Telluride Institute: “There’s No Place Like Home,” 40th Anniversary Party, 7/28!

28 Jul Telluride Institute: “There’s No Place Like Home,” 40th Anniversary Party, 7/28!

The Telluride Institute is throwing a party to celebrate its 40th Anniversary! The sparkling “Ruby” event takes place Sunday, July 28, starting at 5:30 p.m., at the historic Sheridan Opera House.

A link to purchase tickets can be found at www.givebutter.com/TI40th.

Go here for more about Talking Gourds.

Janus, the Roman God of beginnings, endings and transitions, will be one of the metaphysical hosts attending the Telluride Institute’s Ruby Anniversary Party. Janus has two faces, one looking forward, and one looking back. With great food, music, stories and images, the glittering event will celebrate 40 years of the Institute’s resourceful and creative work in helping to shape the new Telluride and will look forward to the large challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.

According to Institute Co-founder and Board member John Lifton, the Telluride Institute is a think-and-do tank which, since 1984, has taken on the task of cherishing and defending people, place and planet from its base in Telluride. Rather than having a single mission as is characteristic of most non-profit organizations, the Institute set a goal for itself to identify challenges to the local community and to respond to them with a creative process designed to identify a range of solutions, then often going on to test those solutions in local, real-life situations.

Some of these areas of focus have included community housing; the health of our rivers; and the opportunities for sustainable agriculture. Additionally, one of the Institute’s major continuing areas of research and action has been Watershed Education. That program works with all the Watershed schools to give the students a place-based, scientific understanding of the spaces and systems of our beautiful home.

The Institute has also worked on supporting sustainable culture, including programs collaborating with our Indigenous neighbors; the famous Mushroom Festival; programs involving regional poets; and the John Clute Science Fiction Library. Those and many other programs have helped to shape modern Telluride.

“Ever since I came to Telluride in the early ’80s, the Telluride Institute has been an inspiration for environmental and cultural projects in the region. Without this essential community non-profit, both the Telluride Mushroom Festival and our expansive Talking Gourds poetry program would not have continued as the successful projects they are today,” Art Goodtimes, TI trustee and program director.

“What will be the challenges of the future?” continues John Lifton-Zoline. “We know that some of them will relate to the climate crisis and also to the gentrification crisis. Can we find ways not to burn up ourselves and our forests? Can we find ways to support an authentic and compassionate and capable community? Can we find ways to support the beauty and not love ourselves to death?”

The Telluride Institute will be working on those and other issues as they emerge.

The Institute’s anniversary bash features local luminary Laura Shaunette, who will be spinning sounds from 7:00pm-10:00pm. Snacks, wine, a cash bar, dancing, an auction with exciting options including foreign travel, access to local secrets and insider experiences round out the evening.

The Institute is honored to begin the evening (5 – 7 p.m.) with a keynote talk from Jim Enote, Chair of the Board of the Grand Canyon Trust, and CEO of the Colorado Plateau Foundation. Jim is a Zuni tribal member who has spent more than 40 years working to protect and steward cultural and natural resources.

“What’s happening in our hood?” asks Pamela Lifton-Zoline, co-founder of the Telluride Institute. “The discussion with Jim Enote is an important opportunity to hear from a scholar and artist neighbor with whom we share a large neighborhood and thus many of the same concerns. Decisions which will shape the future of our homelands will be made by all of our communities across this beautiful and sparsely populated region. In a sense, this unites us as one larger community with connected fates. With all the forces of progress and destruction at play across our slice of the West, it is more important than ever that we talk with each other.”

Asked where he finds his inspiration for land and conservation work, Enote responded as follows:

“I am Zuni. I was born in Zuni, and I still live in Zuni. When I was young, my family rasied sheep, and we grew alfalfa and a whole variety of crops. So I am a practitioner of a culture of land use. When it comes to a livelihood that’s based on working the land, to me, conservation is about being conservative with a finite resource. In some situations, I think distinctive places need to be safeguarded because they are crucibles of nature and hope, and they are places of solace and healing. These special places along with water, lands, and the air we breathe, are part of making life worth living. I am a farmer first, and every time I put a shovel into the ground, every time I take water from the irrigation ditch, I remember that I have a contract with the land to take care of it so it will take care of my family and me.”

Enote’s discussion underlines the daily efforts of the Institute, offering an holistic understanding of the organization’s commitment to meaningful, environmental change.

Jim Enote’s talk leads into a discussion by Richard Lowenberg on “The Nature of Information: Exploring the Difference that Makes a Difference.” A better understanding of the nature of information and communications is fundamental to our future.

Save the date for a great party celebrating the victories of the Telluride’s Institute’s first 40 years as we ask ourselves what the next 40 will bring.

The 40th Anniversary, known as the Ruby Anniversary, should leave us all clicking our ruby slippers while agreeing there’s no place like home, an excellent banner to wave over the many and varied projects of Telluride Institute.

Telluride Institute, more:

The Telluride Institute is an innovative non-profit organization whose mission to deliver environmental and cultural programs that instill a passion for science, nature, the arts, and community.

The Institute is committed to advancing innovative and practical solutions that support the well-being of “People, Place, and Planet.”