Tim Hollo

Ecological democracy in theory and practice  Author of “Living Democracy: an ecological manifesto for the end of the world as we know it”  Writing at https://in-between-days.ghost.io  Former Director of The Green Institute. Founder of Green Music Australia. Violist / singer in FourPlay String Quartet.  He/they. Father of two on stolen Ngunnawal land.  https://linktr.ee/timhollo

My Ghost newsletter: https://in-between-days.ghost.io
Book: unsw.press/livingdemocracy
FourPlay String Quartet: www.fourplay.com.au
Green Music Australia: www.greenmusic.org.au

Last Notes

2026-01-09 06:08:52 GMT

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Some of our new friends made this week
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2026-01-09 06:03:18 GMT

The world is a fiery mess, and my heart breaks constantly
But my partner & I spent much of this week deeply immersed in nature, making friends furry, scaley & leafy, skinny dipping in rivers & bays & ocean, and the grief subsides.
If more of us got our kit off and jumped in the water on the reg, the world would absolutely improve immeasurably
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2024-12-15 10:35:13 GMT

Incredibly well deserved recognition for truly one of the great thinkers of our age.
Butler’s work on nonviolence, interdependence and grievability is incredibly influential for me. Their work on gender tremendously powerful and evolving.
Great interview here
https://english.elpais.com/culture/2024-12-15/judith-butler-philosopher-if-you-sacrifice-a-minority-like-trans-people-you-are-operating-within-a-fascist-logic.html

2024-11-23 10:23:13 GMT

That’s me in the red kayak not far from the back end of the bastard boat
And that’s John Butler revving up a massive crowd to get out on the water tomorrow
#NoMoreCoal
#KeepItInTheGround
#ClimateActionNow
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2024-11-12 07:09:24 GMT

I’m thrilled and daunted to have been asked to open this event in Canberra with the extraordinary Arab/Jewish grassroots peace movement, Standing Together.
It’s recognition of the work the Green Institute is doing on peace and nonviolence. But this stuff is always challenging.
Come along, next Tuesday evening, 19th, at 6pm:
https://events.humanitix.com/standing-together-tour-canberra?link_id=9&can_id=abde73e81b363125ec4c5ba7ffe8915e&source=email-its-the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it-again&email_referrer=email_2522087&email_subject=its-the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it-again

2024-10-17 01:01:17 GMT

"Aboriginal languages have a word for every form of conflict you can imagine, but no word for invade, conquer or subjugate."
When we first started planning #TheMissingPeace, one of the people I knew I had to talk to early on was the brilliant Kombu-merri and Wakka Wakka philosopher and Adjunct Professor of Political Science, Dr Mary Graham.
Mary's gently-spoken genius never ceases to expand my mind, and people still talk with awe about her session at the Green Institute's 2017 conference, Everything Is Connected. And the conversation I had with her some months ago, including the comment above, didn't disappoint.
She cautioned me that, unlike the Western binary view of violence/nonviolence, Aboriginal law and lore acknowledge the reality of violence in our world and seek ways to manage it. This is, I believe, very much in line with the deep philosophy of #nonviolence, and a challenge to how our violent systems of power seek to misrepresent it as somehow a naive belief that we can end all violence.
I love how Mary teases out the difference between violence and conflict. "We have to allow for conflict," she told me. "But you can only allow for it if you're not going around attacking each other."
The genius of Aboriginal relational culture, as Mary articulates it, is that it institutionalises conflict in order to avoid violence.
The insanity of Western modernity is that it institutionalises violence (the state and its monopoly on violence, war and policing, the military industrial complex, adversarialism in law and politics) in a way which makes us truly terrible at managing conflict.
Nowhere is a clearer example of this than the State of Israel. As a Jewish Green desperately seeking peace, I've struggled with how to talk about the horrors of the last year, seeking a path through hate and rightful righteous anger towards peace-making. But this is so easy for me to say: Israel is a state that, born out of extreme trauma, institutionalised violence from its earliest days. And that makes its political culture incredibly bad at managing conflict. It is a hammer which can only see nails. It's the obsession with violence, as perpetrated against us Jews for millennia, and the belief that only violent strength can create safety for us, which has led the oppressed to so swiftly become the oppressor.
This is also why I've been particularly worried about the language bandied around over the last year about decolonising being inherently violent. The ends are determined by the means. What you practice is what you get good at. A violent path leads to a violent future.
Our next Missing #Peace conversation is so incredibly important, and so timely.
Please join me, in three weeks, on November 6 at 8pm AEDT, to talk about Decolonising and Nonviolence: relationality, entanglement and complexity, with Dr Mary Graham, Professor Yin Paradies, and Nidala Barker.
This is an event not to be missed. #decolonisation #democracy
Register here:
https://www.greeninstitute.org.au/events/decolonising-and-nonviolence/

2024-08-02 10:37:15 GMT

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A selection of my favourite #SnowGums from today. Magnificent Eucalyptus Pauciflora. Along the cross-country trail between Perisher and Charlotte Pass
#snow #trees #eucalyptus #ecology
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2024-08-02 10:17:55 GMT

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Here are the black cockies themselves for a bit longer #wildlife #snow #cockatoos
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2024-08-02 10:12:17 GMT

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Amazingly, at the same moment we saw the #wombat, I heard the distinctive cry of the yellow tailed black #cockatoo! Turned around and a flock of about 15 flew overhead!
#australia #wildlife #snow
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2024-08-02 10:08:39 GMT

A lot of people don’t realise Australia has snow mountains, and hence are also unaware that #wombats can happily live in the snow. Came across this big healthy friend today on a gorgeous cross-country ski between Charlotte Pass and Perisher
#wombat #wildlife #snow
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