Larry Daloz
September 18, 2004
Those days on "the field" began to wane, I think, when we went off to Junior High. For me, they pretty well ended when, a year after that, I went off to private school. From there, I went on to Williams College where I majored in American Studies. By then I had pretty well decided that I would not pick up the family business and decided to study education in preparation for two years in the Peace Corps in Nepal. That changed everything, of course, and I returned profoundly radicalized about the Vietnam war, our society, and my work in the world. After time in Appalachia and Hawaii, I returned to Harvard for a Doctorate in Educational Planning for developing nations. That sent me to New Guinea for two more years. By that time, I was married to Judy Mayer, and we eventually settled in Vermont to raise our children, Kate and Todd. Those were the early '70's, so we built a geodesic dome, added log wings, and grew our own food. Though we were sure we were carving our own pathway, in retrospect it is clear that we were a part of a major social movement at the time. Before long, I put my training to work as the first Dean of the fledgling Community College of Vermont. Those were exciting years-inventing a college-and later I became a "mentor" in Vermont's first external degree program so I could work half time and be with the kids half time. I value those years with Kate and Todd beyond any telling.
Unfortunately, however, the marriage did not make it and we were divorced in the early 1980's. Two years later, I moved to Cambridge and in 1988 married Sharon Parks who was on the Harvard faculty at the time. For the next ten years or so, I taught adult students at Lesley College, eventually becoming a full Professor. During that time, I published a book on mentorship (since revised as Mentor (Jossey-Bass, 1999) and another with Sharon and others called Common Fire: Leading Lives of Commitment in a Complex World (Beacon, 1997). This told the story of how people become committed to the common good and what sustains them through tough times.
Shortly afterwards, with our kids safely in college and feeling we had one good chapter left to make a difference, Sharon and I moved to Whidbey Island, north of Seattle to help found the Whidbey Institute for Earth, Spirit, and the Human Future. The purpose of the work is to help bring about a shift in how we understand our relationship to nature from one in which we view it as something to exploit to recognizing it as having standing in its own right-as essentially sacred. We do this by networking people with similar perspectives, by leading retreats, sponsoring conferences, and providing a platform for a variety of national speakers on the issue. We also own a 70 acre retreat center on which these and other activities take place. I invite you to visit our website at www.whidbeyinstitute.org after the end of September or so. Right now it is being heavily revised, so I don't recommend it. But if you are interested in more information, please do let me know. The Institute number is 360-341-1884.
Where to from here? For now, we'll stay put. I have fallen in love with these extraordinary forests, mountains, and waters. We do come back to Vermont several times a year, though, just to keep in touch with the good New England soil.
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