Remembering Our Living Relationship With Plants

The Plant Initiative
Toward a New Way of Being With Plants
3-Day Conference

Keynote speaker: Suzanne Simard, author of Finding the Mother Tree

Event partners: U of M, Center for Biological Diversity, CIIS, and more

Toward a New Way of Being With Plants explores human/plant connections ethics and opportunities for developing more respectful and reciprocal relationships between humans and plants.

Co-presenting with my brother Dr. David Koapcz, MD, our talk Remembering Our Living Relationship With Plants was part of a 3-day conference featuring 30 international speakers.

With permission from artist and author Joseph Rael (Beautiful Painted Arrow), our talk highlighted an initiation ceremony filmed and edited by Karen in collaboration with Joseph and David. Joseph Rael was born in 1935 on the Southern Ute reservation to a chief’s granddaughter and a Tiwa-speaking Picuris native. He has authored 15 books, five of which were co-authored with David. The video coincided with the release of their book, "Becoming Medicine.” Karen shared stories about working with Joseph and the importance of shifting language and ideas in order to promote consciously connecting to the living world.