Meghan Rigali
Q: Where are your roots deepest? What is your story? How did you get involved with your work?
A: My roots are deepest in Vermont. Coming here, I have said yes to a different paradigm of opportunity which represents my values. One of those things for me is connecting to the natural world. There’s wild, beautiful land in Vermont, and my ability to access it is immediate. That is paramount to me, and as a result, the communities here are informed by the strong presence of the natural world. People can’t help but to form a relationship with it and have a sense of reverence and respect for it. The deeply rootedness, for me, is here.
I grew up in Connecticut, between New Haven and Hartford, in an industrial farm town. I grew up playing in the woods for long periods of time and getting called home by a big cowbell from my single mom. We always planted a garden and had a significant cooking culture in our family. We had a strong sense of family within ourselves and with our adopted kin, neighbors in the community. There were always orchards, berry patches, cow farms, forests around me that I could walk or ride my bike to that gave me a sense of adventure, connected me to the natural world and the cycle of life. My mother, who traversed many worlds from education to international business, would say to us, “education is your freedom.”
Learning to trust myself has been an important part of my journey. I have noticed that when I encourage other people to develop the awareness, skills, and tenacity to stick with themselves and learn how to trust themselves, that foundation is not just healing, but it also serves them no matter what they do. Ultimately, that’s what I want to feed my students. Maybe they’ll make some great art; maybe they will learn emergency-medicine response, but that primary self-trust and emotional safety is so important. I explored these ideas when I attended the San Francisco Art Institute and in wilderness-therapy guiding—fostering self-trust, independence, and emotional safety. How do you form relationships with people where you really meet each other, and you’re willing to stick through challenging and joyful times?
My BFA is in interdisciplinary studies, so it’s been really satisfying to see this wave of interdisciplinary language, thinking, creating that highlights the richness of intersectionality. For me, it started with dance, visual art, and poetry. I think it’s a great skill, especially for passing things on to kids. It’s about integrating who we are as human beings into all these spheres of life, with genuineness and self-confidence. This kid earned it. They experienced it over and over again, and they can witness their own autonomy and empowerment. They are part of a community that witnesses them over and over again. I think those are the things that I carry with me—this world makes sense to me through engaging wholeness. mine and others.
I became more deeply involved with the Willowell Foundation, participating in a Castleton University course that brought a group of artist-educators to Ethiopia where I taught yoga and painted a mural at a community youth center with an Ethiopian graffiti artist-educator, among many adventures. When Behulum Mengistu visited the USA afterwards, I invited him to the public middle high school where I taught art, metals, and outdoor education. In a week of diverse programming, we presented our work in Ethiopia in a school-wide assembly, created original art and activism T-shirt screenprint designs in one of my classes, which were then featured in a school-wide event, where students screenprinted their designs onto clothing of community members, while speaking on behalf of their art and activism content. Meanwhile, Behulum Mengistu and I collaborated on the Mobile Mural Project, which traveled in the exhibition From Vermont to Ethiopia and Back Again and now lives in the Gordon Sculpture Park today. I remember working with Matt Schlein and his Walden Project students on the mural installation, finding cedar poles, digging holes, and mixing concrete in this fun land project.
Q: What draws you to keep engaging with New Perennials?
A: I am drawn to being in community and knowing the great work that’s happening among us. It’s about meeting human beings who are interpreting what they can create and contribute, to how they can offer their gifts. I appreciate the natural cross-pollination that happens through building relationships, collaborating, and having conversations. There’s a certain kind of effervescence surrounding the exchange that occurs within the partnerships of the community such as Judy Dow of Gedakina, Lindsay Pontias of Courageous Stage, Donna Bailey of Addison County Parent Child Center, Mark Orten of the Scott Center at Middlebury College, Sister Gail Worcelo cofounder of Sisters of the Earth with Thomas Berry, the New Perennials team at Middlebury College, including Bill Vitek, Nadine Barnicle, and Marc Lapin. This human community and their work are joined by many more, have a circle drawn around them defined by the New Perennials Project container. The “boots on the ground” approach builds a bridge between Middlebury College and the local community. It’s a great example of how complementary and profound the exchange can be, while opening new pathways of mutual support, encouragement, and collaboration.
I feel inspired when I meet participating college students who are deeply engaged with contemplating these subjects we community partners are devoted to, preparing to be the next generation of leadership. I feel encouraged and reassured as an individual who is halfway through my life, surrounded by the generations up and down river. I’m thinking about preparing the next generation of leaders and helping them have what they need to feel supported and co-creating a vision we can imagine into. We all need to be creative, resourceful, resilient, and take care of each other. This is a group of people who are willing and have everything they need to create solutions from the inside without waiting for the culture or major institutions to give permission.
Q: How do you see perenniality in your organization?
A: Our relationship to perenniality is our practice, our work connecting with the natural world, each other, ourselves. We have educational programming for youth, from the forest preschool all the way up through high school now. The perenniality is expressed in place-based education throughout all the seasons. It’s expressed through watching young people grow up and being an educator with them on the land as they mature through the cycles of their own lives. There’s perenniality in feeding the dynamic body of curriculum, the richness is unique and becomes more interconnected the more it is cycled through.
Community connects us with families found in meaningful conversations with parents during daily transitions of the New Roots Project, events at the land from community garden days to the Perennial Harvest Festival. It’s an opportunity for families to come together and have a wholesome experience in the outdoors that is meaningful and beautiful. It doesn’t only affect the kids, it also affects the wellness of their whole families. We have AmeriCorps and alums who become teaching staff and contribute directly to the programs. All beings have lineages, whether a special bond is formed between human and tree or the return of milkweed that sustains the next generation of monarch butterflies, or wild medicine plants return or are cultivated; these then are harvested with young ones and transformed into magic teas, salve for winter skin, original works of art or poetry—having that circle in the community builds a special presence of vitality and meaning in our culture.
Meghan Rigali is a graduate of the San Francisco Art Institute with a BA in fine arts in interdisciplinary studies. She holds a teaching certificate from Upper Valley Educators Institute; is licensed as an art educator K–12 in Vermont and as a Wilderness EMT from SOLO. She is pursuing an MA in Depth Psychology and Creativity from Pacifica Graduate Institute. Meghan danced in studios from San Francisco to New York, including Dartmouth College, where she performed in Cistern: An Uncommon Ritual (2007). Her work as a wilderness-therapy guide with at-risk adolescents in Vermont transformed Meghan’s relationship to the natural world. She completed national service in the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board AmeriCorps, repairing and weatherizing homes of low-income residents with teams of volunteers in 2013.
As an interdisciplinary artist-educator, Meghan’s work is informed by practices in Tibetan Buddhism, eco-psychology, and contemporary wilderness rites, in addition to her practice as a certified yoga teacher. Her artwork has been exhibited in the United States and Ethiopia. She is cofounder and director of Willowell’s New Roots Project and Gordon Sculpture Park. She also serves as summer camp instructor, and offers original curriculum in interdisciplinary arts, outdoor survival and medicine for youth, wildcraft, mind-body cultivation, herbalism, and holding council around the fire.