Course: Arts and Community Building (2021)
Faculty Mentor: Jenina Lepard
Editor’s Note: Sue Blythe has been a member of the Wilmette Institute’s online learning community since (at least) 2013. Last year (2020) with the help of the Wilmette Institute she hosted an Interfaith Devotional and Climate Conversation Series on Zoom. Sue’s commitment to climate change action and her creative streak are inspiring. What follows are comments she emailed to WI Director Rob Stockman about her ongoing plans for community enrichment.
The course was meaningful and valuable to me. I hadn’t thought of myself as an artist before.
I’ve continued to develop what we’re now calling “Climate Collaboratory: The Musical.” It’s an intergenerational musical play, with scenes coming to life virtually in 2021-22:
– August – deep space, in a space station with a world-embracing vision of the Earth, our home.
– September – the Garden of Global Unity, where all things are possible (growing Seed Ideas from vision to reality).
– January – Martin Luther King’s World House, with GreenFaith Circles for creative solutions to the social and environmental challenges of our time.
– April – the Global NatureFest, a joyful celebration of life on Earth Day and every day.
The children’s story engages all ages with supporting activities in a community-wide climate conversation-to-action program:
– Youth – playing the EarthFlash! Games to make the world work for 100% of humanity and the community of life on Earth, our home
– Adults – taking the climate conversation to places of work, worship, learning, and play
– Elders – crafting personal and collective climate stories that will be told by future generations.
And that’s the shortest, sweetest synopsis I’ve ever written. I can use that! I’d like to talk about presenting all this as a Wilmette Institute series with the Bahá’í-inspired Interfaith Climate Group. We have a good core of people who are supporting the demonstration in Alachua County, Florida.
The Climate Collaboratory is a pilot project of We, the World and the University of Florida Extension.
