Based on Heather Menzies’ presentation at Camp Gabriola on August 26, 2016. Part 2 of 2 I won’t go into what killed the commons. Nor will I risk being a romantic and nostalgic by suggesting that it always worked out well. And I certainly don’t want to suggest that we...
Based on her presentation celebrating the re-opening of the LAC to the public By Heather Menzies It might be rude when celebrating the Library and Archives of Canada being re-opened as a public cultural space to ask why this matters. But it still might be appropriate,...
If we are to heal the earth, we must also heal ourselves, individually and as communities. Moreover, the two are inter-connected. It’s all about relations -- relations of mutual recognition and respect and mutual support and sustainability. It’s also about the daily...
People working to reclaim cities as habitats, especially habitats that can sustain them with healthy food, water and transportation options, are in a sense reclaiming the commons. Certainly the commons offers a useful heritage to draw on, starting with the shift of...
“The People’s Climate” Blog Series, Part 4 When the great Crash, ecologic or economic, comes, Heather Menzies' brilliant critique will provide an understanding of why it came about, and a path towards a truly sustainable way for humanity to live on the planet. - David...
“The People’s Climate” Blog Series, Part 2 By Heather Menzies, Author of Reclaiming the Commons for the Common Good Without ties to the land is to be a broken person. - Scottish proverb As I continued to walk the land my people had walked and worked and with which...
“The People’s Climate” Blog Series, Part 2 “Reclaiming the Commons for the Common Good is an admirable, even noble, vision, and expresses very eloquently what will have to be done if humanity is to escape the current race towards disaster."- Noam Chomsky Fable...
Walking the land of my ancestors helped me remember that we live in nature, even as we turn on the tap for a drink of water in a high-rise apartment, or hang a planter full of marigolds and salvia in the backyard of our suburban home. Walking the land that they...
In Halifax, the last leg of my book-launch tour, I met a beautiful person: a Mi’kmaw elder, Billy Lewis, who welcomed me to his ancestral land. I offered him a pouch of tobacco as my gesture of thanks. I also told him that I now understood why it was so important to...
I had only one small clue to guide me: the word Tullicro. It’s where my great, great, great grandfather James Menzies was born, in 1792. Turns out it’s a fermtoun or township, a commons community, half way up into the hills rising on either side of the tumultuous Tay...