The Work of Three Aunties

Events

Three Aunties provides educational events for the public.  

The initial Three Aunties event is the Gainesville Holistic Health Fair.  The next fair will be held Saturday, March 26th, 2016, at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, 4225 NW 34^th Street, Gainesville, Florida.  Practitioners from a wide variety of alternative and wholistic health modalities will be there to answer questions and provide 15-20 minute sample sessions for $20 (only $5 during the first hour, 10:00 - 11:00 am!).  The fair will provide information on nutrition and environmental health, and empowering workshops on how to take care of yourself and your family.  Find out more at the Gainesville Holistic Health Fair blog  or send an email to Maria Minno. 

ROOTS Festival.  This is a day of hands-on natural history study for scientists and environmental / outdoor educators, as well as workshops in nature-based, farm and domestic arts. 

ROOTS stands for Reclaiming Our Origins, Traditions and Skills.  The purpose is to restore understanding of, and cultivate appreciation for, our historical and natural heritage.  This will be accomplished through providing opportunities for the teaching and learning of ancient and traditional skills that are being lost.  These skills are especially important for young people who will live in the world of the future for many decades.  The ROOTS Festival aims to restore a sense of place and a positive relationship with our natural surroundings that will help benefit people’s mental and physical health and well-being.  We are hoping to announce a date between October and December for this event, to be held (hopefully!) at Camp Crystal Lake. 

Three Aunties partners with other nonprofit organizations in some of its endeavors.  

Publications

Besides educational events, the next most important work of Three Aunties is to provide information.  Three Aunties is presently publishing blogs, and articles, books, multimedia electronic publications, apps and newsletters are in the works.  These publications inform the general public and interested specialists of important research, discoveries, natural occurrences, natural phenomena, and empowering methods of co-existing with nature in a mutually beneficial manner.  

The blogs maintained by Three Aunties provide information on events, publications, and nature study topics.  

• The MudPuddling blog informs people of the imperiled state of some of Florida’s butterflies, as well as butterfly natural history.  Three Aunties is obtaining records, including photographs and videos of imperiled butterfly species.  We have published “Wanted” posters with these photographs and pertinent information on them.  

 

• Florida Nature Finder logs discoveries in backyards and natural areas and informs readers of Three Aunties events and publications.

Grants

Three Aunties is searching for grants from government agencies or private foundations that will allow us to perform our work without compromise. 

Biodiversity Conservation

Finally, Three Aunties can work with private foundations and/or government agencies to purchase, preserve, and enhance the biodiversity of environmentally strategic tracts of land in Florida through a Biodiversity and Land Conservation program.  Three Aunties welcomes donations of land as well as funding for restoration and management, from foundations, government agencies, individuals and businesses that are inclined to want to do something to preserve and enhance biodiversity in Florida.  

When possible, Three Aunties will keep these biodiversity preserves open for nature literacy education and research to benefit the public as well as for specialists, land managers, and scientists. 

Hope For the Future

Three Aunties plans to accomplishes its work primarily through the volunteer efforts of the Board of Directors, which includes an Administrative Director and a Scientific Director.  They are multi-talented people with skills, training and experience in computers, natural history, environmental biology, zoology, botany, mammalogy, entomology, agriculture, alternative health, environmental health, writing, blogging, photography, alternative health, indigenous people, sustainable living, nonprofit administration, event planning, and more.  The Board of Directors will work with affiliates and other volunteers, and will network with other nonprofits and government agencies, to accomplish this work.

In our diverse ways, all of us at Three Aunties are working for a future where our work will be well received, our offerings will be grasped, and our purpose and intentions will be fully supported, so that we can do the work now that we feel is most important for future generations. 

The most important aspect of the work of Three Aunties will be providing educational events for the public.

Planting The Seed

Three Aunties, Inc., a new Florida not-for-profit corporation, received its IRS determination letter on September 14, 2012, informing us of its 501 (c) (3) tax exempt public charity status.

Below is the background information and mission statement for our new organization.  We look forward to letting you know what our progress is on the projects we are planning.

PHILOSOPHY

The Three Aunties, the maiden, mother and crone, symbolize the three-fold relationship we have with one another and our environment as we spiral through time in the multiverse. 

•   First we are nurtured with untold blessings from nature and our ancestors, so that we come into the world in a state of gratitude. 

•   Next these blessings blossom and come to fruition in our creative expression and work. 

•   Finally, we participate in our community through sharing our wisdom, and by providing an empowering example of harmonious living.   

The relationship we have with our environment is mutual.  As we pollute the environment, our bodies and consciousness become polluted.  As we destroy the ecological integrity of our environment, our personal, physiological, spiritual, and cultural integrity is destroyed.  As we attempt to separate ourselves from our environment, we lose our connection with nature.  As a result, we lose our sense of being part of something immensely powerful, enduringly nurturing, and unfathomably complex. 

People have an innate need to be cradled in the arms of nature.  Without this, we become insecure, and begin to do things that are self-destructive.  The outcome is a population of miserable people who feel disconnected with our land, our community, our loved ones, and parts of ourselves.  

The words health, healing, whole, holy, wholesome, hallow, heath, heathen, and holistic all come from the same Indo-European word root:  kailo.  The meaning of the root word is complete, unharmed, and untilled or wild.  People are designed to live on the Earth, and the Earth is designed for people.  We are not complete without the complex relationship that naturally occurs between ourselves and the Earth.

GOALS

Even at this late hour, most of the problems people have created between themselves and nature can be healed.  As people spend time listening, watching and experiencing nature, they learn how to live in a good way, and how to engage in a mutually-beneficial relationship with nature.  Our work through Three Aunties will be to listen, watch and experience nature, and in obedience to the revelations received, to use this knowledge to guide us on this three-fold path: 

1.                  Spirit:  To nurture healthy relationships between people and their natural environment by providing opportunities for interactive experiences, by conducting scientific research, and by sharing information about, and experience within, natural systems relating to natural cycles, interactions, and interdependence. 

2.                  Mind:  To provide programs, activities, conferences, events and educational materials connecting people with natural history, ecology, environmental health, and alternative healing; and,

3.                  Body:  To garner material support for, setup, and to enrich, manage, monitor, and expand biodiversity preserves that also serve the needs of people;

THE PURPOSES AND OBJECTIVES OF THREE AUNTIES ARE:

1. To nurture healthy relationships between people and their natural environment.  Three Aunties will provide people with rich, enlightening, and rewarding experiences that promote understanding, mutually beneficial interactions, and commitment between people and nature.  Three Aunties will introduce people to alternative ideas and behaviors, and will nurture the spiritual connection between people and nature that can promote long-term relationships between humans and the environment that have a positive ecological outcome.  Specifically, Three Aunties will hostess activities, ceremonies, and events in the natural environment.  In addition, Three Aunties will publish materials designed to make nature more accessible, hospitable, and understandable to people.  Furthermore, Three Aunties will foster and conduct scientific research to determine the most appropriate ways for people to interact with nature, and will share information on natural systems and cycles that likewise informs interactions.   
2.  To support people in their understanding of nature, ecology, natural history, biology, environmental health, energy medicine, and alternative healing with natural herbs and foods.  Three Aunties will seek to enlighten through encouraging education, understanding, and research about the consequences of the actions of people in nature in the past, present and future.  Three Aunties will inform people about the condition of the environment and its significance regarding ecology, toxicology, land use, environmental health and biodiversity.  Specifically, Three Aunties will perform environmental consulting, research, and reporting, and environmental education for land managers, land stewards, decision-makers, educators, and the public.   Furthermore, Three Aunties will provide educational materials, programs, activities, conferences and events connecting people with nature on all levels, mentally, spiritually, emotionally and physically.  
3. To take action in sustainable and right living that is mutually beneficial between humans and nature.   Three Aunties will provide an opportunity for people to contribute to the creation of biodiversity preserves.  They will be given an opportunity to donate time, energy, land, and money, and participate in preserving, monitoring, managing, enriching, expanding, and bio-diversifying natural habitat in Florida and the southeastern US.  Specifically, Three Aunties will garner material support for the purpose of setting up and enriching, monitoring, managing, and expanding biodiversity preserves for healing the land and the people.  Furthermore, biodiversity preserves will be integrated with the wider landscape through things like wildlife corridors and compatible sustainable and mutually beneficial human activity including primitive hunting and gathering, ecological farming, ranching, and environmentally-sound occupation.  

SUMMARY

In sum, the threefold mission of Three Aunties is to garner material support for, set up, enrich, manage, monitor, and expand biodiversity preserves that also serve the interest of people; to provide, programs, activities, conferences, ceremonies, events and educational materials connecting people with natural history, ecology, environmental health, and alternative healing; and to nurture healthy relationships between people and their natural environment by providing opportunities for interactive experiences, conducting scientific research, and disseminating information on natural systems, cycles, interactions and interdependence.  

These services, opportunities, and information sources will serve the general public by facilitating improved public health and quality of life through changing how people do things as a result of improved environmental awareness and a spiritual connection with nature. 

PROGRAMS OF THREE AUNTIES

The purposes of the Three Aunties are promoted through research, education, and conservation programs to benefit decision-makers, land managers, land stewards, educators, and the public at large.  To further its stated purposes, Three Aunties will create conferences, symposia, workshops, educational events, outdoor activities, reports, and publications in various media.  Three Aunties will also engage in scientific research, environmental consulting, environmental and health education, land acquisition, and management.  The services, opportunities, and information sources provided by Three Aunties will serve the general public by facilitating improved public health and quality of life through environmental awareness, self-awareness, and spiritual connection with nature.