The Earth Caretaker Way: Tim Corcoran on Embracing Earth's Wisdom
February 06, 2024
The Earth Caretaker Way: Tim Corcoran on Embracing Earth's Wisdom
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In this episode of A Witch, A Mystic & A Feminist, Marlena is joined by return guest, Kristine Daizy, and special guest,  Tim Corcoran. When Tim Corcoran walks into a room, you can almost feel the forest enter with him. His life's work, dedicated to the Earth's stewardship, unfolds in our latest episode as he shares his transformative journey and the inception of his Headwaters Outdoor School. Through heartfelt stories, he transports us to the Canadian wilderness, reveals his spiritual awakening at Mount Shasta, and shows that the land itself can be our greatest teacher. Tim's narrative is a vivid tapestry, intertwining his profound encounters with nature’s signs, like the wolf that led him to his school's grounds, and the hawk's feather that affirmed his life's path.

Sowing the seeds of environmental mindfulness starts with a single step, and this episode highlights the simple acts that cultivate a deeper connection to the Earth. Tim and I discuss the power of transforming personal spaces into wildlife sanctuaries and making eco-conscious choices in our daily lives. The conversation blossoms with the shared belief that fostering these connections can ripple out to effect meaningful global change. We reflect on my earlier work and the parallels found in Tim's upcoming book, "The Earth Caretaker Way," underscoring a universal call to become stewards of our planet.

Concluding our inspiring exchange, we celebrate the collaborative effort behind "The Earth Caretaker Way," crafted by Tim himself and Julie  Boettler. This isn't just a book; it's a vessel for a movement, with intentions to funnel proceeds into land conservation and education. As we talk about the transformative classes offered at Headwaters Outdoor School and its evolution into a hub for earth caretakers, Tim’s vision for a legacy of environmental guardianship becomes clear. His hope, and ours, is to ignite a passion within listeners to join this collective mission for a greener, more conscious future.

You can learn more about Tim Corcoran and Headwaters Outdoor School at https://hwos.com/walker-hupp-fund/.

And you can learn more about the book, The Earth Caretaker Way on their Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/earthcaretakerway/

Medical Disclaimer 

Have questions or comments for A Witch, A Mystic & A Feminist? Send us a message at https://www.wmfpod.com/contact/. Also you can subscribe to receive updates at https://www.wmfpod.com.

Chapters

00:26 - The Earth Caretaker Way

10:07 - Becoming Earth Caretakers

20:36 - Peaceful Gardening and Connecting With Earth

31:17 - The Earth Care Taker

Transcript

Speaker 1:

Welcome to A Witch, a Mystic and a Feminist. I am your host, marlena, and we are welcoming back our special guest host, christine Daisy. Today we are thrilled to have a true Earth steward with us, tim Corcoran. From his early days in the Canadian wilderness to his career in wildlife conservation and the owner of Headwaters Outdoor School in Mount Chastica, california, tim's journey has been intertwined with his Irish heritage and a deep connection to Earth people's philosophy of life. Communicating with spirits of animals and enriched by the teachings of renowned tracker Tom Brown Jr, tim embodies the Earth caretaker way, a path he has dedicated his life to and shares in his upcoming book. Welcome Tim, and welcome back Daisy, so happy to be here.

Speaker 2:

Yay.

Speaker 3:

Good to be here. We have a nice rainy day out here and trees are happy. They're soaking up the water.

Speaker 1:

Fantastic. Well, I know that you're coming out with a book soon called the Earth Caretaker Way, correct, correct. But before we get into that, I kind of want to go into the school that you have. You're the owner of Headwaters Outdoor School. Can you tell us a little bit about your teachings there?

Speaker 3:

Yeah Well, Headwaters Outdoor School. We started the school I did in 1992, which I can't believe it's been that many years and I was really guided to find. The land that it's on is at the foot of Mount Shasta, about 10 miles from Mount Shasta. So it looks at it and Mount Shasta is one of the most spiritual mountains on the planet. On our earth. People come from all over the world to come and just be in the presence of Mount Shasta and we have this incredible view of it. It touches us every day. And so back in the early, in 1990, I was called to find my land that I had dreamed about having since I was a kid and I thought it was actually going to be in Canada, but I got called to Mount Shasta. I actually, when I was 12, I'd done my rites of passage in Mount Shasta, so I had a connection to it, you know, and I love mountains anyway. So I came up and I found this land in a really, really incredible spiritual way. With it I was just guided to it and it's just full of water and trees. It's the land itself. Is a teacher. If I did no teaching at all in the school, the land would do it for me, but with myself and my staff and this land itself. I mean, it's an amazing mix when people come here. So I started the school in 92 and it's been going ever since and it started out mostly adults and some kids and then it kind of morphed into a mix and now it's probably three quarters kids and a quarter adults, so basically anybody who wants to go deeper into learning about nature and having a personal connection to the earth. This is the place to come and we've touched a lot of people and I hope to keep living for a while and do more. And this book coming out, I'm hoping it's going to carry on the teachings.

Speaker 1:

Fantastic. And so I have never actually, and I live in the Bay Area but I've never been to Mount Shasta, so it put it on your bucket.

Speaker 2:

That's crazy, I know.

Speaker 3:

How can that be? I asked myself the same question. I'm giving you an open invitation. You now have an open invitation and a place to stay.

Speaker 1:

Well, thank you very much because it's definitely as I have been healing and growing. Nature has really helped me with that growth and with that healing, and so is that some of the things that you teach your kids and adults.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, deep personal connection to the earth, not one where it's like you're looking in it, like in a museum looking at something. It's when you realize you are a part of the earth, you're not separate from it. I think it's one of the big mistakes humans have made since we came into the modern world is we've pushed that sacredness, connection to the earth away, not from any master plan, it just happened and we're losing it now and so we don't feel what the earth is going through and we also lose our feelings with everything else in between. And one of the things about what we teach going back to, I think, about the title of your podcast, it's, I think you'd appreciate part of how I found the land. And so when I was out with a realtor, driving around looking for weeks and months, couldn't find the land all these dirt roads and I finally come down this dirt road and he gets a call and a piece of land came up for sale. So I'm very I. When things like that happen, I consider it like a message. You know, like it happened right. Then he goes oh, just down the road there, let's go look. I said, yes, you know. So we walked down the road. At the time I couldn't even get down the road in the car, it was so rough. As we walked down and I immediately heard the water and the land started to call to me and I saw a tree that really felt personal, like, like, really personal. And as I'm hearing the water, I'm getting closer, and along with me I had a wolf named Joseph, who I named after chief Joseph of the Nespierre Strybe because he could appear and disappear at will and he loved the land. So he was one of the signs I needed to say yes, get the land, he loved it. I just let him go on it wandering around. And then I get to the water and I was also at the time a falconer and a bird rescuer and I had birds of prey and I had a hawk for 40 years named Portia. She was a red tailed hawk that had been injured, and so I've always again I'm going back to, I'm looking for signs saying get this land, get this land, and I see a center tail feather of a red tailed hawk come floating down the creek. I pick it up, I go whoa, now that is a sign. So I'm pretty good, right then. And then I look up. I give you my word. I look up in a tree like that and it just brings tears to my eyes. My friend for the rest of my life I call him the earthkeeper looked down at me. It was a spiritual being. He looked down at me from a tree and he just said get it. And I looked at the realtor and there was a couple of the people with me. They felt the energy. I said, let's get it. And that afternoon we got the land and that started the whole thing. And the earthkeeper a lot of his words are in the book the earth caretaker way and a lot of the teachings come from him and my relationship. And this land is just full of spirits from the earth, spirits and spirits from the native people who lived here. I mean, it's just for sensitive people, it's like sometimes too much, it's almost more than you can handle. Okay, yeah, it's really really amazing place, so you have to come.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, absolutely. And Daisy, so you have experience. You know Tim and you actually brought him to us, and so I was like you gotta have Tim on.

Speaker 2:

He's an incredible person and this book, I think, is an incredible piece of work. I've been honored to be a pre-reader for it and to read both what the caretaker of the spirit of the land has taught Tim and from Tim himself. My son and I have gone to headwaters camp, actually the first time I visited. It's, of course, like Shasta's important to me, like it was literally a place that I went to and had a spiritual awakening when I was leaving kind of a life behind and I had my own experiences with Shasta. And so the owner of the crystal shop that I work at is actually been childhood friends with Julie, who is also a teacher of the land and helps to take care of the school and the land. So she invited us one time when we came up to Shasta and we went into the land and I met Tim and the land itself is just. You can feel how it is a power spot, how it's important as a teacher and as a piece of the earth For just being on the land. It changes you and I can see that and my son has come, even though he's like one of the youngest people that always comes to the camp. He just it's like he belongs there, it's like he just becomes part of the community. And I think it's such an important reminder to all of us that to go and to be on the earth and to, like we do activities like cover ourselves with mud and go and hide and become part of the earth and like you have bugs crawling on you and stuff and that stuff that maybe in our modern day we avoid doing that kind of things, we're always trying to get the bugs out or whatever. But Tim and the teachings are telling you how you're part of that. That's not separate from you. You're part of the ecosystem. This is all part of who we all are and it's a reminder and I think why kids take that up, so they like soak that up right, and I know that Tim said he has so many kids coming to the space and this affects them as they get older too, like we all remember that that's all part of us and that's something maybe that we get disconnected from as a child because we live in these cities and we live in these places that are away from everybody, so it's so essential. If everyone could come to Headwaters, that would be incredible. I feel like that would be a lot, but we want other places in the world to be like Headwaters and to be sacred.

Speaker 3:

Who are many of them.

Speaker 2:

Exactly for it to spread.

Speaker 1:

Well, you just touched on that. But when, tim, when you were saying that it went from you having a lot of adults to now you having more children coming, I love that, because for them to learn that young and to be able to take that with them throughout their life and be able to teach that as they continue, continue on with your teachings, I think it's absolutely beautiful, absolutely. So I love what you're doing.

Speaker 3:

So when I was younger, a few years earlier, in the school for the school, my first book I wrote was called Growing Up With a Soul Full of Nature and that book I wrote is kind of for students to have who came to the school and it's about how a childhood really raised by the earth. And some of that book is now in the new book, the Earth Care Takeaway. But I wrote that I was so inspired about how kids have to learn when they're young. And today the thing that's even harder for kids is, with social media, a lot of kids they'll just never get away from their. They won't even go out and sit by a tree. And so much teaching from nature doesn't necessarily come from, like me, lecturing or even hiking or anything else. It comes from just being in nature and soaking up the living force of the earth and you can't replace that with anything but being out there and open. And kids today, some kids literally never, ever, go in nature, never, never. It's scared me, but we're trying to help.

Speaker 1:

So you describe yourself as an earth caretaker. Can you kind of describe? You know and I know you've been briefly touching on that, but what does that mean to you being an earth caretaker?

Speaker 3:

Well, an earth caretaker. The idea that comes out of the book is that it's one of those. When you look at human beings, I find human beings fascinating. And from an anthropological standpoint, what are the few things in the world that we all can agree on and bring us together? And maybe, if we all begin to wake up, caring for the earth is a universal thing and it does literally with global warming and overpopulation and what's happening to the world actually means life for us in the future. That's quality, right. So it's that developing that personal relationship with nature, the earth caretaker way. We all have that universal thing in us. So, no matter where you are I don't care if you're the richest person in the world, I don't care if you're the poorest person or any type of person, or any religion or any political belief or any of that we can all wake up every day and dedicate ourselves to doing good for our planet with the resources we have. And if it's nothing but just our body, go up and clean up creeks. Talk to the people about nature. Spend time with a tree. You could always. One of the biggest things I tell people today it's so huge is vote for nature If you're looking, if you're frustrated with the way that the world is right now and politicians just vote for the ones that save land, care for land, do good for wildlife. That's the most important thing right now. It's huge, and being an earth caretaker it has to do with when you wake up in the morning. It's not something you even have to think about, you just know you love our earth, you care about it and you're going to dedicate your life to caring for. So it might mean joining organizations that are already fighting for the earth, helping clean up creeks and rivers. If you have money, donating money to good causes. But the other half of that being an earth caretaker, then is developing your personal relationship with nature, which means you have to go out and be in nature go to the beach, go to the mountains, go backpacking, go hiking, climb trees, get in the water, get personal with nature. That's a brief, a quick brief, but imagine what it would happen if people start, if this earth caretaker way idea started to catch on and become a movement and people all around the world started to wake up every day and think what are we going to do for our planet? Imagine if half the population of the world just decided to put water out and take care of birds Right Overnight, a problem would disappear. If we all took our front yards and our backyards and cities and suburbs and turned them into wildlife habitat, we'd have more land saved than all the national parks. And imagine cities would become a waste for animals and people would come out and see their neighbors and talk and visit and imagine what it would be like for a bird to fly over a city where the front and back yards were designed for wildlife and not just grass. Imagine overnight. The other thing too is we're trying to push really hard is saving land. About 50% of the land in the world needs to be set aside as wild for the soul of human beings in the earth, but for all wildlife to have space. And it's starting to happen. There's people doing it. I'm feeling this energy build and every day I read and study I see there's a new person doing something big. So that's what gives me hope and often a very hopeless time for a lot of people. It gives me hope and you can't function without hope. You can't do anything Absolutely, but it has to be real hope and that's what gives it to me. Just to wrap up here, so the bottom line is everybody can do something. We all can do it. It doesn't have to be, oh, that guy can do it or that guy. No, you can wake up in the morning and care for our earth, and part of it is educating yourself. Learn how you can do it, be interested, and again, that book will help with that to some degree.

Speaker 1:

Well, I can't wait for it to come out and I can't wait to read it. And it's funny because you were just talking about if everybody were to turn their backyard into something for wildlife. So I have a neighbor who was living next door and because of what she's done with her backyard, there are hummingbirds that come into my yard frequently and dragonflies and butterflies and everything. And then there has been a few times where hawks perch up and I'm in the suburbs so hawks perching up on the fence in between our two yards where I'm just like, oh my god, this is so beautiful, like there's a hawk right there. So the fact that you said that, and because I've had the opportunity to experience it thanks to my neighbor, I get what you're saying oh yeah, no.

Speaker 3:

In moments like that, when you see that hawk, just know that hawk speaking to you, Spend time with it. Like one thing people do a lot is they'll see something neat and then they'll just move on, Spend time and soak it up and then it really lives in you.

Speaker 1:

No, I am fascinated, and so it's almost like I'm constantly looking now, whenever I'm walking, driving, you know, looking for hawks. Hawks are definitely my spirit animal, I believe, and so, just and especially after having that relationship with that hawk and that meeting with it, so, yes, I definitely sat there and just, and sometimes I was even able to get pictures, and I go back to that picture and I'll reflect.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think, when we personally become Earth caretakers, we're finding what connects with our soul, that connects us to the soul of the Earth and the elements and the ethereals, and even to remember that, like the book, there's a chapter in the book that talks about elementals and it talks about how we can connect to these spirits. And I think that that in this day and age, we're just awakening and the young ones are all like, more open for that idea where there was a time that that we were disconnected from even those more sensitive and spiritual topics. I think nowadays we have this openness when it comes to listening. You know, this is. And then the book, it even says it's like remembering our future by going backwards. Right, so we're remembering our more indigenous, the more native ways of, you know, connecting and actually being with the Earth and remembering that as an entity, as an energy, there's so much for us to learn. Just by slowing down, just by stopping, and like when you sit by a creek, when you, you know, have a moment with the tree and you place yourself, you know, put your back to the tree, and you become one with that spirit of that energy, you get a lot of information, you get a lot of comfort, you get a feeling of groundedness when you sit with a tree. You know, when I'm working with my clients and I, we do grounding, we're always becoming a tree just because, like, we need to honor these, these entities and these energies for the wisdom that they've held. You know, when you sit and you observe like when I it's been windy and I'm observing trees I go. What is this tree teaching me? And it's about flexibility. It's about how that storm or how that wind doesn't break a tree, but the tree becomes flexible within it. So what is that? A lesson for me? Right, earth caretakers are people who reflect and see the Earth as not separate from you, as something that is about you and for you and takes care of you. So don't you naturally want to go and take care of it? I think, like Tim said, it's really important that we start to either in a especially in our day to day lives, moments of connecting, even just looking at the sky, looking at the clouds, saying thank you to the sun for giving us all this vitality and growth, the rain for giving us that water, that nourishment and that clearing, but also, how do we expand that so that we can preserve this for the longevity of our children and our children's children and other people's children, right? And so that the animals and the insects continue to have an ecosystem that's thriving and not one that's dying, where we turn our back from it. It's difficult, it's overwhelming. I think sometimes we get overwhelmed in the feeling that the climate change and this is stuff that we've been talking about since I was a child. It's a stuff that we know right. If we don't find tangible ways of actually doing things to preserve it and inspiring people into preserving it, then we are going to be at a loss and it's going to be a really great loss for humanity as a whole. One way or another, the earth will take care of herself and she will survive. Now, for humans, I don't know if it's going to be the same success story, but I know, like Tim, like we have hope, we have to. You know, right, we are here to be visionaries, and I'm a visionary for peace and connection and community for the entire world. I feel like if we can't even believe that we can have a worldwide peace, how do we have worldwide connection to earth? You know how do we do those things? Well, we believe that it's possible, and then you go from there and you do things that would make that possibility happen.

Speaker 3:

So yeah, Beautiful, I agree.

Speaker 1:

Exactly, I'm just like yes, yeah, we inspire each other.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and one of the ways that it happens too and people just don't realize how easy it is is if you just show an interest in something like a plant, like a flower, like a hummingbird, like a mountain, like a creek, just like the earth. If you're just showing interest is a way of saying through your body, through your actions, that you love this thing, that you care about this thing, that you find it important, and that's an energy that goes out. Remember, the earth is a living being and every single thing on the earth is living. I really think it's the human time right now. This is what we're supposed to do is be your caretakers is care for this precious planet. That's one of the reasons we have these incredible brains, these incredible hands that can make and build things. Yes, with this incredible intelligence we built the H-bomb. We can do bad things, but we can also build and create incredible things. That's always a choice and we have it both of it in us and that deeper connection to the earth taking the time, letting her come in keeps us more centered and balanced to make better decisions. Often it's the light, it's right. Some of the worst moments, like it seems now in the world, it's so bad right now. In so many ways it's that just before that darkness comes more light and it all changes. I really believe we're building up for a more awareness, this younger generation now very much inspiring me. There are earth caretaker advocates out there in their 20s, early 30s, all over the world kicking. But they are out there Every country in the world. It's happening. You just don't hear about it in the news. You've got to research it to find these people and things.

Speaker 1:

I've been watching some of your YouTubes. We've been actually trying to connect for a few months. I've been watching your Tim Talks on YouTube. There was one that you recently did, a few weeks ago Living Simply where you were talking about forging your own food and stuff like that Something that my husband and I were putting together a garden so that we have our own, not always having to go and get groceries and things like that. Also. I'm really excited because it's a way for me to connect with the earth and be able to watch something grow. I've always said I have a black thumb, but I think it's more. I just wasn't knowledgeable. I don't want to say I didn't care, but I didn't care in the way that I care. Now that makes sense.

Speaker 3:

That's neat that you're doing the garden. That's a great way to get you out Growing plants. It becomes personal. When you start them from a seed, say, and you grow them, you want to protect them. The natural protection part of you comes out. You protect them from insect attacks. You watch them grow, you get closer, you watch them finish their life and they're all the while they're filling you up, feeding you and giving you life. That's another thing. In doing the front and back yards as wildlife habitat, you can also add into their personal gardens and it's actually been done. In World War II there was what's called victory gardens which, because most of the food had to go to feed the troops overseas fighting. It was asked of the American public to grow their own food gardens and millions of people did that. It's been done.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's essential for us to grow our own food. I think, with the cost of everything going up, we can recognize that growing our own food and turning areas that were long or whatever within our personal properties or even pots, if you live in an apartment or you live in a small space, like, put some pots out with things that you can grow that are simple, right, we have kind of lost touch with that part of ourselves. And the gardens at. You know, headwaters are incredible. There's entire greenhouse but then there's small little areas that they grow just herbs and things. And even when I come for class, like at headwaters, there's a woman, rosie, who does. She goes a tea garden walk in the morning and will go and pick the herbs that we make a tea with and everyone can enjoy that tea. Just small little things like that. If you have some lavender or lemon balm or whatever you want to have, you know you can grow your own rosemary for when you make chicken or whatever right, like to flavor your own herbs and seasonings, right. It makes those small little efforts just really. It gives us back that simplicity. Like you were saying in the TED talk or the sorry, the Tim talk, it's all about returning to that simplicity, and I know that Tim has turned the gardens and the area around his house. Even there's apples that are growing there, like I remember when we were there last summer that I think there was cherries growing and all the kids got to go and pick cherries and then we had fresh cherries, it's like the joy of just being able to pick a fruit for yourself instead of picking it up at a grocery store. That's the kind of connection that you need to remember that you are capable of that same thing. We've lost that, so now let's remember that that's part of who we are Just growing those herbs or those, if we can. A cherry tree right, go big Right.

Speaker 3:

That cherry tree on our property every year. Every year it gets about five gallons of cherries and they come about when they start to get ripe. I have the kids climb the tree and pick it and they just go nuts. They love it so much and I could teach for days that tree, holding them, letting them pick cherries and having the community and then eating them and preparing them. That's the teacher. That's the real teacher. I don't need to get my ego involved. Believe me, the cherry tree is the master teacher and that's what we do a lot here. And you see it, it's letting the tree be the teacher and the experience.

Speaker 2:

Can I say, when we climb trees. So in the school they actually have us climb these large trees. We even had an activity where all of us went up in the tree and sat on a branch. Now, these are things that and I've been a teacher for 20 years, so they don't want you, as a child, climbing up into a tree because it's a liability issue or whatever. You're going to get hurt. Well, you get to remember that. Being careful, they also encourage you to take your shoes off. So, being tender and being sensitive to everything around you, climbing a tree carefully, being mindful about how you put your body in the weight of yourself in that tree, and then sitting with the tree and remembering that even those kinds of things we've cautioned ourselves away from trying to circumnavigate getting hurt. Well, you know what you go through the tree, you get a little scratch, you'll survive, everyone will be okay, and it's important for us to remember that we lived thousands of years getting dirty and mucky and we're still here.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and you brought that up and it brings me back to a picture of me and I was in my early 20s and I was up in a tree in Hawaii and I was just like, yeah, it's been a long time since I've climbed a tree, but I get what you're saying and it's like, yeah, you might get a couple of scrapes, but you survive.

Speaker 3:

We've had parents try to stop us from doing that. I won't do it. I won't comply.

Speaker 2:

Tim's the ultimate rebel.

Speaker 3:

I'll tell you a wonderful, quick story about how to illustrate how this work works is I was having an adult advanced awareness class years quite a few years ago and this one adult, very strong guy, big, strong, well-fitting guy. Their job was to climb this tree about 50, 60, 70 feet up. They were up there and the job was to give their energy to the tree. The teaching was that we're always taking from nature and the idea was to start to give back, and you can give back energetically too. The idea was for them to climb the tree and then give their energy to the tree and wish it a good life, wish it health and healing and a good life. It's one way we say we give a blessing. And he did this. And then when it ended I called everybody back and everybody came down and he wouldn't move and I could just barely hear him go Tim, tim, I can't move. And he'd given so much energy to the tree. He was like completely limp and he was going to fall. So me and two other guys climbed the tree and had to really literally carry him down, took like 20 minutes, and then when he got on the ground, he got grounded again. He sucked up the energy of the earth and he came back into his body, but he had forgotten how to suck back his energy into himself. He'd give it all to the tree, and it was just an illustration of how incredible that is, you know, and that we, oh, and here's the finish of the story. So then he, you know, he finished the class, he left. You know, we wished him well, and he's one of those you don't always keep in touch with your students. So, like 10, 12 years later, just yesterday, julie heard from him and he's now owns and runs a backpacking school in Montana, taking people out into the wilderness, and so see, might this land touched him. He did it himself, but it's concentric rings. We're a part of that, you know. And and it could have all started right here on this land, with that tree, you know, and now he's changing people's lives. So it's really that's the kind of thing you want to see. It fills your soul.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely. That's lovely, absolutely so. Going back to your YouTube's and and your book, when I was doing a little bit of research on you and Looking at your YouTube's, I found one from three years ago when you were discussing the earth care take away and your book and you actually discussed some of the different chapters. How long have you been working on this book?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, well, I think I probably working on this book my whole life. But really seriously, where I decided we're gonna do a book and I started writing for probably 10 years, and I always have this getaway every year where I go to the big island of Hawaii and my wife and I we rent this little place and I sit there. We go there for three weeks and that's where I do most the writing, believe it or not, and I just sit there on the beach and it just like happens. You know, there's something happens there, mm-hmm. And then I have this incredible person, julie betler, who co-authored the book with me, who cleans up all my writing. It makes me look great, you know Cuz I she reads my scribbles, but that's where it all comes from. And and it's just an amazing thing, you know. So it's been about 10 years and and boy, in this last year where we really got focused on publishing, we had no idea how much work would say, yeah, it's all and good, but we have spent every minute on it. You know, just just editing is a humbling.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's exciting to watch and I've been able to be kind of on the inside track of that and we're so proud and so happy that Tim and and Julie are creating this. You know, this gift for all of us that we can have, like their legacy being passed on to all of us that have come to the school, that feel a connection to the land, that feel a connection to the idea of an earth care taker, and even Tim could probably tell you this year, I think, they're having an earth care taker way class, a special class to help teach people More about the specifics of being an earth care taker.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, that's gonna be in June and that'll be like the first, I'm hoping, of spawning many of those into the future and where the the headwaters outdoor school too, will start to morph a little bit into an earth care taker facility Mm-hmm, or the idea of one to help inspire people to go out. And one of the dreams is that people all over the world Will start to find little pieces of land to save, with maybe a building or two there in turn, and have their own little educational Earth care taker facility and kind of a place where people can come together and with ideas, you know, and then go out and Change the world forever. You know, that's I'm hoping. This is gonna birth these ideas and they're gonna, at my age, a lot of this I'm putting it out there and then I'm gonna be giving it away to the younger generation.

Speaker 1:

That's yeah well, it's so funny because I was gonna say, as we're wrapping things up, what do you want to come from your book? But you just explained that so beautifully. So when does your book come out?

Speaker 3:

the book comes out March 19 March 19, fantastic and if, if anybody wants to Send their email to info at h Woscom, that's headwaters. We'll take your email and we're gonna start sending out to people Information about it coming out and getting them all prepped so that when that first day two days, three days after it comes out If everybody buys it, it'll really go up on the best seller list and more people get to it. The beautiful thing is it's gonna hopefully spawn this movement that's really what it's about and any money the book makes will go into a foundation that we're starting to help more people come to the school and to save land and and really to push the educational side of what the earth care take away is. So it's a win-win and I want everybody to buy the book because it's. The book is designed to be the kind of book when you could open it up to any page and get something inspirational, mm-hmm, or it could be a reference book, or it can be also like a field guide where you just take it with you and you If jot notes in it and you get it dirty, you know, get some of the earth on it, you know, and have it, collect the medicine of the earth, press flowers in it, things like that. And then eventually but a few weeks later too, if you're interested. Right now I'm doing the audible book, but I want everybody to have a physical book too. But the audible is gonna be really good too. I, I've been putting hours in doing that that. That's another very humbling thing. Do it sitting in a little booth like this, just speaking for hours. You know right, but I heard a little bit of it. It's pretty amazing. I'm pretty impressed. I'm excited like wow.

Speaker 1:

Well, I'm excited for your book to come out. I know that I will be contacting you so that I can get more information and be able to purchase that when it comes out on March 19th. That is the earth care take away by Tim Corcoran. Tim, thank you so much for coming on the show and giving our audience just all of this wonderful knowledge. Daisy, thank you so much for coming back. I Appreciate the both of you. This was beautiful. So everybody go out and buy Tim's book. And that's it for today.

Speaker 2:

So thanks, marlena.

Speaker 3:

Thanks Marlena, thanks Daisy. What a gift to visit with you guys. Have a great day.

Speaker 1:

Yes, this was beautiful. Thank you so much for joining us on a witch, amistic and a feminist. Feel free to go to our website To listen to past episodes and we will see you next week. Thank you, you.

Tim CorcoranProfile Photo

Tim Corcoran

Author

I was born in 1954, in San Francisco, California. My Irish heritage, was taught to me by my uncle and my grandfather, has linked me deeply to Earth peoples’ philosophy of life.

I first went to the woods at age six. I knew then that this was my home. At seventeen I spent four months alone in the Canadian Wilderness practicing Earth living skills.

I began a career teaching wildlife conservation, in 1974. During this time I learned how to communicate with the spirits of the animals I worked with.

My most recent and important wilderness experiences have been greatly enriched by the teachings of Tom Brown Jr. the well known tracker and author.

In 1992, with Headwaters Outdoor School, I realized my lifelong vision to share what I have learned from the Earth and to inspire people to discover their own connection with the Earth.

Now, I am in the process of publishing my life's work and teachings, in my new book: The Earth Caretaker Way.