A place to meet, a place to speak, a place to grieve, a world to love 
Edgewood Wild is dedicated to the Secwécpemc People on whose traditional lands it took root, and from whose traditional ways it takes inspiration.
Dear Reader: Edgewood Wild is pushback to the pervasive – if usually unspoken – assumption that the future is now in the hands of the elite, that ordinary citizens can no longer ensure a livable future even for their own children. Maybe; yet let those come together who love and cherish this Living World, and already the prospect begins to brighten. Please consider forwarding this website to others who might take heart from a Gaia-centric look at human destiny in time of Climate Crisis.
e have entered a new age of the world: the so-called Anthropocene: a troubled time, a time when the old certainties falter, when unremitting change comes banging at the gate, when even the weather conspires against us.
Of course the Anthropocene is also something else: the Living World’s way of calling attention to itself: a stern reminder that the resourcist modes of thinking/being that got us into this mess are unlikely, on their own, to get us out.
Edgewood Wild is dedicated to the proposition that any hope for a livable future must now include Gaian Reconciliation, that is, acceptance of our status as citizens of the Living World coupled with respect for its capacity to sustain advanced human civilization into the long term.
Either you know these things in your heart of hearts or you do not. This website is intended for those who do.
Welcome, I’m your host, Trevor Goward.
The Vision, the Place, the Insights
Edgewood Wild is rooted at the intersection of a vision, a venue and nine insights pertinent to Gaian Reconciliation.
My vision for Edgewood Wild opens out to an interactive space at once collegial and regenerative: a space for hands-on learning about the Living World that Sustains Us; a space for wide-ranging discussion around some of the most pressing issues of our time; a space for taking stock; a space for connection, catharsis, respite: a space for bonding and community; a space for coming home.
The venue for Edgewood Wild is Edgewood Blue, my home in the Upper Clearwater Valley of British Columbia: four hectares of woodland, meadow, wetland, pond, garden, grounds, and a house with a red, red roof – all concentrically cradled by 56 ha of protected wildlands and, beyond that, 540,000 ha of wilderness parkland stretching away to the skyline in three compass directions: north, west and east. In short, as good a place as any for thinking about the Living World.
Finally, here are nine insights pertinent to Gaian Reconciliation. Terms in italics are defined under Terms & Concepts.
Insight 1: The Climate Crisis poses an existential threat to organized human civilization – not because of angry weather directly, but through its inevitable destabilization of the geopolitical order of the world.
Insight 2: Greenhouse gas emissions are not the ultimate cause of the Climate Crisis, but only its proximate cause. The ultimate cause of the Climate Crisis is the status of western civilization as a Culture of More.
Insight 3: For practical purposes, this means that technofixes alone cannot resolve the Climate Crisis, but must form part of a larger strategy centred on Gaian Reconciliation.
Insight 4: Work toward Gaian Reconciliation must begin early, that is, while the societal impacts of the Climate Crisis are still manageable.
Insight 5: Gaian Reconciliation is unlikely to be sustainably led by government owing, e.g., to corporate capture, extreme bi-partisanship and the imperatives of election cycles.
Insight 6: Instead, responsibility for Gaian Reconciliation must fall largely to the individual – an opening for personal quest.
Insight 7: At least in its early phases, Gaian Reconciliation requires the active participation of people strongly motivated by Biophilia, that is, an innate tendency to feel connection to the Living World That Sustains Us.
Insight 8: These early proponents of Gaian Reconciliation must work together to encourage and sustain societal debate around the urgent need to bring western mores into alignment with the capacity of the Living World to sustain organized human civilization into the long term.
Insight 9: Their work will be made easier by a conceptual revolution in the biological sciences that is now bringing to light a new understanding of the nature of life – one that largely harmonizes with traditional indigenous belief systems while at the same time leaving open a window onto the mystical.
Aims & Objectives
Edgewood Wild has five broad aims and objectives:
Objective 1: To serve as springboard to Gaian literacy.
Objective 2: To serve as informational clearing house to an emerging science-based view of life that puts humankind on new conceptual footing with respect to the Living World that Sustains Us.
Objective 3: To reexamine western assumptions about our relation to the Living World in light of the exigencies now being imposed upon us by a new era of the world here termed the Pandoracene.
Objective 4: To suggest that harnessing the special talents of people endowed with high naturalistic intelligence – the Born Naturalists among us – can help sensitize western culture to the existential urgencies brought into play by the Pandoracene.
Objective 5: To make the case that individuals endowed with emotional responsiveness to the more-than-human world have a crucial role to play in helping effect an urgently needed Gaian Reconciliation.
Who is Edgewood Wild for?
Edgewood Wild is for all people of good heart:
- People searching for meaningful connection with the Living World.
- Born Naturalists and others in search of community.
- Environmentalists in search of an update for Pandoracenean times.
- Teachers, parents and others concerned for today’s young people.
- Young people themselves, questing for apprenticeship.
- Higher-level educators, whether in the arts or the sciences.
- Artists, poets, writers, anybody seeking Gaian literacy.
- Decision-makers and their advisors, of every stripe.
- In short, people disinclined to spend the rest of their lives simply partying till it’s over.
What does Edgewood Wild look like?
Edgewood Wild looks like successive groups of people from all walks and inclinations getting together for wild immersion and deep conversation on some of the most important topics of our time. While the number of themed walks, workshops, and focus sessions offered under Edgewood Offerings is small, it’s well to keep in mind that most can be rejigged to incorporate any of the various topics developed in the 45 core essays listed at the bottom of this page.
How can I find out more?
That’s easy. Just click on the two green tabs. Terms & Concepts summarizes the big ideas advanced by Edgewood Wild, while You Brew provides details on how to get involved.
About this Website
This website consists of about 70 “eyes” on the Living World, each a short essay. Of these, 45 are “core” essays that re-examine western cultural assumptions in time of deepening climate-driven destabilization. Taken together, these latter essays are meant to lay some groundwork toward a much-needed re-engagement with the Living World That Sustains Us. Most of the remaining essays serve as place-based examples of what that re-engagement could look like.
That’s one way of putting it. Another is simply to accept this website as invitation to join in community around the various themes developed here – pondering them, turning them this way and that, simplifying here, plumping there, in the end helping to hone them into a unified, “enlivened” world view.
As you poke about, please bear in mind that process and exploration are this website’s bywords. Nothing is finalized here, nothing slam dunk. As for me, I expect to go on reshaping its various essays well beyond their first approximations. As time allows, I also hope to draft some additional essays to round things out a bit. And then of course there are also the website’s blogs; for these too will be added to from time to time.
Finally, and returning to the “eyes” metaphor, here’s how the core portion of this website looks when laid out in all its compound entirety: