Introducing the 2022 TEDxBigSky speaker lineup
Mira Brody EBS staff
BIG SKY – Whether you’re saving the entire ecosystem starting from one species or facing trauma for personal growth, this issue’s featured TEDxBigSky elastic speaker is more for inspiration. Provides fuel. Meet Jan Winburn, a journalist and teacher who has been behind her for 40 years. Through her traumatic past, Brianna Lin explores six “micro-stories” in the form of spoken language, slam poetry, and deep breathing. Conservation activist Tom Spruance discusses the power of spillover.
Be sure to buy a ticket for this inspiring 2-night speaker series available at tedxbigsky.com.
Jan Winburn
In September of this year, Amtrak trains derailed along the Montana High Line, killing three people and injuring dozens. Jan Winburn, a 40-year journalist, had the opportunity to work with one of her students when he reported on a tragic incident while teaching a journalist class at the University of Montana. Through her student work, she was able to see the concept of journalism she teaches unfold, and she will cover it in her next TEDxBigSky talk this January.
“Coverage that occurs immediately after the event will notify you,” Winburn said. “When a person gains experience and has time to understand it, the press that comes much later … then what can we get?”
Her UM course, entitled “The Worst Day Ever: Writing About Trauma,” delves into the iterations of these subsequent reports, which she calls Act II journalism, exploring coverage of trauma and loss. .. She explains that trauma is something that most of us aren’t particularly protected from getting out of this pandemic.
“There is a reaction to trauma, but it’s all the first kind,” Winburn said. “It’s only over time that we can better understand things, and I think that’s true of everything … like what we’ve experienced in this pandemic.”
Winburn believes that if journalism is done well, there are many benefits to actually incorporating it rather than avoiding traumatic news. As with this year’s theme, she believes resilience works there.
“I think it’s about growing up from experience,” she says.
Brianaline
Briana Lynn considers resilience to be a deliberate choice. After a one-month program to become a minister, a pastor who practices nature-based spirituality tells the story of TEDxBigSky, focusing on six “micro-stories” from her own life experience. She says it will be a mixture of spoken language, slam poetry, deep breathing, and fun.
“We must take the energy of all traumatic events on Earth as an expression of someone’s unresolved trauma,” Lynn said.
Her own trauma is openly discussed, eating disorders, self-euphoric and abusive relationships, and discovering shamanism. Her recovery from these experiences is deeply rooted in her current lifestyle, which emphasizes community support. Lynn lives in a community of eight other people who share 1.5 acres of land in Los Angeles.
“This American dream we sold doesn’t work for everyone, so what is really wealth and what is really value?” Lin said. “For me, that’s what I’m doing is in a thriving community that contributes to the greatness and beauty of others, and to my greatness and beauty.”
Lynn calls the Mother Tree an experiment and quickly explains that their situation continues to evolve to meet the needs and lessons of the community. But what she sticks to is the power of this year’s theme.
“Resilience is not a coincidence,” Lin said. “Not living as a victim is a very deliberate choice.”
Tom Spruance
Tom Spruance, an avid fly-fishing fisherman and chairman of the Spruance Foundation, relies on what is called the spillover to save the ecosystem around the Big Sky and other booming mountain towns. I believe there is. As a supporter of the Gallatin River Task Force, Jack Creek Preserve, and Yellowstone Forever, his fear was that the developers would have the upper hand and take away the beauty of nature. This is the attribute that brought many people here in the first place.
Spruance’s talk follows the ideas outlined by American journalist and founder of Mountain Journal Todd Wilkinson’s latest book (published April 2022), Ripple Effect. The idea behind the spillover is that by coordinating efforts towards success and rejuvenation of a single species, the natural balance of the entire ecosystem can be restored.
“Let’s say you don’t like fish, but let’s say you like eagles, ospreys, and otters,” Sprance said. “The interesting thing about the resurrection of cutthroat trout is that thanks to the efforts to remove lake trout, they regain the natural balance they are accustomed to.”
This is not an attack on local developers, but a compromise that allows them to grow while preserving the natural habitat of local animals. Now he believes we are heading in the wrong direction.
He encourages the inhabitants of the Big Sky to hunt down rather than give up and help determine the future of our ecosystem, the definition of his resilience.
“The reason we all came to Big Sky was because of the natural beauty of the place, but there are still economic benefits of growth and development,” Sprance said. “There are challenges faced by families and business owners. They benefit from growth and development, but that growth and development is still making an impact.”
“I just want people not to give up hope,” he adds.
This is Part 3 of the four-part speaker introduction series. Please read Part 1 and Part 2.
