Harvesting Hope - Center for Rural Behavioral Health Annual Lectureship
Thursday, April 25, 2024
1:00 PM - 3:00 PM
Centennial Student Union - Ballroom
- Keynote Address: Indigenous Worldview and Deep Nestedness: Practices for Wellness Presented by: Dr. Darcia Narvaez and Dr. Wahinkpe Topa (Four Arrows)
- This event is FREE and open to all to attend.
- For questions, email ruralhealth@mnsu.edu
Indigenous Worldview and Deep Nestedness: Practices for Wellness
Drs. Wahinkpe Topa (Four Arrows) and Darcia Narvaez
Wellness-promoting societies have existed for millennia. Wellness was humanity's default way of organizing communities and was essential to our ancestors' survival. Wellness-informed communities focus on meeting the basic needs of their members. Humanity's evolved nest is a system of care, provisioned by the community, that aligns with the basic needs and maturational schedule of the developing child. For all our deep ancestors and traditional Indigenous Peoples, nested wellness entailed respect for ancestors and future generations, deep connection to Earth and cosmos. Nested wellness was based in the Indigenous worldview, Indigenous-based spirituality and trance-based learning. The speakers will discuss these topics and offer tools for transformative practice.
Wahinkpe Topa (Four Arrows), aka Don Trent Jacobs, of Irish and Cherokee ancestry, is a "made-relative" of the Lakota and a member of the Medicine Horse tiospaye.
He has doctorates in Health Psychology and in Curriculum and Instruction, the latter with a Cognate in Indigenous Worldview. Currently a professor in Fielding Graduate University's Educational Leadership for Change program, he was previously Director of Education at Oglala Lakota College and a tenured Associate Professor at NAU. While living on the Pine Ridge reservation, he completed his Sun Dance vows with Rick Two Dogs.
Four Arrows is the author of 24 books and numerous other publications that focus on critical education, wellness, and the vital importance of Indigenous worldview and Indigenous place-based knowledge. His work has been endorsed by such notables as Vine Deloria, Jr., Daniel Wildcat, Rebecca Adamson, Vandana Shiva, John Pilger, Noam Chomsky, Henry Giroux, Sam Keen, Thom Hartman, Margaret Wheatly, Greg Cajete, etc. Recipient of a Martin Springer Institute Moral Courage Award and other recognitions for his work from Indigenous organizations in Canada, he spends summers on Vancouver Island and winters in Jalisco Mexico. His hobbies include paddle board surfing, handball and music. He was first alternate for the U.S. Equestrian Olympic Endurance Event that premiered for the first and last time in 1996. He also won first place in the University of Mississippi's World Champion Old Time Piano duet competition. His website, maintained by his artist and photographer wife, Beatrice Angela, is fourarrowsbooks.com.
Darcia Narvaez is Professor Emerita of Psychology at the University of Notre Dame, and Fellow of the American Psychological Association, American Educational Research Association, Association for Psychological Science, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Born in Minnesota (USA), she grew up living around the world as a bilingual/bicultural Puerto Rican-German American but calls Earth her home. Her earlier careers include professional musician, business owner, classroom music teacher, classroom Spanish teacher, and seminarian, among other endeavors. She uses an interdisciplinary approach to studying evolved morality, child development and human flourishing. Her most recent books include Restoring the Kinship Worldview, and The Evolved Nest: Nature's Way of Raising Children and Creating Connected Communities. A recent book, Neurobiology and the Development of Human Morality: Evolution, Culture and Wisdom won the 2015 William James Book Award from the American Psychological Association and the 2017 Expanded Reason Award. Her recent short films are Breaking the Cycle, The Evolved Nest, and Reimagining Humanity. She hosts the webpage EvolvedNest.org and serves as president of KindredWorld.org.
