ā Nóvel Echō

Travel | Nature | Advocacy

[anovelecho]

It’s been an interesting year, 2018. I haven’t posted much, preoccupied with my own casting about. And I’ll be doing things a bit different in 2019. I got a few things to figure out. But my daughter gave me the words of wisdom I intend to live by: “Keep going through life and you will make it.” …and I believe her. :) Looking back on my top 9, I may be seeing suggestions of stepping stones forward …toward making it. At center is on•on•addiction: addicted to what lies around the next corner of life. Not only spatial. Experiential. I gotta live the path to get where I’m going. So here’s to that. Happy New Year 🎈 🎊 🥳 🎊🎈 #keepitpublic #environment #getoutside #hiking #travel #causes #community #conservation #protect #resist (at Comstock Park, Michigan) https://www.instagram.com/p/BsGMFxyHBo1/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=183ssdcijdtdi

[anovelecho]

#Repost @ratachewy.gvsu with @get_repost ・・・ Dendrogeistic Entanglement [den-dro-guy-stic] (n): the sense of connection with of the soul of nature when walking in a forest; a pleasant loss of time and trivial issues when in the company of trees. It is the sense of entanglement and deep ineffable connection with the ancient souls of trees, that content silence when walking through a forest path where the sounds of cars and text alerts fade away into serenity. Almost as if the forest is welcoming us, edging us back to where we belong. A feeling that has drawn me and others back to the woods for our whole lives. By weaving this word with a prefix for tree ‘dendro,’ the German word for soul ‘geist,’ and adding the suffix ‘ic’ for a state of being, I wanted to capture everything relating to the deep souls of trees. My hope is that by giving this feeling a name, we can share it and spread the idea that souls reside in trees as well; perhaps giving more of a feeling of connection and need to protect the forests they reside in. With the handful of people I have spread this phrase to, they have all found connection with past experiences and enjoy the ring it has. #anth101 #anth204hedges #anth101challenge4 #wordweaving #anth101repost #anth101bestofchallenge4 (at Grand Valley State University) https://www.instagram.com/p/Bo1ZmoTHumw/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1ulo60r5fxrun

[anovelecho]

the fact or condition of being addicted to going somewhere else, seeing what lies around the next corner, beyond the horizon, at the top of the next mountain; a dependency upon the next experience. A symptom may be an obsession with the next experience that disrupts your appreciation of the current experience. Best represented in the lyrics of “Wheels” by Restless Heart… "it's an obsession to some / to keep the world in your rear view mirror / while you try to run down the sun" • • • #anth101 #anth101challenge4 #anth204Hedges • • • #keepitpublic #environment #getoutside #hiking #travel #causes #community #conservation #protect #resist (at Grand Rapids, Michigan) https://www.instagram.com/p/Bop8fSYn-AT/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1lgxakkeoogb0

[anovelecho]

Following @Prof_Wesch my class chose to add to or trim from our lives something meaningful to us. Many of us are doing things like meditation, eating better, hydrating better, fitness, etc. My students are really inspiring me. @schautbr in particular really made me feel happiness … so I wanted to #Repost Including two progress update posts... 🙌🏻 ・・・ “For my #28daychallenge I chose to make at least one bracelet every day. Taking a half hour out of each day to relax, do something fun, and not focus on anything else but making a bracelet. I’ve decided to take it one step forward and do some good in my community. I volunteer at Coit Elementry school in Grand Rapids, which has so many at risk and homeless youth attending. I work in a 1st/2nd grade split classroom, so at the end of the 28 days, I’ll be giving all of the bracelets that I’ve made to each of my students. I’ve made a personalized card with the child’s name and an inspiring quote about themselves to motivate their spirits. I hope to instill some positivity in these kids lives.” ・・・ #28daychallenge #anth101 #anth204hedges #anth101challenge3 #anth101repost #anth101bestofchallenge3 #bestvolunteers (at Grand Valley State University) https://www.instagram.com/p/Boem3MVAM8B/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=48oksf58cgqy

[anovelecho]

It’s National Public Lands Day. Please defend life and liberty by protecting your public land. Tell your congressmen to #KeepItPublic instead of selling it to companies who lock it up for a few rich cronies. The rest of this story is in IGTV! 🙂 🗺 🎒 #keepitpublic #environment #getoutside #hiking #travel #causes #community #conservation #protect #resist https://www.instagram.com/p/BoS94RDHXo_/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=5t6p16pjkip5

[anovelecho]

#theselfproject (at DeVos Performance Hall) https://www.instagram.com/p/Bn9bXqTn3Jr/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=18b7ln49ixja2

[anovelecho]

It’s about time for me to start building consistent meditation into my life. Fits and starts, but I’m going to take advantage of leading my class assignment in @prof_wesch #anth204hedges #anth101 #anth101challenge3 #28daychallenge (at Grand Valley State University) https://www.instagram.com/p/Bn6XTSNBz9F/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1gdluxrpzx2lx

[anovelecho]

Things that make our friends in Maasailand go WTF about US culture. Teaching culture, I’m using @prof_wesch challenge to “find the strange in the familiar”. And the first place my mind went to are conversations we’ve had with our Maasai community in Kenya. So I’m cheating a bit by modifying some shopping images. Kristin would take a US catalogue and flip through the pages. Our friends who live in rural Subsaharan Africa would laugh to the point of tears: “What is wrong with you people?” They don’t understand why White people have such a hard time carrying their children. Carrying or catering to dogs is just completely alien. And leashing your kid to your arm? Are you insane? #anth101challenge2 #anth101 #anth204hedges https://www.instagram.com/p/BnbT0PXh9Y1/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=b3o8w4srhr03

[anovelecho]

Hey! It’s Jamie Lewis Hedges. One of my many adventures this year is teaching a couple of college-level courses @GVSU Namely, Intro to Cultural Anthropology (Sections 02 and 03). I get to talk about other places and people, and what makes them tick. Right up my alley!!! :D I’m a hoosier farm boy grown restless. I’ve followed my passion across 48 states and half a dozen countries. I’ve evolved from fundamentalist preacher boys to a tree-hugging dirt worshipper. Lived in a wilderness cabin in the Western Cascades, a dung hut with Maasai in Kenya, and today a mullet house in Grand Rapids, MI. Our travel and nature adventures continue still, now often with 3 kids in tow. In retrospect, my own beginnings in anthropology began, standing in my rural home driveway and looking away across the farmhouse, yearning to be wherever lay beyond. This social science has enabled my own visceral passion for what’s around the corner. There is value to the other places and people we see on Instagram. …and I gotta go there. :P #anth101introductions #anth204hedges, #anth101 #keepitpublic #environment #getoutside #hiking #travel #causes #community #conservation #protect #resist (at Grand Valley State University)

[anovelecho]

We're going on a bear hunt. Sort of. 🐻? There was a bear in GR this Spring. Confused, it ended up in a tree about a block and a half behind Bitter End, which happens to be a coffee house I frequent. We have similar tastes, that bear and I. ☕️ But you can't have a bear wandering around a city. That gets uncomfortable. So there’s this difficult decision given to the Department of Natural Resources or Fish and Game. That responsibility of trading one life for another. 🎣 So the bear in Grand Rapids is tranquilized and moved to its natural habitat. Somewhere with fewer people. More trees. Not a city. And let's hope that's the end of it. Because if the damned bear finds itself lost in a city again, it’s a “nuisance”. For everyone involved. Things get sticky. The bear gets itself shot or taken to a rescue. 🚑 That's how I come to stand here at Oswald's Bear Ranch in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Watching a bear cub pacing back and forth in front of a chain link fence. 🚧 I can empathize with this bear. There something frightening, wild, or too furry about me too. I can’t quite find my community or habitat. I’m feeling a bit claustrophobic, hemmed in by allotted space, chased up my own tree by things I can't explain. It feels familiar. I've been here before. Clinging to whatever bits of nature I can find. Even while men in uniform creep around me with so many sedatives. 💊 Give me a tree in Riverside Park, and I'll climb it. But still, I'll look at the skyline beyond and think something similar to what Sean Prentiss writes... ▫️ "I wish I could rewind the last thirty years, watch this city slowly unbuild itself, like watching cancer unmetastasize….” ▫️ I was afraid when I saw the circus of people crowding around the entrance. Oswald's been in trouble with PETA. Yet inside, the enclosures were large and natural. Most wildlife rescues I know struggle for space. For animals that are too impaired to live free, these trees and dens offer a nearly wild sanctuary. ...CONT’D in IGTV! 🙂 🗺 🎒 #keepitpublic #environment #getoutside #hiking #travel #causes #community #conservation #protect #resist (at Oswald's Bear Ranch)

[southerlysound-deactivated20161]

[anovelecho]

Indeed

[anovelecho]

I guess Panama City Beach is the Spring Break Capital of the World. It's a home away from home for our family. Florida was my home for 5 years worth of flunking out of college. And the return is always comfortable, familiar. But as my family digs in the sand and surfs waves, I always remember 8 years ago. 🕗 ▫️ These beaches were blackened by the world’s largest accidental marine oil spill. British Petroleum blew 200 million gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico. ⚫️ ▫️ The travel industry brought $42 billion dollars a year into Florida’s economy. These local communities were threatened by the environmental disaster as well as suspended vacation plans. Celebrities like Jimmy and Lucy Buffett were leveraging their support. President Obama stood on white beaches with then Governor Christie and pretended to finger the apparently clean sand, urging tourists back to a safe Florida. ⛱ ▫️ I wonder if the beaches are really clean. Whether or not the waves still caress our skin with toxic sludge. Do we value clean air and clean water? How do we measure that value against our reverence for establishments like Wall Street and BP? I want a strong economy, I suppose. But mostly I want a safe world in which my family can live. 🌎 ▫️ There’s more stories and info through the LINK IN BIO! 🙂 🗺 🎒 Get more of the story. #keepitpublic #environment #getoutside #hiking #travel #causes #community #conservation #protect #resist (at Panama City Beach, Florida)

[anovelecho]

Florida holds a special place in my heart. I lived here for 5 years. The blue-green translucency, white powdery sand, swells of green panicum and cordgrass are meditative. Sand and sun worship. Family and friends. I'm excited to be on this beautiful shoreline. Saturday we awoke to storms rolling through the Gulf Shores. I'd forgotten how much I loved the smell and feel of rain in Florida. The petrichor is for me as intoxicating as the coastline. And there's nothing like the big sky image of cumulonimbus piled up impossibly higher atop one another. It's amazing. There’s more stories and info through the LINK IN BIO! 🙂 🗺 🎒 Get more of the story. #keepitpublic #environment #getoutside #hiking #travel #causes #community #conservation #protect #resist (at Panama City Beach, Florida)

[anovelecho]

Moving on from the Ozarks. 🚙 ▫️ Second leg of our road trip, after catching up with friends in the Arkansas River Valley, is AR to FL. 🏖 ▫️ People ask us how we can afford to do so much travel. TBH, figuring out how to find our lifestyle is an ongoing dilemma. Here’s a couple of our hacks/ Friends and Tents. In short, avoid hotels by all means possible. 🤔 ▫️ We’re lucky that nearly all our friends travel the same way we do. Even throwing down on floor space in a friend’s house maximizes time together and minimizes cost. Not to mention, friends are the best local guides. 👫 ▫️ We’ve had to be willing to research and / or respond to changing circumstances. But having a tent that’s easily set up in day or night, bags and pads in the Rocketbox significantly increases options. We go til we can’t, the copilot using their smartphone to find National Public Land, State Parks, or private campgrounds. The diff is a night’s sleep costing $16 instead of $116. 🏕 ▫️ There’s more stories and info through the LINK IN BIO! 🙂 🗺 🎒 Get more of the story. #keepitpublic #environment #getoutside #hiking #travel #causes #community #conservation #protect #resist (at LeFleur's Bluff State Park)

[anovelecho]

Ever think about single-track activism? ▫️ A trail gives access for people to see firsthand what’s at stake. And it increases the recreational value of public land, making it less likely to be destroyed. ▫️ Its a trade off. Bringing more public into backcountry increases impact like litter, noise, visual pollution. But we won’t advocate what we don’t know. ▫️ The take-home here is that when you are a recreational user, you’re not just a person in the woods. You’re either an impact or an advocate. Lean in to the best that you can be. ▫️ There’s more stories and info through the LINK IN BIO! 🙂 🗺 🎒 Get more of the story. #keepitpublic #environment #getoutside #hiking #travel #causes #community #conservation #protect #resist (at Buffalo Headwaters)

[anovelecho]

Buffalo National River is the crown of Northwestern Arkansas. The river was the first federally protected river in our nation. It flows 135 miles, from the headwaters above Boxley Valley, through the Ozark Mountains, to the White River. It's one of the only undammed rivers in the lower 48. Along its length, it brings tourists and recreational users to local communities and businesses. For those who live here, it is a getaway for life on the water and in the outdoors. ▫️ Only 14% of this river's watershed is within the protection of national Park boundaries. Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality allowed industrial hog farming in the Buffalo River watershed. Arkansas' natural Karst topography is porous limestone and doesn't filter much. So toxic hog sewage is expected to empty into this protected river. ▫️ There’s more stories and info through the LINK IN BIO! 🙂 🗺 🎒 Get more of the story. #keepitpublic #environment #getoutside #hiking #travel #causes #community #conservation #protect #resist (at Buffalo National River)

[anovelecho]

The Headwaters Community includes back-to-landers in remote parts of the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas. Since the ’70s they’ve made their living where they can, surviving on their land, raising their family the best they know how. They built the Headwaters School in 1976 as a place they could collaborate in homeschooling. 🍃 The annual fundraiser for the Headwaters School is the June Bug Jam. Members of the community pool their resources and work to contribute to this event. 🍃 There’s nothing like coming off the trail to a shiitake mushroom and lamb burger wrap! Mostly, there’s nothing like returning to the embrace and celebration of friendship and community. 🍃 There’s more stories and info through the LINK IN BIO! 🙂 🗺 🎒 Get more of the story. #keepitpublic #environment #getoutside #hiking #travel #causes #community #conservation #protect #resist