O Cascadia - David McCloskey: Being Cascadian

David McCloskey: Being Cascadian

Father of Cascadia?

David McCloskey, founder of the Cascadia Institute, has certainly served the honorific well, in word and by deed, with compass trending true Northwest and clear across what once comprised the nascent Oregon Territory and beyond. Thomas Jefferson envisioned a rich, powerful Empire nestled between the Rocky Mountains and Pacific Ocean. Ernest Callenbach captured restless imaginations with his novel Ecotopia and its fantasy of a utopian republic. But it is Professor McCloskey, beginning with a class he introduced on Cascadian culture and ecology at Seattle University in the late 1970s, who has framed and mapped a bioregional identity, one that springs from the land and water, from the forests, mountains and inland plains of a "great, green country." An ecosophical model that cultivates respect for the homeland, for the weave of human and non-human forces indigenous peoples called "illahie". A way of life based on the love of place. An evolving project of presence and community that grows ever more popular, that resonates ever more deeply, among his fellow Cascadians with each passing day.

Featured Interviews:

David McCloskey on Bioregional Cascadia with Paul E. Nelson, Tools for Navigating Your Living Universe; Conducted October 30, 2013 in Eugene OR

Print Introduction and Interview Part 1:

Click: http://paulenelson.com/2013/11/17/david-mccloskey-on-cascadia/

Interview Parts 2 thru 6:

Click: http://paulenelson.com/?s=david+mccloskey&submit.x=10&submit.y=11

Attention: David McCloskey's "Ish River Map" and "Cascadia Map" available:

Click: http://www.featheredstarproductions.com/map-gallery

What Cascadia Is/Not

Cascadia is not just any word or slogan, indeed it is:

• neither essentially an idea, nor “state of mind,”

• not a utopian fiction, nor an ego projection,

• not a brand, nor an ideology.

Rather, Cascadia is a place, a land,

a great green country on the northeast Pacific Rim,

a life-place or bioregion with its own distinctive

character and context, and

a true name which speaks itself:

for it says what it does, does what it says….

Cascadia’s not a “hustle”—it’s our home!

Put the place first (not ideology)! Get grounded—

Learn to listen to the living land!

May 18, 2012

David McCloskey

Cascadia Institute, Seattle WA

May 18 – Cascadia Day

We launch this website on May 18, 2010, the thirtieth anniversary of Mt. St. Helen’s eruption.

On that day people realized, forcefully, that the earth is alive!

This event coincided with the emergence of Plate Tectonic theory in Geology, and discovery of what came to be called in the mid-1980’s, “The Cascadia Subduction Zone.” Massive forces that make our world—volcanic eruptions, mountain building, mega-earthquakes, huge tsunamis, among others—all came to be seen as part of the same system working deep in the bones of the earth.

Dynamisms shaping the character of our region began to be revealed for the first time.

Everything changed after that….

From the Cascadia Institute Website: http://cascadia-institute.org/index.html