Institute for applied learning
Protecting the Sacred — Reimagining Money
The Jubilee Institute for Applied Learning works with some of the most creative people in the world, including peacemakers from various wisdom traditions, people who work with fire and forests, indigenous leaders, farmers, and others who are healing the land, as well as with technologists, wealth holders, entrepreneurs, and leaders in business, academia, government and health.
Collectively, we aim to host our region as an Earth Sanctuary. The Institute’s current focus is on the following three initiatives, all of which also provide a base of learning and network of support for the students of Jubilee College.
Return the Nur (salmon)
We have joined deeply with the Winnemem Wintu Tribe and California farmers in every aspect of bringing back the Nur (restoring Chinook salmon populations to their home waters of Northern California) and in restoration and healing for thriving life-ways.
Rooted in ceremony, and made manifest in concrete action, we are learning how to become good caretakers for the water, the land, and this particular ecosystem. Our work includes daily project collaboration with tribal members, farmers, western scientists, and government leaders, as well as inviting in funding support for the Tribe’s work. This includes salmon restoration, the creation of their ceremonial roundhouse, and efforts for ancestral land return at Bollibokka. We also host wider collaborations, bringing together Indigenous and Western science (2024 Summit Agenda || Summit Participants).
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- Michelle Long (R) with Maori scientist Dr. Melanie Cheung, focused on bringing back the McCloud wild salmon eggs from Aotearoa/New Zealand
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- Chief Sisk & Charlie Thieriot walking Llano Seco, his family’s ranch, to explore salmon habitat restoration
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- Return the Nur Advisors Jodi Archambault & Todd Park, at the McCloud River
Re-imagining money
This work is interrelated and reinforcing. There is a direct connection between restoring an abundant web of life regionally and the human being’s capacity to evolve and create.
Chief Sisk once said, “If we can pay people to destroy the water, why can’t we pay people to protect it?” Andy Lam calls this “flipping the incentives,” and new technologies today could support evolving human understandings and the creations of new money systems. But it is not as simple as distributing or granting money from the same mindset. What is required is creating trust by actually practicing differently with money and “gift” to soften our rigid “either/or” minds into the “both/and” perception of the heart, which can see anew.
Building from our seven years of work at Jubilee in study with Orland Bishop, and in practice with a “3rd Drawer” (named after Srinija’s childhood family experience of sharing money), we have joined with many others – particularly indigenous and farming leaders in Northern California, to build a network of trust. Together we are starting a practice of collectively flowing gifts for sacred water, lands and their peoples, for healthy food systems, water protection, and habitat restoration… all toward seeing the truth of our interdependence and that sacred water is life, not money.
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- College co-creators & Andy Lam, Saad Khan, and Sep Kamvar, planning a Northern California money pilot, designed to support healthy water & thriving salmon
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- Our guide, Orland, and Andy, meeting on the McCloud River to explore reimagining money & protecting the sacred
Connecting sacred places and communities around the world
We are part of an emerging local and global community of Earth Sanctuary places, connected to other sacred mountains and to schools that are forming around the world to welcome new futures. All of these places are helping people to remember how to connect with Earth, spirit, and one another.
We host important invitational gatherings in this region. We also travel with groups to connect with other communities, seeking to learn from, and support, sacred places and their people around the world.
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- At a learning journey to explore Earth Sanctuary / “kuni” in Japan, with our partners Miyagi-san & Kotaro
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- Amiria Raumati, Aotearoa Maori partner in Earth Community rising, & Hawaiian elder
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- Nipun Mehta, Orland, & Stephen Lewis at a “Mt Shasta headwaters to the San Francisco Bay” gathering to explore sacred waters & emerging technologies
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- A joyous planning meeting for a Northern California “Water & Money” pilot
