Transcription of Ted Carter for the show Earth Day #32
Dr. Lisa: Today on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast we have the good fortune to be speaking with an individual who is very well known in his own right but has been featured several times by Maine Magazine, Maine Home Design and there was an article written about him in April 2011 issue of Maine Home Design. We are happy to have here Ted Carter who is a landscape architect and also author of the book Reunion, how we heal our broken connection to the earth, which was co-authored by Ellen Gunter and for which a fore word was written by a very well known individual whose name is Caroline Neese.
Ted, the studio is just resonating with all the positive energy you brought in.
Ted: Thank you.
Dr. Lisa: It’s really good to have you here.
Ted: Wonderful to be here.
Dr. Lisa: I have Genevieve Morgan sitting next to me.
Genevieve: Hi Ted, happy earth day.
Ted: Thank you very much.
Dr. Lisa: We thought it was appropriate to have you come in and speak about earth day because your book, which I haven’t read the entire thing, I started reading and I realized that this is pretty much the core of what earth day is trying to do, is to bring us back to the earth and understand out connection to the earth and that’s what you do.
Ted: That’s correct.
Dr. Lisa: Tell me about what you professionally do and then we’ll talk about some of the interesting off shoots so to speak.
Ted: What I try to do … in life we have job/career calling. We start off in life with a job so we can pay the rent and take care of the fundamentals of living. Then we move into the career aspect of our lives and then we move into the calling aspect. I’m in my calling years; I’m 55 years old, I’ve been in this business since I was a teenager. It started out very much as a job and making money and it was all about making money. Then it went into the artistic endeavor which was more of a career piece but as I’ve aged and as I’ve matured in my business and in my life’s profession it has gone into the calling sector which is the spiritual aspect of this work.
What I try to do is I try to incorporate the spirit of people’s … people spirit with the spirit of the land and try to get them to see the land as sacred and see the land as part of who they are. We’re chemically made of the earth and we’re part of the earth. We’re not separate. We see ourselves as separate in the head energy. Sixth shakra really separates that and that’s the place of conflict. We live so much in western culture in our heads and we need to get down more into our hearts, more fulltime and use our hand to heart connection in working with the land.
Dr. Lisa: What was your background and how did you get to a place where even when you start with that, got to make a living; how did you get to the place where you’re all tilling the soil and working with the land?
Ted: Well, my mother had an organic garden in the early 70s, very early 70s. Before it was really fashionable, it was kindof a hippie thing to do. She grew sprouts in the basement under lights so I grew up with that kind of understanding. She grew up in the Midwest in Farm Country in the Carl Sandberg area. I just, I don’t know, it was a natural calling. I knew from the time I was eight years old what I wanted to do. My dad used to … he brought two huge loads of sand in the backyard, a pile of bricks and he said, ‘Go play.’ We spent four summers, from eight to twelve while we lived in that house building these amazing villages out of brick and sand.
I use to take twigs off the tree and set them in the sand and create walk ways and driveways and things. That was fun.
Dr. Lisa: That was what you did when you were younger then you went on and you got a more formal education in the type of work that you do?
Ted: Interestingly I’m a guy that has been to the school of hard knocks. I started in solar and plant technology and I quit and I said, ‘I can do this.’ Well, I took a lot of falls along the way, I learned through experience of dealing installations, working with people. I do have a way of working with people that makes them feel comfortable, that makes them feel part of the solution, not standing on the sidelines while I come up with all of the answers. It was very organic, no pun intended, a very organic way to get started in this industry but it was almost like I had done it in a previous life time, I can’t explain it but it was one of those things that you just can’t explain.
Dr. Lisa: You had an intuitive knowledge about what you needed to do to work with the earth and to also work with people who were also helping you steward the earth?
Ted: Yes I did. I was very fortunate. As I have matured through the business I’ve worked with an Indian Shaman in North West for four years and work with Caroline Mace which you may have seen and other people who have informed me about seeing a deeper connection with our planet.
Genevieve: Have you found when you work with your clients that when you understand their relationship and your relationship to them you can create a more inviting space for them that brings them outside? Is that part of what you do?
Ted: Oh, very much so. Sometimes they think it’s just a matter of, I want to put in some plants and make home prettier but it’s very … I take them on a journey. It doesn’t have to be an expensive journey, it can be, sometimes if their mom has died or if their uncle has died that they loved, we create a sacred area for them to honor their lives and to go to reflect and meditate. They can be very simple installations but they’re very powerful.
Genevieve: That’s an interesting part of Shamanism actually, isn’t it? That not only can nature bring something to you but you can go and leave something of yourself in a sacred place.
Ted: That’s precisely the point. When I used to go out on my journey quest with Lynch, we used to go out in the desert and we would always leave … I had a little pouch and I would get something out of my little pouch and I would leave it and I would take a stone back with me but I would always leave something. He taught me how to see. We would pass a road runner, we would pass a hawk and I’d say, ‘Look Lynch, a hawk,’ and he’d say, ‘Ted, we just passed five.’ Or I’d be standing very still, one of the things we had to do, disciplines we had to do was to stand absolutely still and just watch all the wildlife come around us. What would appear was a road runner and after it was all over I said, ‘The road runner was there,’ and he said, ‘Ted, there were three more behind you, or behind the other side. You just weren’t watching.’
Nature appears to us and speaks to us and talks to us in ways that are most extra ordinary. I was in Freeport, Maine and I was giving a dedication. We blessed this house, I brought the sage and I brought the feathers and I saged the area. There was booth in the garden and I said that I liked it. I had the couple join me and I saged and I raised my shell up to invite, I said, ‘I’d like to invite mother nature to join us today.’ It was October and in a moment’s notice, in that instant a thousand birds descended into the trees. It was deafening, it was total silence and then it was just deafening. They joined us and I had, my sermon was only like five minutes long and when I was done I said, ‘I’d like to thank you black birds for joining us today,’ and I raised my feather and my shell up and they left, just like that. Just that very instant and it was quiet again.
They looked at me like, ‘Who are you?’ and I said, ‘Look guys, this wasn’t me. There is no gift here. This is reaching out to nature so nature can talk to us and communicate with us.’ This has happened to me time and time again. I don’t talk about it a lot because some people think you’re crazy but it really is there.
Dr. Lisa: Part of what I know you’re trying to do in your book Reunion is to get people back to this fundamental aspect of life. I’m reading this paragraph about seeds.
Actually it talks about World War two and the beginning of seed savers but I like this idea of seeds because it’s something that continues to exist as life even when life itself is threatened. Seed is a very big deal, it’s very meaning connotes totality. Life producing life in a constant chain; it’s the chicken and the egg separated by a little calendar time.
All living things, from a fungus to a super bowl quarterback begin as some form of seed. It comes to the seed that through the grace of good soil, water and a cooperative climate becomes the food that sustains us. Keeping it whole and safe must be instinctual. Let me do read this once again, and it comes to the seed that through the grace of good soil, water and a cooperative climate becomes the food that sustains us. Keeping it whole and safe must be instinctual at least for the many scientists who spend their lives wondering at its miracles and saving it for future generations.
There is this importance to maintaining that essence even when things are being threatened. Do you believe that we are in a state of threat right now?
Ted: Oh, there is no question. I think that we, this is not a doomsday thing that I’m talking about but we basically have betrayed the earth and betrayed our connection to the earth for the sake of short term gain. Natural forces don’t work like that. Natural forces take time. It’s taken millions upon hundreds of millions of years, billions of years, to make this planet and in a hundred years we’ve destroyed it or we’re working very hard to destroy it. That doesn’t mean that we have to do with nothing or have nothing, but we have to be conscious about the choices we make.
Sustainability issues are huge right now, they’re going to get even bigger for our children. I’m 55, I think I probably will have lived at the time of the most incredible resource depletion rate that has ever existed on this planet. In just my short time born from 1956. By the way, I was born on Earth Day and my book arrived on my doorstep, from when it was published, it took three years to publish my book, it arrived on my doorstep on my birthday; the night before my birthday.
That’s irrelevant but it’s just interesting how the universe continually speaks to us and affirms that hey, you are on the right track. These are not just synchronicities or just … they are synchronicities but they are not happenchance or luck things, they’re communications.
Genevieve: It brings to mind when the tsunami in Southeast Asia occurred and there were warning signs that the local inhabitants and villagers knew because the tide sucked way out an hour before the tsunami occurred. But all the people who were, the tourists and the people who are trying to recreate did not see this incredible change. All of the villagers went, not all but most of them went to the high lands but the rest of the tourist community was left on the beaches because they weren’t paying attention. I know that’s a terrible tragedy but an example of how we can get really cut off from what’s all around us.
Ted: That is such a good … I love that story and it is true of course; thank you for sharing that.
Genevieve: As someone who is connected to earth are you seeing the weathers in nature that show us we’re under this threat?
Ted: Yes. There is three points that I’d like to make about that. One is the crome of mass ejection from the sun, the other is the El Niño effect and the other is carbon. It’s put here by man, this massive carbon inputs. Coal fire power plants go online in China about every two or three weeks; we’ve got a huge amount of carbon released from China and other developing nations.
Genevieve: What’s the El Niño effect?
Ted: They’re natural weather occurrences. I’m going to give you a very unscientific term but it’s the ebb and flow of natural forces in the weather patterns. It sometimes moves its way … southern winds and things move up north and cause distorted climatic conditions and it comes in ebbs and flows. I think it’s about seven or ten year cycles. Just coincidentally we’ve got the sun acting up and the center El Nino at the same time.
Dr. Lisa: These are the signs that we haven’t been doing … at least the man’s part of it is a sign that we haven’t been doing as good of a job as we could be. Are there signs of hope that you’ve discerned? Are there some things that are telling you that maybe we are being a little bit more mindful than we used to be?
Ted: Oh, absolutely. My book is very good about describing all kinds of ways for us to do things on our own and take back this power. What I heard a lot when I was writing the book is people would say, ‘Oh, Ted I’m just one person, what am I supposed to do?’ The power of one is huge; Gandhi was one, Christ was one, Martin Luther King was one.
We all have a responsibility in this role and we feel, the human condition is greatly improved when we actually part of something and help with the solution. That’s part of what makes the human spirit grow and it’s not easy. But life isn’t easy and people who live difficult lives usually are some of the most interesting people you’ll ever meet. Life isn’t about being easy and comfortable.
Dr. Lisa: This is the whole Victor Franco man search for meaning. You live in a concentration camp and you come out the other side and you realize that, ‘Okay conflict can create life and hope.’ Do you have some suggestions for people who are trying to be the one person?
Ted: Yes, I have lots of suggestions but I’ll try to be brief. Water management is very important. One of the things you have to keep in mind with fertilization is that phosphorous is very hard on fresh water sources and nitrogen is very bad for the oceans. We need to really, really be discerning about how and when we fertilize. We can use organic fertilizers, great, but organic fertilizers doesn’t mean it doesn’t pollute; it still has nitrogen and phosphorus. The run off that goes into the natural water sheds is, that’s what we’re struggling with in Maine, that’s why we’re having problems in our ..2.
Dr. Lisa: Is that some of these algae blooms that may be we see?
Ted: Yes, absolutely. It is the phosphorus coming off the roadways, the road systems and everything. Let’s work in communion with nature, in cooperation with her, not against her. We’ve worked against her for so long trying to keep it in the way we think it should look. We’re having to create new ways of engaging. I create beautiful landscapes, people love them. People just love them but they’re landscapes that … it doesn’t mean you can’t have form and beauty and everything like that but you also need to work, it’s and and both world, it’s not an either or world.
Dr. Lisa: Has that ever been a source of conflict for you? The work that you’ve done with Caroline Mace and some of the spiritual work that you’ve … the paths that you’ve followed in the past?
Ted: I think you have to meet everybody at their own level. That’s a matter of discernment, it’s not a matter of judgment. But some people are ready to hear the message, some people are not, some people are half way there. What I try to do is just push them a little further along the path just to say, ‘Get out of your head, move into your heart.’ When I start a lecture I always have people close their eyes and move it from your head and just feel your energy sink down to your heart. Through the heart that’s where the intuitive comes; it’s a female energy. Male is the head, female is the heart and the bridge is the neck. That’s why we have so many neck problems in this country.
Genevieve: Ted, how do people get in touch with you professionally?
Ted: It’s hard to remember all these websites but if you just put Ted Carter Landscaping Maine, I’ll come up. I’m right at the top.
Genevieve: Do you work with acreage of all sizes?
Ted: Oh, yes. I work with all types of land forms and sizes.
Genevieve: So if you have a small little postage stamp plot, still okay?
Ted: Those are my favorite actually. Yes.
Dr. Lisa: Well, I think this is a good place to end, the sense that we all have the power to make changes in our small lives, in our larger lives and starting with ourselves. I know that this is something that you’ve espoused in your own life. Thank you for coming in and talking to us about this today Ted.
Ted: Thank you so much.