Genius Teatime with Julia Cordero-Lamb

What is and what will be-- what the plants teach us about adapting to climate disruption

It was a delight to listen to the wisdom of Julia Cordero-Lamb last year.

This premiere of Genius Teatime, a community lecture series and experiment in conviviality, came forth because of a couple of social media posts shared by Pamela Samuelson of

Love Notes

and me. Back in 2022 a friend of hers asked folks what they could talk about for 40 minutes with no notes and no prep. She and I both shared the post and were flooded with amazing answers from our friends and acquaintances. When it came time for the memory to come around again, we both re-shared the post and again got a fabulous array of topics. I said I wanted this to be a lecture series, she agreed, and Genius Teatime began. We decided to ask for suggested donations, with no one turned away for lack of funds, and any proceeds would be divided between our speakers, their charity or mutual aid organization of choice, and to the Opulent Mobility accessibility fund (to add ASL interpretation to upcoming programming).

Julia’s charity was the Wishtoyo Chumach Foundation. Wishtoyo is a native-led organization founded in 1997 whose mission is to protect and preserve the culture, history, and lifeways of Chumash and Indigenous peoples, and the environment everyone depends on.

Julia Cordero-Lamb is a grassroots herbalist and teacher of traditional regenerative horticulture in her family’s homeland, the unceded tribal territory of the central coastal Chumash. She is an enrolled member of the Coastal Band of the Chumash Nation, and founded the Syuxtun Plant Mentorship Collective in 2016. Julia also co-founded the Chumash Maritime Association in 1996, which brought traditional Chumash plank canoes back into the Chumash family circle. She did her MA/PhD work at UCSB, but opted out of an academic career in order to practice traditional regenerative horticulture at the grassroots, community level, and to raise her children on her farm in Washington state. She writes, makes things, grows and preserves food, and farms 8 acres in the cedar forests in the Salish Sea area with her spouse, two children, two housemates, their two children, and many special plants and animals.

Thanks so much to Julia and everyone who joined us! This talk transcript is edited for clarity, and any errors in translation are mine.