Sarah Katan

Sarah Katan and her family are transplants, but in the years since they arrived Sarah has become deply embedded in our community.  As an educator Sarah creates programs that connect kids (and adults) to the outdoors, to the history of the area, and - recently - to themselves. Sarah teaches personal storytelling and hosts storytelling events at the Ancram Center for the Arts, and even tells her own stories there. I admit this is a performance art that fascinates me, and I wanted to learn more about it and about Sarah. We found out we have a lot in common. 

I've dropped the ball a little this spring on my usual posting schedule, so I realize it's been a minute. I spend a little time filling you in on what's been going on for me. You can forward to about 9 minutes in if you're more interested in hearing Sarah!

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hello, my fellow Clavracans. My name is Jeff Kiplinger. This is the Claverick Podcast. Welcome. This is a show where I talk to a variety of people from Claverick and from the surrounding area here in Columbia County, New York. What I'm interested in is what people see in Claverick that makes them want to come here, what makes them want to stay, what makes them care about the future of this little town. I talk to people who have been here all their lives. I talk to people who are recent transplants to this area. I'm happy to talk to you if you have an interesting story to tell. For each episode, I'm going to give you a quick rundown of who I'm talking to and why, and we'll get right into a conversation. I hope that you'll follow us. We're on all the major platforms. I intend to drop a new episode every week or two. And over time I think we'll get to know our town a little bit better and some of the people in it. You'll meet some of your neighbors, you'll meet some interesting people with interesting stories, and maybe these interviews will start up a deeper conversation for you. Okay, let's get into it. Hey, it's the end of May as I'm recording this, and I have been inactive here since the end of February. I took two months without posting a new version of the podcast, for which I humbly beg your forgiveness, my audience. A couple of people have actually been anxious to hear a new episode of the podcast. So I'm grateful that people are listening and I'm grateful that people are tracking this. You know, Claverka is a small town, and we're all uh active in our lives, and my interests have become a little bit more self-centered in the last couple of months as the busy season of spring has picked up. I'm going to talk about me for a little bit before we get to our conversation today with Sarah Caton, who I'll tell you about just a little bit in a minute. So, what's going on with me? One thing is that I discovered at the end of February that the cortisone shots that I've been getting in my knee that have been keeping me going, cycling, hiking, all the things that I like to do, are no longer working. So I'm scheduled for a knee replacement in the next couple months. Now, those of you that are thinking, oh gosh, poor Jeff, he's having a knee replacement. This is what you get when you have fun all of your life, and I've certainly had a lot of that. I've done triathlons, I've raced bicycles, I ran marathons, I hiked the Appalachian Trail. All of this takes a toll, and hey, you know, I'm getting into my late 60s, and it's time, and I'm grateful to be so healthy and itching to get back at least on my bicycle. So that's coming up, and I expect that that will give me a little bit more time at my desk during the summer to post some of these interviews. Spring's the busy season for me, my wife, our family. We have about ten acres here in Clubbourke, and we've been engaged in a project for years. I've mentioned this a couple of times, to rewild that property. And by rewilding I mean we're taking out the invasive plants, we're letting new native stuff grow in. This year we planted 140 trees to rehabilitate a section of forest that was in pretty bad shape. I've done a lot to create some meadow spaces which are creating lots of space for pollinators and for insects to lay their eggs, make little caterpillars which the birds love. So we're quite excited about this project. It's been going on for nearly ten years now, and we have a habitat or a series of habitats on our property now that have brought us close to a hundred species of birds, and at least twenty-five or thirty of those are nesting here. I think maybe what I'll try to do within the next couple of months is get a couple of people on for interviews who have some experience in this area. We're part of a network, I think, of people in the Columbia County or I guess in the Mid-Hudson Valley who are very interested in creating or rehabilitating habitat so that the dramatic decline in birds and insects we've seen in the last twenty or thirty years can be at least stabilized, maybe ideally reversed. We're part of a network. My wife and I have people in the Taconic and Clobberg area who are opening up properties to tours for a series of what would we call this? They're they're garden tours really, but we're not talking about manicured gardens. We're talking about people that have gardens that are focused on ecology uh in various ways. And I'll also be sitting on a panel in November. I'll tell you more about that as we come a little closer to that. I'm sitting on a panel in November that will deal with invasive plant removal. So apparently I'm considered at least a very minor expert in that area. So what else has been going on? I got, as part of my interest in forest health, I've gotten involved with the community of deer hunters in the area. I hunt, have for several years, primarily on my own property, and now I'm allied with several groups of hunters who have a common interest in preserving the forests. We have an overpopulation of deer here in Columbia County in particular, uh in the Mid Hudson Valley in general, and that overpopulation gives us has resulted in quite a lot of forest damage. I mean, we're talking overpopulation to the to the tune of 30 to 50 times the carrying capacity of deer per acre or per square mile in this area. And of course it results in problems. The deer have browsed forest understory to nothing, and they they're hosts to a number of the ticks and are partly responsible for the increase in tick borne diseases in the area. Ethical hunting, I think, has a place, and there are a lot of people that are becoming interested in that. So I have volunteered as a hunter education instructor. I went through the training for that back in February. I've have been part of a large hunter ed class that took place down in Taconic a few weeks ago, and it was pretty exciting because I had thought that hunters were primarily older men like me, and people that had learned in the outdoors, maybe from their fathers and grandfathers, how to do this. And it's not that way anymore. We've seen a lot of younger farmers move into the area who want to protect land. We are seeing a lot of young people who are interested in this from a standpoint of harvesting sustainable meat supply. So I I was quite pleased to find that as an instructor I was older than virtually every one of the 26 students that were in the class, and in fact, we had a number of kids as well. So bodes well for the future of hunting in Columbia County. My conversation today with Sarah Caton, who is somebody that I know from the Climate Smart group that I'm a part of here in Claverick. Climate Smart is a program that the state runs that helps municipalities become more resilient in the face of uh climate change. And that's partly reducing greenhouse gas emissions and so forth. But it's primarily really having the community look holistically at this problem. Whether you want to call it climate change or weather change, we're definitely seeing it. Just in the 15 years that I've been here in Columbia County, we've seen some pretty dramatic changes in our winters and our summers. And it looks like it's only going to continue. I met Sarah Caton, who is responsible for the Clover Climate Smart newsletter, and I'll give you a link to that at the end of the podcast where you can subscribe as well. It's Sarah is she's an educator, she's been an educator all of her career. She has a couple of young kids now, so she doesn't work full-time in the school system. She considers herself a freelance educator, and she's done everything from creating outdoor nature-focused school experiences to leading tours at Olana. And more recently, and the reason that I reached out to her and said, let's talk, was I'm kind of fascinated with one of the things she's doing now, which is to teach or facilitate a couple of courses at the Ankram Center for the Arts, which are associated with storytelling. So if you've ever listened to the Moth Podcast or the Moth Radio Hour on NPR, or if you've ever been to a story slam, you know what I'm talking about. People get up and tell personal narratives within a confined time. Ankram's been doing this, and there's an interest in doing this in Catskill as well and several other places. Sarah is a mover and shaker in this world. So we talk about that, we talk about her other experiences as an educator, and we find that we have quite a bit in common. Thanks for listening to me ramble a little bit about myself. I wanted to fill you in on why I've been off of this for a couple of months, but here's my conversation with Sarah Caton. So have you been here all your life or in the area all your life? How did you end up here?

SPEAKER_00 9:21

I'm a transplant because I grew up outside Cleveland, Cleveland Heights, Ohio. And I came out east for college. Went to college up in Maine. And I always knew when I was in the Midwest that I wanted to be like New England was calling, basically. So when I got the opportunity Had you now, wait a minute.

SPEAKER_02 9:40

How did New England call you from the Midwest? Because when I moved to the New England area, I had no idea what it was going to be like. I also came from Indiana. Fair point.

SPEAKER_00 9:50

So my grandparents, my grandfather was born and raised in Vermont. My father was born and raised in Vermont. So there was a lot of time spent in the summers coming to Vermont to spend time with my grandparents. They they would basically summer in Vermont and then winter in Cleveland. I spent a lot of time in Vermont as a child. And so it just always felt really comfortable. So I knew that I wanted to come out here for college once I was able to. And I got the opportunity to go to college in Maine.

SPEAKER_02 10:25

So did you go to the University of Maine in Orino or?

SPEAKER_00 10:28

No, I went to Bates College in Lewiston. Yes, very, you know, one of those D3 uh liberal arts schools.

SPEAKER_01 10:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

Um, you know, when I was looking at colleges, I wanted to be out of the Midwest. I was looking for a school where I could play field hockey and I wanted all four seasons.

SPEAKER_02 10:49

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 10:50

So Yeah, you got them. And I got them, yes, definitely. And it was great. I loved Bates, it was an excellent fit for me. Then I I just never left after never looked back to the Midwest. Yes. After college, I moved to Vermont. I actually got a job through AmeriCorps, spent a year in Burlington, Vermont. And then after that, I got a job at a boarding school in the very northwest corner of Connecticut, which is about 40 minutes from here. So that's what ended me in this interview. Exactly, the Lakeville area. So right on the other side of Millerton. And while I was teaching there, that's when I met my husband, my now husband. And he already had this house in Claverick. So I've been see, we're coming up on our 10-year anniversary this July. So I've been here for a little over 10 years.

SPEAKER_02 11:39

Yeah. And you're raising kids here, obviously. And are you still teaching actively or the kids not give you enough time during the day to do that?

SPEAKER_00 11:47

Right. So I stepped away from teaching once our first was born. Cameron is now seven in second grade. And then we have a second Andy who is two and a half. And right, I do not have enough time at this point to be full-time teaching. So recently I have moved into more of a freelance educator role. And I work for two nonprofits. I work for the Olana partnership as an educator there. So cool. Yeah. And then also at the Ingram Center as their lead teaching artist.

SPEAKER_02 12:18

We've got to talk more about the Ancrum Center thing because I, you know, I've seen you on the um the schedule or the bill or the calendar of their events. So we'll get we'll get into that. But I know you from Climate Smart, so you're also volunteering for things up here.

SPEAKER_00 12:33

Yes, definitely. I got into Climate Smart right after the pandemic. It was actually someone was canvassing for an upcoming election. My neighbor Pat, who was introducing me to different people, and she was like, Oh, I the question I asked the candidate, who I do not remember who that was, but I was asking them about infrastructure within the town of Claverick and if we are ready for the larger weather events that we know are coming because of our climate change.

SPEAKER_02 13:05

Great question.

SPEAKER_00 13:06

And that then got them talking about oh, there's this committee, part of the town that you can join if you're interested, called Claverick Climate Smart. And I was like, absolutely, put me in touch with John. And so he and I had a conversation.

SPEAKER_02 13:20

I started going to meetings and Yeah, I think I'm part of that committee too. And the beautiful thing about it is that just through perseverance and research that John does and activities like you, you and other volunteers have done in the area, we're finally getting to that point where you can say the town is making some plans for its energy future. Yes. And I want to see if I can get somebody from the town board to sit up for an interview on this podcast and we'll talk a little bit more about that. I know that they're talking about energy, more energy independence, and they're talking about infrastructure improvements because everybody, whether you think climate is or global warming or whatever term people get triggered by nowadays is is being used, I think everybody kind of realizes that our weather is different than it was 20 years ago.

SPEAKER_00 14:11

Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. That is irrefutable because we're living it, right? We see the difference. I was mentioning to someone at the beginning of this winter how I haven't been able to go for a really good snowshoe in about five years. That the snow is either it's just not sticking around for as long. It's there, we don't have this type of snowpack that we need to make for a good adventure to go snowshoeing. This winter we had the good snow for it and it stuck around, which was great. And then we also had paired with frigid temperatures. I think about our community members, and I feel so grateful that I never have to think about if my house is well insulated because I know it is and I know that we're being as energy efficient. But I think about other older homes in the area and the residents and wondering if they're asking those questions, if they have the time, if they have the resources available to make sure that they are able to make any changes necessary, and also like is the town supporting them? Is this the county, the state supporting those? Because if we can be energy efficient, it makes sure that their money is well spent. It's not just like leaking out through the roof and through the cracks around the windows.

SPEAKER_02 15:29

Yeah, it's crazy how much the weather has changed around here, just in the 10, 15 years that I've been coming here and living here. But you mentioned snowshoeing, and I used to snowshoe a lot in the Catskills. And you're right, the last five years just there's not been enough, or you'll get a nice snowfall and then two days later it'll rain on top of it. Exactly. Or it gets really warm and sticky, and so the snowshoes just pick up snow and um you're just walking around with ice balls on the bottom of your snowshoes.

SPEAKER_00 15:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:58

Do you go to the Catskills or do you go locally around here?

SPEAKER_00 16:01

No, we have really enjoyed exploring Greenport, actually. So that's kind of our go-to. Yeah, Greenport Conservation Area. Because it is such a large conservation area, there's so much to explore. So you can very easily do a quick snowshoe just around a little loop, or you can really go far.

SPEAKER_02 16:19

Kids come with you?

SPEAKER_00 16:20

No. So Cameron only being seven.

SPEAKER_02 16:24

I don't know if they make kids' snowshoes at a reasonable price plus.

SPEAKER_00 16:28

They do, but he so when we were going snowshoeing like six years ago, we would keep him home. He was a little too young. If you carry a kid carrier backpack for hiking with a kid, then your snowshoes have to be able to carry that combined weight. So my snowshoes are made for my weight, not my weight plus a 20-pound kid.

SPEAKER_02 16:47

Yeah. That's a good one. So not having a small kid that I carry around in a backpack, I wouldn't have known that.

SPEAKER_00 16:55

Exactly. Yeah. Just like a little tidbit of information I gleaned from when I was running an outdoor education company.

SPEAKER_02 17:02

Oh, really? What was the outdoor education company?

SPEAKER_00 17:04

That was Whale of a Trail Adventures. I did outdoor education and guide quickly. Yeah, it was for anyone. So I did private tours, but then I also worked with like I did a program with Columbia Land Conservancy teaching orienteering. So compass work.

SPEAKER_02 17:21

Oh, great. I used to do that as a competitive sport. I haven't I haven't seen it an orienteering meet any place for a while. Yeah, no, there is I guess you can't do it on your phone.

SPEAKER_00 17:32

But with that like with a competition, you'd have to you do, yeah. I think you do have to use an actual compass.

SPEAKER_02 17:40

A map and a compass. And I don't know if anybody knows how to do that anyway.

SPEAKER_00 17:43

Yeah, I know. We're actually I'm doing the summer camp at Olana this summer. One of our days we're gonna be working on some mapping and teaching kids about how to read a map and topography. So I'm very excited about that.

SPEAKER_02 17:55

Yeah, I uh you know it's it's something I've been thinking about lately because I am co-teaching with CLC people hunter education workshop in April here in the Taconic Claverick area. And one of the skills that is in the International Hunter Education Association's manuals that all the states use now is map and compass. But they talk about it so little. And I read through this and I'm like, nobody that is used to using a smartphone could possibly learn how to use Map and Compass from this manual. Oh now, as you know, it's a it's a skill that I think for people our age, it partly came from having lived before the era of smartphones with GPS. Absolutely. And now we get lazy when I'm driving around in the car, I'm just using Google Maps. I'm not using an actual paper map anymore. Right. It's a very different world than where we grew up. And I don't the only thing they really seem to teach you in these hunter education manuals is you carry the compass and you have the needle, the red needle goes inside the red little house that looks like a needle, and they call that red in the shed. Oh yeah, red red in the shed. Yeah. And you you think, what does that mean to an average person who's reading this manual?

SPEAKER_00 19:15

Right. Exactly. Like the why of why you're lining those two pieces up and how you line them up. Yeah, all of that.

SPEAKER_02 19:22

Well, good. I'm gonna tell CLC that you're available as a resource for the map and compass part of the survival skills for hunting courses.

SPEAKER_00 19:29

Absolutely. Call me up.

SPEAKER_02 19:31

I'm available. Good. So what else did the outdoor school do?

SPEAKER_00 19:35

I worked with some of the libraries locally, doing like little nature walks, short nature walks with kids, really just introducing them questions to ask yourself as you're going along the hike and setting up different scavenger hunts, especially for younger kids, thinking about shapes and colors and what can we really observe, really trying to get them to think about what they're seeing as they're going along. And and doing a scavenger hunt is a really great way to do that, because then they're really focused on being observant.

SPEAKER_02 20:08

I can imagine that CLC is very interested in those kind of activities. There's more and more kids that I see at the CLC events. But they're also doing things like these phonology walks where you're looking at when does a certain type of tree leaf out, when does a certain wildflower bloom, when do you start to hear spring peepers, etc., and see if that moves over many years as the area warms up a little bit more.

SPEAKER_00 20:33

Exactly. It's a great citizen science inlet, right?

SPEAKER_02 20:36

Great for kids.

SPEAKER_00 20:37

Great for kids.

SPEAKER_02 20:38

Makes them very much more observant, I think, when they walk around in the woods.

SPEAKER_00 20:41

Exactly. And it it puts a different uh scope, right? Because with just a nature walk, you're like very in the moment, but with phonology, you're thinking about the whole seasonal shift, right? And so your timeline is much, much larger. I think it's it's just a different way of thinking about observation.

SPEAKER_02 21:01

Did you teach science at all when you were in the schools? Yes, that was my thing. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 21:06

I was middle school science.

SPEAKER_02 21:07

Middle school science. So I remember middle school science as being seventh grade, maybe earth science. And I never knew what earth science meant because you were sort of exposed to a variety of different sciences. Is that kind of where you are?

SPEAKER_00 21:22

So uh yeah, science based.

SPEAKER_02 21:24

Maybe they don't call it that anymore, but a broad-based science curriculum.

SPEAKER_00 21:27

Yeah. So in seventh grade, our school did earth science, and then I taught eighth and ninth grade, and then I was the department chair. So I was make in charge of making sure all the curriculum.

SPEAKER_02 21:37

You got all the administrative duties.

SPEAKER_00 21:38

Yeah, I got to be a middle manager. That is a tricky job, but one I very much enjoyed. So I taught eighth grade, which was basically like a chemistry physics introduction, the physical sciences. Um, and then ninth grade, our middle school was seventh, eighth, ninth. Ninth grade was biology, but over the course of my tenure there, we actually moved it into more of a sustainability science. And we started using the sustainability guidelines from the UN. I think they had a what was it, a 2030 goals that were set. And so we started using those as like a different lens to think about science and introduce different concepts.

SPEAKER_02 22:18

And you know, my background is as a scientist in the pharmaceutical industry, the world of science is changing a lot recently. Leave it at that. I hope it had doesn't affect the way that we introduce kids to a real sense of wonder about what's going on in the world.

SPEAKER_00 22:33

Yeah, absolutely. I actually was, I think I was reading something and the author was describing how once they were on a walk with someone and the person was always asking like, oh, what's that called? What's that called? And as soon as they named what it was, the sense of wonder kind of got leached away because it was known in a way that was like, oh, that we already know about that. But it made me really think about as I'm introducing my kids to the natural world rather than just answering their question of what is it right away, following up with other questions of like, well, what do you see? What do you hear? What does it look like to you? What's it related to?

SPEAKER_02 23:15

Yeah that's kind of fascinating that I know the feeling you're talking about when you have when you suddenly know the name of something, you look someplace else and figure out what's next instead of looking back at it. But I also have this very strong memory from when I was much younger of getting a field guide to trees in winter. And going out I remember looking across a field and now I could pick out that this was a sycamore and this was a a walnut and this was a maple tree and so forth from across the field by the silhouettes. Very interesting I thought that was the most liberating kind of fantastic feeling now I know more about the world around me. But at the same time I no longer looked in that direction because I already knew what those trees were. Yeah yeah it's yeah it's you know six one way half dozen the other right yeah it cuts both ways exactly exactly so if you go back into teaching in the future will you gravitate in that direction again or what have you your life since since leaving full-time teaching even if it's temporarily life has changed around you and your outlook has changed what do you think you might do in the future with that part of your career?

SPEAKER_00 24:32

I right now do not see myself going back into the classroom. I am having a really great time being sort of a an exterior educator. I will always be an educator. So it's just a matter of how.

SPEAKER_01 24:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:45

So I am really enjoying right now working at Olana because that's allowing me to learn more about sort of the art side of this historic site. It's lots of information that I have not been exposed to before. But then they they do landscape tours and that's where I really get to shine because that part of me doing nature walks and tours in the landscape is very second nature to me.

SPEAKER_02 25:13

So that's a really good what do you think is your specialization when you're out in the woods are you identifying plants or birds or mushrooms or I am not much of an identifier actually.

SPEAKER_00 25:25

When you were saying like I could identify that tree across the field I that is a fantastic skill that I am not inclined for. But for me I think it's getting whoever's on the walk with me to think to be a little more mindful of the way that they're walking through the space and recognizing what's around them. And so it's more of an ecology view right thinking about all the factors that are at play both biological and abiotic. So the way the light is coming through the trees how it's really different right now before leaf out. Right? We're in stick season again. So the light coming through and hitting the trail is really different compared to how it will be this summer. And thinking about the colors and the textures that we get to see like your point about you know being able to identify trees in the wintertime. So you're really thinking about bark texture and color. And it's those types of mindful observations I think that's what I really love to do with people of all ages.

SPEAKER_02 26:33

I used to do a lot of hiking and a lot of walking in the woods and a lot of photography in the woods and then I got out of that for a number of years because the career thing kind of took over and as I came up here and we'll edit out that. I'm so sorry. So a few years ago when I started to hunt because of the deer over predation problem in our I started to pay much more attention to oh what's that without trying to get out of field guide and name things and you just start to think okay I see this deer path here. Why are they going there? And then that gets the mind going. It's a very different feeling from having the answer given to you. Right. Yeah so you know trying to figure things out when you're out there or thinking about relationships between what you see and what might have happened here. Yes, yeah is much more interesting I think than using that field guide kind of technique.

SPEAKER_00 27:28

I love doing that with creeks runoff thinking about erosion and how rocks are exposed or not and the path of the water the freeze and the thaw and how that all impacts the path I think that's really fun to to guess at. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:44

So do you want to work with kids on that kind of stuff or are you agnostic with anybody?

SPEAKER_00 27:48

Oh with anyone absolutely we even going out at Olana a lot of the field trips that we do are for kids but it's really fun to engage the the teachers who are with them and see where they're at as well.

SPEAKER_02 28:02

That sounds like a lot of fun. Yeah. Let's talk a little bit more about this thing in Ancrum because I'm really fascinated by that. That sounds like it's a well you'll have to describe it first before I tell you what it sounds like.

SPEAKER_00 28:15

Fair enough. So the Angram Center for the arts down in Ingram, New York, we have both a theatrical side and then we have our storytelling side and the storytelling side is all focused on personal narrative storytelling. So those stories are all true and the storyteller is at the center of the story. It's based on their experience.

SPEAKER_02 28:37

So is this kind of like the moth or something?

SPEAKER_00 28:40

If you have listened to the moth radio hour yes they are going to be in the same vein.

SPEAKER_02 28:44

But I've noticed that the moth has gone all the direction of just having celebrities on and it's not not so much regular people.

SPEAKER_00 28:51

Yeah we are very regular people we are very local focused our storytellers often have the can have the opportunity if they like to perform on stage live on stage we have two live storytelling performances every year.

SPEAKER_02 29:07

I assume that was the whole thing what's the rest of the program then is it developing the story it's developing the stories.

SPEAKER_00 29:13

We have a level one workshop storytelling workshop and we really we do focus on the oral storytelling. So when people arrive we tell them right off the bat this is all for telling your story on stage. So if you're interested in writing it down or doing other sort of forms like playwriting, that's wonderful. But what we're going to focus on today is thinking about our stories as if they are told on stage. Our level one is all about idea mining, really doing some fun exercises individually and as a group to find stories. And then from there our level two storytelling workshop is for really honing in on a specific story, getting feedback on that story and developing a really robust framework that then the storyteller can work off of in order to have that full story.

SPEAKER_02 30:08

So walk me through what happens if I walk into the level one storytelling workshop and I say I've got this idea to tell a story about I don't know the first time I noticed that trees were different from one another and and everybody goes and you get thumbs down from everyone in the room and am I going to feel bad and go home crying?

SPEAKER_00 30:27

Probably not because that's not at all the framework of our workshops.

SPEAKER_02 30:30

My mind went immediately to to a fear and fight or flight response.

SPEAKER_00 30:35

Well that is something we should touch base on on another podcast episode I think I'm going to get my psychotherapist in here and we'll talk no no the first the level one workshop is really considering all the different stories that you have to tell. I would say that it is about casting a really wide net to recognize all of the lived experience that you have had and be able to think about what story you want to tell. And that's one of the things that a lot of people walk into the storytelling workshop they think, oh, I have to find something that's entertaining. I have to find something that's funny. That's what I should be telling a story about. But really our focus is on telling the story that you want to tell. And sometimes it's the story that you keep telling over and over like at all the cocktail parties, different events that you go to and you keep telling the same funny how my wife has told me that she's heard all of my stories before there's something to that right those are the ones that we hold on to they hold great import to us.

SPEAKER_02 31:37

Good point.

SPEAKER_00 31:37

Yeah. So that's the level one is really about recognizing all of the stories that we hold and allowing them to be really like valued. And that's something we actually do this in schools as well. So we are in Taconic school system as well as WebITuck and we work with grade level students. I didn't know that it's great. We work with grade level students right now it's third, fourth and fifth grade. We again help them to find their story. So there's such value in helping a student recognize that their lived experience is valuable stop like full stop because there's so much noise and chatter on social media. And it's almost feels like you have to be the best all the time and that you have to have like crazy experiences and that those are the stories that matter. But really the story that matters is the one that's most important to you that you want to be able to tell so helping students recognize that their lived experience is inherently valuable that's really really special and that's what keeps me coming back years after year.

SPEAKER_02 32:50

If one of your kids or me has a story that they really want to tell I've I've been telling this at dinner parties for years and nobody seems to get it.

SPEAKER_00 32:59

Yeah good okay well then then comes the level two and we talk a little bit more about it why nobody gets it right because it's a dumb story. A lot of times what we find is that someone has an anecdote and they're telling a story that's just sort of one one moment. But when you're telling a story uh we don't like to say performing the story but rather telling the story live on stage because every telling is different it's not a performance it's not a memorized monologue it's just a telling that one the what where you start with that one anecdote that one event is just one star within a constellation and it's finding the constellation that is the story in itself.

SPEAKER_02 33:46

The constellation is how it how it relates to other than how it relates to other how it becomes universal or something approaching universal.

SPEAKER_00 33:55

And how it create how it you create shape to the story.

SPEAKER_02 33:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 33:59

Yeah so that other people can either see themselves reflected in that story or you create a window into a whole new experience and allow people to see that experience in a way in a new way.

SPEAKER_02 34:13

So how many of the students in these level one and level two classes end up getting on stage?

SPEAKER_00 34:20

We have between three to four storytellers per performance. So we'll have four this coming June and another three or four in November. So it's a small cohort that's been on stage. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 34:34

And then and how many people are in the level two classes where they're working on this?

SPEAKER_00 34:37

Let's see we just held one at the Spark in Hudson over the weekend in level two and we had like seven participants. Oh okay yeah and then the level one workshop we held in January at the Spark we had 14 participants. Usually it's a large number for our level one and then level two is narrows down a little bit more.

SPEAKER_02 34:58

Is it fair to say that the level two people want to get to the point where they're going to go on stage?

SPEAKER_00 35:02

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 35:03

Okay. So they're the ones that they're the ones that think they have some performing in their future.

SPEAKER_00 35:08

Yep either that or they are really interested in in in just developing the story further and they want the insight from that workshop to be able to write the memoir or they're doing a screenplay or something like that. And they just need more feedback from a different angle to help them build it out.

SPEAKER_02 35:28

Okay. How did you learn to do this? How did you learn to teach this? It's not eighth grade science.

SPEAKER_00 35:34

It is not eighth grade science. No. I got involved actually because I attended a level one workshop. Okay. I went when I had Whale of a trail adventures and I heard about the storytelling workshop and I thought that it would make me a better storyteller on the trail to be able to relate the experiences of the natural world to whoever was on the nature walk with me. But when I got there I quickly realized and was told that this was a personal narrative storytelling workshop. And so I think it completely took a completely different track.

SPEAKER_02 36:06

You can think more about the gathering around the campfire later or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 36:11

But uh during that workshop I was able to start putting together a story and then I actually was able to perform on stage. So I have been part of the real people real stories performance not once but twice. In Ancrum? In Ancrum, yes. And so from there, after my first performance I told one of the co-directors Paul Ricchardi said I don't want this to end. And he said I have an idea for that and about a month later we were talking and he let me know that they are artists in residence at these two schools and would I be interested in joining as a teaching artist.

SPEAKER_02 36:50

Oh very cool. And so then I started there and is there like a manual like for instructors in this area like a textbook for a science or an English course?

SPEAKER_00 36:59

No, I don't have not been searching for one style to it those people that are teaching in this yes yes we have our curriculum we have our lesson plans and we work throughout the year on improving them and bringing in new ideas and new new activities. But the framework that we have right now is really solid and so it's something that every teaching artist can fall back on to make sure that we are all on the same track. Right now we teach primarily in the fall with then the opportunity for any of the students to perform live on stage at the Ingram Center at the end, which is just the best to see all of these little kids get up there and they just love a microphone.

SPEAKER_02 37:42

Oh goodness I've done several open mics as a musician and it's the most exciting thing in the world.

SPEAKER_00 37:49

It really is. Getting on stage is like nothing else.

SPEAKER_02 37:52

Yeah what are you going to do with your newfound skill as a performer what's next for you?

SPEAKER_00 37:58

Well I am I am developing another story. Okay. So hopefully I'll be able to get on stage at the Ingram Center or there's a couple of story slams in the area. There's one over in Catskill you could always pitch to the moth as well but I don't know if I've got the star studded name yet to be able to get out you mean unlike the people who live in Catskill.

SPEAKER_02 38:19

Oh yeah well that's that's the that's they've got their own thing going to Catskill people you know they're in a they're in a plane way above us. Hudson and Catskill have always had this sort of arts community that yeah it's one of the things that drew us here when we moved here.

SPEAKER_00 38:34

Really?

SPEAKER_02 38:35

Yeah yeah I've always wanted to be a performing musician myself I probably will never get there at my age but even a little taste is great. And there were so many musicians here when we moved here. Some of that got shut down during COVID some of the venues did and we lost some people we always you know over time you always lose some people. But Catskill's got a pretty vital scene right now I think yeah they're vibrant.

unknown 39:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:02

So what else do I need to know about you that I haven't asked?

SPEAKER_00 39:06

Oh that's a great question that I do not have a good answer for. Off the top of my head at least. Yeah. How about you?

SPEAKER_02 39:15

You know I think we both know each other a little bit but my interests have always been in the land in the biodiversity that we see disappearing as the land use changes and as we we use maybe too many chemicals and we pay too little attention to the way that the weather and climate affect things. So I think that's what Katie and I love about where we live. It's been very important to me to be a part of an area that is not all paved over concrete and asphalt and still has trees and birds and insects and regretfully too many deer.

SPEAKER_00 39:55

Yeah one of the things that I just love about this area is how many they're almost like pocket parks, right? Not not the ones along Warren Street, but the Mud Creek Environmental Center. Yeah right that is just like a cute little mile loop but man the biodiversity and the beavers and the way that it changes season to season the type of organisms that you can see there from one weekend to the next I that is just a place I love to go with the kids. And so few people know about it.

SPEAKER_02 40:29

Yeah it it is amazing. We started going down there to pick up the plants when the soil and water conservation people sell the bare root plants in the spring and we have a another huge order coming in very couple weeks. So looking forward to that. But yeah you're right it's little pockets of land even if they're sometimes privately owned people have been walking on some of these trails and old dirt roads for so many years that people tell stories about Claverick in the 1950s you'd ride your horse all over the place you'd go walking anywhere you wanted to go and the snow was so deep in the winter. It's an area that's very very close to people's hearts I think. And I think that's part of what we're both doing with Climate Smart is we're trying to move the the future of the town in a direction that supports the reasons why we came here.

SPEAKER_00 41:24

Yeah oh that's well said that's well said Jeff yeah we'll see what the future brings I'm glad that you and I are both part of it that our energy and our focus is there.

SPEAKER_02 41:36

Me too thank you Sarah this has been great. It was really a pleasure I'm so glad that you asked me hey I had so much fun talking to Sarah I learned a lot about what she's done but I I have really kind of opened my eyes to the possibilities for bringing us all into a world where we get together and learn from each other. This storytelling thing is something that I don't know maybe I envy that as a performance art. Maybe I feel like I should be doing something like that. I don't know if I have any interesting stories to tell I just get on this microphone and ramble every now and then. But Sarah was wonderful to talk to and as I said we had a lot in common. I also mentioned earlier on that Sarah is the curator or the editor of the Climaxmart Cloverick newsletter which actually has become a tri-city newsletter so what encompasses news and posts from people in the Climaxmart groups in Claverick, in Philmont and in Taconic these are quite active and full newsletters there's a lot going on in each one. And they're published every couple of months so Sarah's been responsible for that I did say I would tell you where to find that the website for Climate Smart Claverick where you can find all of the archived newsletters and sign up to receive the next one is at climatesmartclavick.com. Pretty simple so climate smart cloverick.com sign up for the newsletter find out more about what we are about the Claverick podcast is the only podcast with the name Claverick in the title so if you google Claverick and podcasts you will find us. When you do find us I encourage you to subscribe and we are on all the major platforms if you're familiar with using Apple or Stitcher Spotify as your source for podcasts. Look for us there and I promise you I will try to be a little bit more diligent about getting these things up every couple of weeks. Thanks for listening