Those were the days: a nice website landed the contract to protect water resources in the storied town of Durango. ¹
Thinking outside the box takes a certain temperament and willingness. As an artist and creative, I’d disciplined a ready awareness and emotion into a grounded knowledge base for sustainability. This took time. So, with the advent of wysiwyg and G.I.S., it was only time before HyperCard would be ready for the web. I’d been playing along this edge for years and then, voilà, iweb appeared. I enjoyed the adventure.
When others abdicated to the geeks who labored over clunky html and blustering Dreamweaver, I waited. I waited again. Then 15 years later, there was iweb. It only lasted a moment, but that moment gave grace to visual justaposition of heady planning jargon. I’ve always explained by drawing in the air or with pen on paper in animated conversation. And so, iweb was a wonderful way to move the diagrammatic flow chart into something visually appealing and hopeful.
Concurrently somehow, the watershed position opened in Durango . The 6 member stakeholder-based, hiring committee didn’t want another Boulder commuter. They were looking for someone ready to move. I said okay, for better or worse. The worse in that: there was little affordable housing and I seven hours from any city. But, well: I loved adventure and wide-open spaces: off I went.
If I’d not been a young women and suffering from a well-hidden spinal disability, I’d have held on there in the land of purgatory foresters, nuevo mountaineers, butch cassidy and his cowboy wannabes, and of course, the oil baron Indians. But well, it was a bit much for me all the same. The better in that I finally came across a brilliant diagnostician.
In early 2008, I was diagnosed with a benign meningioma which had me paralyzed at the arm pits. A month later, I was walking again. In the end: moving to Durango cost me my house, but I suppose it also gave me legs.
Calathus iweb (2006-2007)
I'd just completed ten years of effort to achieve the level of understanding I sought when I started the journey to a Masters in Natural Resource Policy at the School of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan. My experience was indelible and trajectory extraordinary. I loved the freedom to pursue doctoral seminars and my own research. I loved my professors and most especially, Dr. Patrick West and Dr. Julia Wondolleck. By April of 2006, my three year epic thesis practicum on trails systems was complete.
In the Fall, I started to switch gears and produced this website. The process of doing so brought into view a new sustainability horizon. After the powerful depth of focus on trails and local engagement in protecting ecological resources, I was ready to work. I'd also completed my research on cultures of stewardship at Rocky Mountain National Park.
So, by building the site, I began to visualize a path forward for eco-friendly economic development and what would become Economics for Peace. Click image to visit the original Calathus site
I chose the beautiful swallowtail not only for their glorious beauty as pollinators, but to evoke metamophosis, rebirth and to connect to my environmental work in North Africa where swallowtails also migrate.
¹ Graphics in scientific communication generates understanding. With digitital photography at our fingertips, the internet is alive. Harnessing that imagery for good cause is a next step, and for another post. Follow econ4peace to learn more. We need everyone’s brain power on the issues of our time. Larger and better computers fabricate constricted models. More and more computing is not going to solve the problem, because modeling is not reality.