Studying community health and holistic healing

Hello, everyone, this is Genno trying to write a little more about my time in the Green Mountains in Vermont studying. In my last blog I introduced you to my summer of ‘85, when I studied at the ISE.

One of the courses that I took and enjoyed a lot was on community health and holistic healing. This course explored the forces that shape the health of both the individual person and the community. The class involved experimental, hands-on learning, field trips, class discussion and healing arts practitioners. The goal was to learn to sustain ourselves and become healthier in an ecological context. In the course of holistic health, we practiced hands-on learning in giving a massage as well as other forms of healing. We also explored green politics and urban agriculture, with evening lectures given by activists and faculty in their chosen fields.

The meals in the dining hall were great, and the ingredients came from the large organic gardens taken care of by students in land management. All of the students had to take part in the preparation of the food, cleaning up, etc.

As I stated earlier there were students who were in college, some who had degrees in different areas but all of us had the common interest in wanting an ecological society dealing with social solutions to ecological problems with a strong critique of anti-ecological trends and visions for a new society based on social ecology. My time in Vermont was spent in learning concepts that I had never dealt with before.

In conclusion I can only say that the whole experience was interesting, and as the oldest member of the group I felt that for me it was a huge challenge and that I had only a taste of what was and is involved in land use alternatives and sustainable technologies.

My stay at ISE was too brief for me to really be able to discuss all of the projects involved but I feel it was an experience I remember with good memories of all the people I met there and also learned from.