Join Mesa alum Liese Greensfelder and Tom Killion at the Dance Palace in Point Reyes Station as they discuss her memoir, Accidental Shepherd: How a California Girl Rescued an Ancient Mountain Farm in Norway.
When: April 12, 2-3:30
Where: The Dance Palace (503 B Street, Point Reyes Station)
This event is free and open to the public.
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In May 1972, Liese Greensfelder arrived in the small Norwegian town of Øystese to startling news: Johannes, the farmer who hired her for the summer, had just been hospitalized after a stroke. Could she please watch over his place for a month or so, until he got back on his feet? Twenty years old and with no farming experience, Liese was dropped off the next day at a centuries-old mountain farm at the end of a dirt road high above the magnificent Hardanger Fjord—with 115 sheep, two cows, one calf, a draft horse, and a Norwegian herding dog to care for.
From moments of levity, such as sampling a neighbor’s fruit wines, Christmas parties, and skiing; to soul-battering challenges, including the directive to kill a fox, sending sheep to slaughter, rotten silage, and vicious weather; to the yearnings of a young woman awash in a sea of masculinity, Accidental Shepherd is a candid account of Liese’s year in a remote farmhouse. Confronted with dangers and obstacles for which she was utterly unprepared, she tells a story of remarkable resilience and records the fascinating but rapidly vanishing traditions of the community that took her in.
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3 days ago
Our residency season has begun! Many thanks to our first residents of the year: Samer Araabi, Anna Rossi, Sarah Wright and Jodi Halpern. As we experience difficult and uncertain times across the globe, these four residents shared poetic and nuanced words to help us navigate new regimes of power.
Samer is a member of the Arab Resource and Organizing Center and the Research Director for Accountability Counsel, a human and environmental rights organization. He has worked for the Arab American Institute and the Syrian Assistance Coordination Unit. Samer does research on the political economy of ceasefires. At Mesa, he worked on a strategy document that outlines the main priorities for the Palestine movement to be utilized by a wide variety of organizers.
Anna, an Episcopal priest, liturgist, and interfaith advocate, is the Canon Precentor and Director of Interfaith Engagement at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. She has written liturgical texts, prayers, and hymn texts that reflect justice and love of God. At Mesa, Anna wrote new hymn texts to address areas of social justice and dignity of indigenous, Black, immigrant, trans, female, and other minoritized populations. Anna is the Toby Symington Sacred Advocacy Fellow.
Sarah is a journalist and editor who focuses on hyperlocal solutions to global problems. She is the editor of the Palo Alto Weekly, and was a Fulbright Fellow in Argentina. She was previously staff writer for The San Francisco Standard and the Half Moon Bay Review. At Mesa, she worked on an investigative piece about Argentina’s struggles with the climate crisis, centering those working toward solutions to protect and adapt their communities to a new fire-prone reality.
Jodi is a MD/PhD, Professor of Bioethics at UC Berkeley, and leader on empathy and the ethics of technology including AI and neurotechnology. Her book, From Detached Concern to Empathy: Humanizing Medical Practice, catalyzed a wave of change in medicine. At Mesa, Jodi worked on the final chapter of her book, Remaking the Self in the Wake of Illness, which links illness and disability activism with social movements that have sprung from empathic recognition of collective grief.
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