.

4. Find beauty and magic. If I can’t do this, there’s no point in doing the artwork at all.

5. Be biodegradable. Avoid materials that do not break down, like plastic. It’s okay to create art that will disappear before it ends up in a landfill.

6. Be surprised. By the content, by the images, by the meaning of the work, by the process, and connections that happen. This keeps it exciting for me.

7. Share the work in a variety of ways and places. The hope is to reach many people and make connections. I don’t just do it for myself, I do it for the world.

What are the values that guide you? Maybe you aren’t aware of them but they are there. I wish you a restorative and healthy winter.

I am desert springs. Swirling waters before human time created by Ice Age rain

I come from deep time

I birthed plants and animals migration and sacredness

I have become the canary’ canary

In shallow time I could be gone used up, dried up, lifeless what I say is become aware - wake up. wake up, wake up!

Protect and conserve me if we all are to survive.

Recipes for the Spirit, the Earth & Transformation

Recipe 1: “How to Become Whole: Reconnecting with Earth & Self”

Gifted by the White Haired Woman, this recipe consists of easy to follow directions for the curious seeker who wishes to Become Whole.

Ingredients:

Self, a willing Tree and a pinch of Time

Preparation Time: As long as it takes

Servings:

Enough for Everyone

Preparation: Find the Tree you sense is willing to serve as your teacher.

Offer a gift of gratitude.

Listen for the Journey Invitation. Accept the Journey Invitation. Open to Receive.

Next Steps: Make time.

When the tree invites you inside, allow yourself to be pulled into the roots. Sense the connection between tree, roots, Earth and you. Be. Be connected.

Feel it now. Fill all parts of Self in Body, Heart, Mind & Spirit.

Allow the earth energy to nestle in your heart

To Serve:

Feel the sensations of connection. Fully digest.

Awaken these sensations each day.

Live these sensations in all that you do, with all that you meet.

Recipe 2: “Reconnection: Earth, Self & All”

Gifted by the White Haired Woman, this recipe consists of easy to follow directions for the curious seeker who wishes to leave Separation behind and experience Connection & Unity.

Ingredients: Self, imagination and a pinch of Time

Preparation Time: As long as it takes

Servings: Enough for Everyone

Preparation: Ponder a rock dropped into a pond.

Next Steps: Make time.

Move into your imaginative space.

See a circular body of water.

See the rippling effects of a rock dropped into the center. Notice the outward ripples.

Consider this: Do the waters ever ripple inward?

Question: Does the Earth love you?

Even if you are unsure of the answer, imagine that the answer is ‘yes.’

Imagine that ripples are now coming toward you. The ripples are made of love, love from earth to you. Let your heart be filled.