Community as Guru
Whatever it is that you’re drawn to do in the Great Turning
[a shift from an industrial to a sustainable society],
don’t even think of doing it alone.188
~joanna macy
Intimate human support networks are crucial for climate resiliency and will become increasingly valuable as the crisis worsens and we become less secure and more reliant on one another. Being part of a caring community also keeps our hearts open and the love flowing, as we manage the best we can through this predicament.
“Being socially connected is our brain’s lifelong passion,” 189 says Matthew Lieberman, professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral science at UCLA’s Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior. Interpersonal connection has been “baked into our operating system for tens of millions of years,” he says, and this need is as basic as our need for food, water, and shelter.190
In other words, we are hardwired to be together and to depend on one another across all aspects of our lives. Even today, we depend entirely on one another; it’s just less obvious so it seems like we don’t. Smaller tribal networks of the past had more direct mutual accountability because disappearing from view (as we do nowadays) was not an option. Saying to another, “I owe you nothing” was unthinkable. Everyone performed a discrete vital function, and the breakdown of any single function caused immediate consequences felt by all. Each individual was essential to the whole, held in a net of belonging with friends, extended family, and the more-than-human natural world.
Extreme individualism is a modern disease that goes against being richly human. We still live in connected networks, but technology and our massive population have made it possible, and in many ways forced us, to live with less immediacy and accountability. Because economic channels are so diverse and divorced from our actual survival needs, we often don’t even know whom we depend upon. This primal disconnection has allowed us to believe we owe each other nothing. It’s part of our throwaway culture. If we can’t honor all life, at the very least we could treat friends and those close to us as non-disposable, even when they have nothing to offer us.
Yet we carry cellular memory of our history, and this might be one reason why, for example, we revel in handmade crafts and antiques, especially those made from natural materials. These evoke our roots in the natural world, the luxury of time to craft things we need, and the intimacy of sharing them in person with neighbors.
Today I don’t know the people who made my furniture, shoes, or shovel, or the canned soup I grab off the market shelf, much less who grew the vegetables in that soup. Our capitalistic system allows us to reap the fruits of everyone’s labor impersonally, using currency instead of our relating directly with the producers of goods. Less in-person contact among members of our greater community means fewer of the social interactions we require for wellness, thriving, and—if we believe Lieberman—our very survival. This weak link in our resiliency adds to our isolation. We can consciously mend it by building closer ties with others and expanding our day-to-day interactions with a wider circle in our local communities. Shopping—or just socializing—at local farmers markets and craft shows are good places to start.
Don’t Be a Rock
Rugged individualism and the belief we don’t need others is disempowerment in disguise. Ironically, we flaunt it as empowerment with an underlying belief that the more independent and entitled I am, the more people I don’t have to care about, and the more important I feel. But this thinking is often just a defense against underlying insecurity. We can’t deny the inalienable truth of our interdependence, nor the implicit vulnerability embedded within it. Autonomy is essential for togetherness, yet too much independence can leave us helpless when we truly need help. Beyond just succor, our mental health and longevity require the support of close social ties.
We need a balance of togetherness and aloneness. While boundaries are crucial for healthy living, they can also become separatist ego games. Equally, desperately clinging to each other for fear of being alone must be reconciled with self-reliance. Balance is required. Sometimes we isolate to heal, especially from love’s wounds, and this is natural and normal. Yet fear can cause us to resist interpersonal connection and prevent us from accepting support when we most need it. Simon and Garfunkel’s sang “I Am a Rock” to remind us that we cause ourselves more suffering when we isolate from love’s inevitable pain. After a certain point, we suffer more persisting in our cocoon when we are indeed ready to become butterflies.
Because relying on one another is deeply ingrained in our DNA, it’s natural, if not healthy, to become upset when people let us down. Grief and skillful expressions of anger help us get through such disappointments. Of course, nowadays we have the luxury to disconnect from those who disappoint us. Yet, it’s easy to overexercise this privilege and never engage in deep problem-solving with others. This strategy backfires when we don’t have the luxury to discard others. Building the muscle to work through difficulty is infinitely more valuable than easy, heartless ghosting. And it will prove to be indispensable through worsening climate chaos. Just ahead in the section pertaining to Extinction Rebellion, for example, I discuss persevering through challenges with others to achieve a larger goals.
Maintaining intimate connection with those who do show up for us, yet occasionally fail us, is more meaningful than no connection. We can abide Alfred Tennyson’s poetic wisdom that it’s better to love and lose than not to love at all. Inner work, our first triangle of resilience relationship, is key to help us love and keep on loving in an imperfect world.
Cyber … Reality?
At no other time in history have we been able to be in touch with so many people we don’t know. Our ability to communicate and interact with complete strangers on Facebook and other social media platforms has obvious benefits. But there are downfalls to investing time and energy in relationships that don’t manifest in person. Virtual friends in distant places can provide only so much, especially when we really need help and support. A virtual hug will never feel the same as a real one; a laughter emoji cannot invigorate us as a real laugh does.
Cyber reality not only fails to fulfill many of us as much as real life does, it can also diminish the quality of our in-person relationships, according to Drs. Jim Taylor and Susan Greenfield.191 Chronic engagement with the virtual world progressively robs us of our patience, increases distraction, and compromises our ability to be focused and relaxed in the company of others. We’re all familiar with the constant checking of cell phones. This lack of attunement with one another affects the quality of our shared neurobiology. Practicing being together, paying attention, and slowing down are good medicine for this modern disease. Fulfilling our human need for quality, in-person contact creates the milieu of belonging for which our nervous systems have evolved to thrive.
Too often, we abuse technology’s innovations. This abuse isn’t exactly our fault, because much of it has been designed expressly to addict us, as described previously. We would do better to swing the pendulum back to more intimate and localized, simpler ways of interacting. And not inwardly simple, but outwardly. For this, we can choose ways to cull our virtual realities and move away from artificiality while engaging in more traditional ways of being with each other and the natural world. Ironically, however, technology is indispensable for cleaning up the pollution we’ve created. While we minimize unnecessary enmeshment with more technology, we must continue to support technological efforts to mitigate climate crisis (fighting fire with some fire), spread both good and difficult news, and valiantly tend to suffering.
Nondualism and Healthy Attachment
We can also examine so-called spiritual beliefs about our autonomy to see if these truly serve us. The concepts of “letting go” and “detachment” have their place in an embodied (reality-based) spirituality, but are problematic when misunderstood and used as defenses against admitting our fears of closeness and acknowledging our dependence on one another. This can promulgate disenfranchised social networks unless we make the effort to emotionally bond with one another and the world. Such aloofness, especially concomitant with a lack of critical thinking and a humble embrace of our humanness, easily leads to isolation, less care, and diminished passion for environmentalism.
Many of us fear intimacy for the pain of heartbreak. So, to protect from pain, we might distance ourselves and try to transcend or detach from the Earth, everyday problems, and one another. But, because we need each other, it seems we are damned if we get close and damned if we don’t. If there were a cure for the pain of heartache, we could break this bind, reap the benefits of intimacy, and have a strategy for dealing with unavoidable heartbreak. The answer to this is grief, our biologically-inherited ally for letting go and processing the pain of loss. We accept this dark side of love just as we accept its light, feel-good side. Grief is an essential tool on the journey into more intimate community. And remember, grief is not only painful. It births our finer jewels of being human for a rich and meaningful life. In sum, grief helps us enjoy being close with one another, deal with the pain of being close, heal through trauma, and gifts us a rich inner life.
Honest sadness helps revive a heritage of connectedness that might seem strange to the sensibility of modern efficiency. Yet, as we discussed in chapter 6, it is actually a means for degrowth, a cure for our dysregulated progress. Our relationship with grief is also a measure of our ability to practically and generously love. It is a courageous path to accept the sadness that comes with such connected community while admitting and embodying how much we truly need one another.
Showing Up
“Commitment” is a curse word for many. We’re so burdened by unwanted responsibility, we cringe at the thought of more. Unfortunately, many of our responsibilities, such as working nine-to-five for money, often promote more bad stress than wellness. Interpersonally, many of us have control and fear of intimacy issues that prevent us from committing, and therefore showing up.
Showing up for one another might seem easy, but apparently it’s not. Most of us can count as many or more people who don’t show up enough for us as those who do. Showing up requires a degree of wellness and the time to do so. Yet, many seem to have the time, just not the will, and thereby justify absence on being too busy. Being there for others requires selflessness, which requires emotional maturity, which develops not only with age but especially through inner work. It takes emotional work to show up and to commit.
Difficulty and struggle are part of relating. Making friends with difficulty by developing compassion, good communication, and empathic listening skills, is invaluable for building sustained, deeper relationships and more intimate community. A narrow focus on easy-fix, feel-good-now means to happiness works against nourishing ties that truly make us happier, which is to feel fulfilled. For my part, I happily commit to building bonds that last, and I show up for my friends and family. Sometimes, when I feel too busy or overwhelmed with this or that to show up, I try to take a look at what’s really going on, and commit to showing up anew.
Part of healing is adapting to changing times. In light of climate change, scientist Susanne Moser says, “… Yeah, we’re going to get a lesson in dependence and interdependence like you haven’t seen. Well, none of us [sic] has seen.” 192 I recommend we practice with friends, family, and neighbors by consciously committing to one another, with express agreements of accountability. This mimics the interrelatedness of traditional communities, of relying on one another by necessity. Such is conscious community: being available to one another not only by chance, but by choice and as a heartfelt need.
To practically adapt this model to modern life, we could adopt parameters that fit our individual needs and limitations. For example, you might be able to commit to showing up for a friend only when you’re not at work, taking care of children, or otherwise genuinely unavailable. You might find the more you show up for others, the more they show up for you, which gives you more time.
I call community the new guru. In truth, community is an old friend with much to teach and remind us. When we are well, we can easily forget our interwoven connectedness. When we are ill or incapacitated, we become acutely aware of how much we need others. Climate sickness is here, so now is the time to build truthful, durable relationships. As the world becomes more unstable due to environmental collapse and the unsustainable systems we rely upon for support crumble and fail us, we must build the inner and outer capacities for sustainable relationships. To sum up, these include:
1. Diligent critical thinking (examples: discerning what’s more likely both subjectively and objectively true, especially before making and operating on assumptions; spotting fractioned, binary reasoning; sorting facts and good science from fake news and junk science).
2. Clear, honest, empathic, quality communication (examples: sharing from heart and mind in union, practicing intellectual and emotional honesty, giving helpful talks/presentations, creating poignant art and poetry).
3. Embracing difficulty, working with and through all our emotions, and mobilizing their benefits for regeneration (examples: grief work, finding the jewels in fear and the gifts in anger, using our privilege to create joy and ease for the underprivileged).
4. Engaging inner work and enjoying the resultant ability to show up more deeply and genuinely for others (examples: shadow work that leads to compassionate listening, sharing wisdom, helping others to heal).
5. Nurturing the inspiration and mustering the courage for outer action to create stronger support networks (examples: learning more about climate crisis and weathering the difficult awareness of it with others, planting gardens and trees together, living in community, rebelling and striking, showing up to actively participate in local government hearings).
6. Embodying the trust and courage to vulnerably expose ourselves to others (examples: humble disclosure, admitting when wrong, making amends, asking for and offering forgiveness).
7. Creating sacred space to express deeper dynamics and feelings (example: creating a climate change support group or a grief circle).
As we individually and collectively embrace inner work, love of nature, and community building, we begin to build a durable and robust alliance to heal through and address climate crisis. Inner work provides us with a baseline of the regenerative qualities (our finer jewels of being human) we need to bond and cooperate with others and to protect what we love. Connecting with the natural world allows the resiliency we gain from inner work to spread beyond human-centrism. Bonding with one another confers exponential strength and propels us to work together for personal and social, economic and environmental, justice.
The remainder of this chapter is dedicated to a discussion of how the abovementioned seven qualities have come to life in several community groups I have facilitated or been part of over the last several years. These groups include:
Community Living on the Big Island of Hawaii
Lava Flow Grief and Gratitude Circle
Climate Change Discussion and Support Group
Eco-Grief Circle
Extinction Rebellion
Mahalo ‘Aina (“Thank You, Land”)
Before introducing the first group I started, I want to share a story with you, snippets of which you’ve already heard. For eighteen years, I cultivated a permaculture farm on the Big Island of Hawaii. Homesteading amid the harsh, yet also nurturing elements of sun, salt, wind, and rain—not to mention the mosquitoes, fire ants, and mud—was exhilarating and often defeating.
On five virgin acres of lava, I carefully cleared parts of the jungle by hand for the first garden and a simple thatched hut, which I lived in for years. I had one small solar panel for power. I dug the first holes for fruit trees in solid rock with a metal pole, called an o’o bar in Hawaiian. Each hole took weeks to dig. After that experiment, I brought in a bulldozer to break up the rock to make the ground more fertile and easier to cultivate. Over the subsequent years, I dug hundreds of holes by hand with a pickaxe and shovel. The saplings I planted needed constant amendments for the first couple years, until they were self-sustaining and could derive nutrients from the ground cover and soil that eventually formed from decaying plant matter, beneficial insects, crushed volcanic rock, and the abundant sun and rain. During the latter part of this stint, I built my home on this land. I created a thriving sanctuary, with dozens of distinct fruit varieties, yielding the tastiest organic produce in the area.
In June, 2018, lava from the 
volcano covered my permaculture farm, my home, my entire community, and all the lush, tropical surrounds for miles. Ironically, lava is part of the island’s natural beauty, if not what humans need to thrive, because of the land and fertility it creates. The loss was devastating and continues to be, as I remain displaced and mourning what I’d built and the way of life that so robustly sustained me and this seaside ecology (Resource 3: “The Poetry of Predicament”).
Before the lava buried my neighborhood, a 6.9 magnitude earthquake jolted my homestead and sent me dashing out from under my covered outdoor lanai (patio) to open sky. Sweating and with both knees quivering uncontrollably, I said, “That’s it, I’m outta here!” I evacuated up the coast to Hamakua with my eighteen-year-old cat to a muddy, mosquito- and fire ant-infested farm. I stayed there in a tent at the invitation of my friend Melissa, who had also evacuated the lava-inundated area of lower Puna, the southeastern county of the Big Island ravaged by the flow. After a number of days at this farm, I was invited to stay with other friends at Mahalo ‘Aina Farm and Retreat (Resource 6: “Mahalo ‘Aina Sanctuary”). It was there, on ten acres overlooking the ocean, that I lived with a dozen other evacuees as the lava broke out from new fissures each day and meandered haphazardly across the Puna landscape some forty miles away.
About three weeks later, a fresh breakout suddenly created a new tributary of lava, which began to flow in the general direction of my community. We were all told it would likely follow the line of steepest descent, travel directly to the ocean, and bypass our homes. Instead, it flowed where no one thought it would. That same night at 10:30 p.m. I watched a livestream of the lava reaching the Kapoho coast where I lived. There it did the seemingly impossible. It ballooned out and spread south, toward our homes and farms. My heart sank, yet somehow I managed to get to sleep.
In the morning I learned that everything was gone. Eventually, the lava even took out Ahalanui Park, the geothermally-heated swimming hole where we frequently gathered. On hearing the news, I retreated to my camper van that I had used to evacuate. I lay down and began to cry, then sob, then scream out in pain. I wailed so loudly from the deepest place in my body that was one with the land I loved—the land that nourished, grew, and taught me so much for so long. I wailed and wailed all morning, writhing in grievous agony. Everything I had worked so hard for was gone, including my community and all the pristine swimming holes, natural hot ponds, and jungle nooks—all within easy walking and biking distance. The future I’d created disappeared overnight.
My pain flowed from me like lava from the earth’s molten core. It burned, emptied, and eventually calmed me, leaving raw love in its wake. Such deep sobbing is vital for any of us, if we feel it, to let out the deep pain not only of personal loss, but any aspect of climate-related loss.
Lava Flow Grief and Gratitude Circle
I’m still close with the owners (stewards) of Mahalo ‘Aina, Steven and Fabi. To this day, at unexpected moments, my gratitude overflows for their taking me in, along with other lava refugees. Our tears were welcome there and, like the lava, they flowed off and on for weeks. It was at Mahalo ‘Aina, among a dozen others from my decimated community, that I created a grief group for our shared loss. We sat together once a week and shared our concerns, fears, and even our joy. We recounted old stories of the area, precious memories we had of being on the land, and the magic of lower Puna.
About six of us were present during any given circle. We would welcome each other, share some words and hugs, then gather on the living room floor of the main house. We took turns sharing, council-style. Just being together helped us regulate our minds and bodies and relax. Following is the format we used, which I’ve transcribed verbatim from my original notes. Each numbered item (save for #5) represents a round during which we took turns sharing.
Process:
1. Brief initial introductions.
2. Name what you are grateful for.
3. Name what you have lost.
4. Describe what you need now.
5. Brief silent meditation to close.
Guidelines:
To ensure safety and trust for all, please confirm that you acknowledge and agree to the following:
1. To support unconditional space for others’ sharing.
2. To not interrupt another while they are sharing.
3. To be mindful of not trying to “fix” others.
4. To ask another if they want advice or feedback before offering it.
5. That you are not obligated to share anything you don’t want to.
6. That you are free to leave the group at any time for whatever reason.
Confidentiality:
Whatever is shared in the group stays in the group, unless permission is granted by the sharer.
We gathered in circle perhaps half a dozen times. Our shared experience of loss was more manageable together. We found strength in each other and in shared stories that felt too much to hold alone. All of us felt renewed after meetings. There was a sense of liberation at being able to face our fears together, embody our true feelings, and be with our broken hearts exactly as they are.
One of the most poignant moments for me was when a friend who was displaced from (but did not lose) his home, shared: “I have all I need. I have food for today, I have shelter, I have clothes, and I have friends.” His simple gratitude and truth sparked a revelatory moment for me. I had lost a lot, but I too had these essentials. I was, mostly, also well … enough. This recognition didn’t erase my grief, but it did help shift my perspective and ease my pain. Simply acknowledging Wow! I’m okay! gave me a ground of gratitude to stand on.
After several circles, I was able to name all I had lost. This included my community, my gardens and orchards, my house, my belongings, my sense of home, all the seasons spent cultivating the land and building my home, the hard work, my place of refuge and safety, and my future security. Yet, I could feel in my body something else, yet to be named. I remember when I finally named the last loss. When I could say my habitat, I had a palpable sense of completion, of acknowledging my full heart of losses. I realized it took me so long to name everything because I’d lived holistically, fully intertwined with everything around me. As I moved through the acute phases of grief, I composed this poem, which helped me acknowledge the lava incident and gave me strength to endure the loss.
The Courage of Faith
Can we remain open long enough,
Muster enough courage for fear,
The mettle to endure feeling
The persistent sting of transition
Without knee-jerking
Into action, trying to recreate
What has left us?
Can we persist in the void
Of ache that presses
Against our souls
With the weight of a hundred mountains—
A downturn that is not suffering, hopelessness
Or self-destruction
But trusting
From our very marrow
That some providence we could
Otherwise never receive,
Some ivory incandescence
Or liminal incantation
Rising as a mist
Or thunderous whispering,
Could emerge from the ruins
Of our lives
With a response, a vision
That’s been waiting as a seed
In the deep loam of our bodies
For this very moment,
That can only emerge
By resisting ease in favor of ardor,
To forge softness from shards,
For a life we never could have planned
Or imagined under so much hardening.
I shared this poem in our circle, which touched one member in particular, and for obvious reasons. Sofia had to endure a slow burn. Her property was one of the last to be incinerated. The lava had taken out nearly everything in our neighborhood—save for some small, random islands of jungle—and was now oozing ever-so-slowly toward her home. After weeks of agonizing waiting, her home and farm were finally engulfed. My place had been gone for weeks and, while I was still raw, I was a bit further along in mourning and was able to hold space for her fresh pain. This sort of “eldership of loss” was helpful to me before my place was taken by the lava. My friend and colleague, Dr. Roy Lozano, lost his place early in the eruption event. He lent solace and helpful words when I lost my home and farm a month later. The solidarity I shared with him was healing, and I could then share that with Sofia. None of us was alone.
Astonishingly, we also all laughed in the midst of our losses. Our joy would erupt spontaneously—just like our tears or the magma that took out our community—often in absurd fashion. Being together made it easier to laugh. In fact it birthed our joy, something I couldn’t have mustered on my own. Our grief was amplified and healed together, and so was our joy. After each ceremony, we felt lighter and more empowered. Our sadness was ever-present, but so were other essential elements I hesitate to try to name. Let’s just say it was ordinary magic, sparked by our coming together, as billions of once-separate neurons intermingled in shared care.
• Exercise •
Healing Poem-Making
One of the best ways to learn how to create poetry is to read poetry, let it inspire you, and then practice writing it. This said, if poem-making is new to you, here are some tips for composing a healing song unique to your own experience and sensibilities:
1. Try not to judge any of your work. If you do judge yourself, make light of it, and try to let any judgment go. Poetry is an ever-evolving craft and, as mentioned previously, you don’t have to be proficient for any poem or art you create to be healing.
2. Identify your feelings, name them, feel them, and write them down before beginning.
3. Try to write from your body as much as from your mind. Taking deep, full breaths every so often can help. As you engage these prompts and the poem itself, allow your feelings to transcribe themselves onto paper. What you write should eventually feel as though it is flowing out of you and in turn encourage this flow of feeling. Reserving judgment helps the flow, and you can edit later.
4. Before you begin your poem-making, consider making a list of the images, names, and/or objects germane to your experience that you can refer to for inspiration and reminders while composing.
5. Poems don’t need to rhyme. So, don’t worry about rhyming, just let it flow. Even if you end up writing a lyrical journal entry, any forays into thinking and feeling metaphorically exercise your poetic muscle.
Climate Circle
I stayed at Mahalo ‘Aina for a couple more months before deciding to leave the island for the mainland. During that time, I realized anew the importance of living in community, and specifically, the necessity of gathering in sacred space together. During latter Grief Circles at Mahalo ‘Aina, as I emerged from the acute trauma of loss, one of the questions we contemplated was, “What calls you most strongly now?” My response was: a desire to create and participate in more circles for intimate sharing.
When the lava erupted, I was already three years into writing this book. As I shared in the introduction, it was an initiation into climate disaster which, uncannily, helped inform this work. So, when I arrived back on the mainland in August of 2018, I immediately started up a “Climate Change Discussion and Support Group” (“Climate Circle” for short) in Ojai, California. This is the third healing community experience I want to share with you.
At the time of this writing, I have been leading Climate Circle for over a year. We meet every other Tuesday evening from 7 to 9 p.m. I created the group believing everybody was as brokenhearted and anxious about climate crisis as I was. I imagined these residents from my new community would pour in with their hearts on their sleeves, especially since the massive Thomas Fire in December, 2017 193 had just wiped out many homes in Ojai. But this was not the case.
Those who attend Climate Circle come from all walks of life, have all different levels of climate awareness, and distinct concerns. I have found myself teaching about climate change as much as holding space for others’ reflections and feelings about it. The group has therefore morphed from a “support group” to a “discussion and support group.” Again, I invite you to consider starting such a group in your own community. An easy start-up template is available to help you at climatechangecafe.org (Resource 5: “Climate Change Café”).
The venue for Climate Circle is Greater Goods, a community gathering space in town. We call Greater Goods our “community living room” and all events are by donation. It provides a tremendous service for all who wish to attend and host classes and gatherings of all shapes and sizes. Such community spaces are vital for gathering in our isolationist culture, especially in the midst of climate crisis. Greater Goods is a bit of a swimming against the stream venture in the best of ways, a small, precious crack in the shell of capitalistic fatalism. We need more venues like Greater Goods and more people taking the risk to put community before profit. So, Greater Goods is itself yet another community resilience experience I share with you!
Climate Circle has been medicine for climate crisis malady, which Chris Hedges expresses so well: “The longer we publicly deny the bleak reality before us and privately cope with our existential dread and pain, the more crippling despair becomes.” 194
_____
We open Climate Circle with hellos and a brief, personal check-in. Each person shares what is on their heart and mind, climate change-related or not. Sometimes, especially when no time limit for sharing is specified, check-ins become a discussion springboard for the rest of the meeting. I oscillate between creating a stricter agenda for the evening and letting the conversation flow, more often favoring the latter. Sometimes we watch a video or documentary and follow this with a discussion. Other times, we discuss a piece of writing—an article or book excerpt, for example. More often, we participate in an organic group discussion. Whatever the format, participants report feeling renewed and refreshed, even (or especially) when the discussion gets heavy. Hearing what is on others’ hearts and minds is comforting and emotionally regulating. There’s also the sense that, regardless of what anyone shares, it’s healing just being together.
Like the Lava Flow Grief and Gratitude Circle, Climate Circle is also a ceremony of sorts. We take time out from everyday life to drop into intimate sharing, which many find otherwise difficult. Carving out time for this is especially important these days—making the time to heal, build meaningful relationships, and convene over the most pressing issues of our time. Most recently, I participated in a COVID-19 pandemic support group hosted on Zoom by a friend who attended the local Climate Circle. What goes around comes around.
Another climate support group leader, Debbie Chang, says, “There’s not really a space, I don’t think, for people to talk about these feelings … People don’t want to dwell on negative emotions, but people want to be heard and validated.” 195 Anxiety, grief, hopelessness, and anger are the most frequent emotions shared in Climate Circle. Relief and resilience result from sharing these feelings together.
Several members of the Climate Circle have attended since the very first meeting. Tamara, who has lived in the Ojai Valley for forty years, gives impassioned reports about the condition of the trees in her yard and the changes she notices. For her, that’s enough experience with climate crisis to drive the issue home. Chris is a talented artist and deeply sensitive person who suffers from chronic depression. She brings her art supplies to each meeting to maintain unfocused attention with us all. While coloring, sketching, and doodling, she pipes up when inspired. It’s tough for her to get too embroiled in climate issues due to her depressive bouts, but she finds comfort being with others in a meaningful space. Agnes, who is in her sixties and rides a bike everywhere, seems to find relief when authentic feelings are expressed, allowing her to dip into her own, which she expresses in a tenuous and beautiful way. Molly, who formerly spent years in monastic-style Buddhist training and is now a passionate activist and mother of a wonderful five-year-old wild child, shares full-palette, authentic emotion and deep psychological insights regarding the backward system we’re part of, and her passion to midwife our sick culture into a more humane way. Joseph, a Renaissance man in his seventies, lost his home to the Thomas fire in 2017, the second largest wildfire in California history. He believes in the power of community and—with the help of Habitat for Humanity—is planning to rebuild a home where more than twelve people can live together. Joseph believes the way to climate cure is to reinvent culture by changing the way we use language.
I’m constantly surprised by the depth and insights shared at Climate Circle. Hearing others’ perspectives both broadens and expands my limited perspective and experience. I’ll frequently overhear myself saying, “Oh yeah, that’s so true” or, “Wow, I had forgotten about that.” This happens with regard to ideas and emotions. As I hear and feel what I’ve not yet articulated, my heart-burden is relieved. Sometimes someone will share an experience—such as gratitude or a health challenge—that has a comprehensive healing effect that’s difficult to put into words. Exposing ourselves to different ideas changes how we think; empathizing with raw emotion in others opens our hearts. These experiences expand our sense of wholeness and connection, influencing how we act.
Similar to the Lava Flow Grief and Gratitude Circle in Hawaii, just being together in Climate Circle—even if we don’t discuss and commiserate about climate change—brings relief. It’s medicine without side effects. I find my sense of self shared in everyone else, bringing to life Dan Siegel’s “neurobiology of we” and Matthew Lieberman’s “lifelong passion” to connect.
Eco-Grief Circle
Two additional groups have grown out of Climate Circle. The first is an Eco-Grief Circle; the other is Extinction Rebellion, which I’ll share about next.
I prefer to refer to our eco-grief group as a heart renewal circle because renewal carries a less intimidating vibe than grief, and because participants often feel renewed by our gatherings. I also don’t like calling it a grief circle (though I do for clarity) because I’m uncomfortable with the possibility that those coming to a grief circle will try to grieve. This effort, as we learned in Chapter 6, can get in the way of grief, since its nature is to arise spontaneously. Here we recall from Chapter 6: grief flows in the compassionate company of others. So, I abide via negativa wisdom and hold a space for us to name and share our losses and what organically comes from this.
In Eco-Grief Circle we gather in similar fashion to the Lava Flow Grief and Gratitude Circle I led in Hawaii. We practice unconditional listening while others share. Participants are gently encouraged to speak from the heart and, if it feels right, to share what feels more vulnerable and riskier than what feels safe. Everyone is given the same amount of time to share and there is allowance to go overtime. Yet, surprisingly, going overtime has never been an issue. We do two rounds of sharing: the first is to share personal losses, the second to share our sense of ecological loss (eco-grief). Participants spend about ten to fifteen minutes naming/listing their losses and then journaling about them. We then share whatever we choose to with the group. Many emotions come out in participants’ sharing, not just grief. Some choose not to share, and just bear witness to others. Cross talk is not allowed and sometimes we sneak in a quick, extra round of reflection and discussion.
The best way I can describe the grief circle is groundbreaking. Carving out time to share our losses creates a sense of beauty and connection difficult to achieve in everyday life. Compassion and deep care blossom in the circle, which is not surprising since love and grief go hand in hand. I have noticed my heart soften in places that have become hardened over the last few years. After the ritual, I generally feel calm, even blissed out, from the quiet, attuned space of courageously sharing and being with our losses and challenges. Such courage is what I call Yin leadership—leading with a vulnerable, broken-open heart. Yin leadership demonstrates it’s okay and healthy to cry and be brokenhearted. It bonds us, keeps love flowing, and centers us in what deeply matters. It’s public propaganda for emotional honesty and renewal—a form of climate activism because it reifies the crisis. To wake up, we have to act like climate breakdown is actually happening.
One night after Circle, I realized the many benefits of sharing grief and unconditional presence together. Doing so:
1. Helps soften and renew our hearts, easing pain.
2. Connects us vulnerably, and thereby intimately, so we don’t feel so alone.
3. Provides the “glue” of intimate community.
4. Connects us to compassion and empathy, beneath the level of discursive thought.
5. Creates space not only to voice, but to be with and to feel, what we don’t make time for in everyday life.
6. Helps us realize and experience hitherto unknown parts of our wholeness via others’ sharing.
7. Connects us with the Earth.
8. Allows us to share love in the midst of collapse and death, rather than distance ourselves and close off to what’s painful.
9. Helps us regulate our emotions and relax and enjoy together.
Extinction Rebellion
After completing thousands of hours of climate science research for the appendix of this book, I realized the best response to all I’d learned was to join Extinction Rebellion (XR). I felt called to act fast and directly at the level of government, to effect top-down change. After all, radical policy shifts have occurred when government gets involved, such as The New Deal under FDR and the retooling of factories during WWII to produce munitions. Extinction Rebellion and the youth strikes empower us to be at this forefront of change, entering the disenfranchised void between government and our personal lives—and to do it together, as community.
When I mentioned the idea of getting involved with XR to my good friend Benjamin, we decided to found Extinction Rebellion-Ojai. Benjamin changed his mind a few days later, but the seed was planted in me. Its germination moment would come. At Climate Circle a few weeks later, I suggested we watch and discuss a particular climate change video. At that moment my friend Jeff, who was seated next to me, turned and looked at me intently, put his hand on my knee, and said, “We need to do something.” That something, he said, is rebellion. Thus was born Extinction Rebellion Ojai (XR-Ojai).
Extinction Rebellion is an action group founded on ten principles 196 and three demands (four in the US).197 Due to its name, many don’t realize XR is both a rebellion group and a regeneration movement. It’s both Yin and Yang. On the one hand, XR fiercely stands up and demands a halt to fossil fuel emissions (to reach net-zero by 2025) via its second demand. This is a Yang function. On the other hand, it promotes regenerative culture via any methods appropriate to a given locale via its third principle. This is a Yin function.198
As mentioned in Chapter 1, XR is informed by research showing that the participation of 3.5 percent of the population is needed to effect massive social change. Since it’s now widely accepted that government involvement is necessary to make sweeping changes to both reduce carbon emissions and suck out surplus carbon from the atmosphere, I consider joining Extinction Rebellion, or other civil disobedience movements, to be the single most powerful action we can take to address climate crisis (Resource 2: Monbiot, “Only Rebllion,” and Hedges, “Saving the Planet”).
Working with XR is a rewarding experience, but it’s not easy. We’re volunteer strangers working together for the first time with a constantly evolving game plan, paying out-of-pocket, stressed-out from modern city life, and further stressed by climate crisis. Above all, XR is a lesson in putting a cause before personal grievances and ego. Even though XR is nonhierarchical, power struggles, shadow emotions, and hurt feelings occur regularly. Unaccountability and failure to follow through are also common. And there isn’t really time or enough interest among all to work out these differences. Communication skills are challenged, and there are frequent opportunities to be more patient with others. On occasion I’ve needed to reach out to friends and other XR members for support in navigating disagreements with some members. We do the best we can, sometimes scrapping along. I boost my resolve, remembering this is how it could be when collapse hits harder. All the challenges of XR are therefore good training for even more chaotic times.
Like climate crisis itself, XR is a catalyst for personal and interpersonal growth. Its group dynamics are a crucible for quickly building emotional intelligence and critical-thinking skills. XR is a primo playground on which to practice many of the principles in this book. Previous inner work has prepared me well for XR, and I keep learning. I constantly remind myself of our greater purpose and goal: to help save humanity and the biosphere. The alternative—to quit and fail to mount a resistance against the forces that are killing us—is simply unacceptable, so I press on.
XR primarily challenges the first and third triangle of resilience relationships—relationship with self and with others. These challenges, skillfully navigated, help build these relationships. I’ve had to do some soul-searching and be with heightened states of sadness, fear, anger, helplessness, and hopelessness. I’ve sought solace and stress relief for this in the wilds. In total, I’ve been pushed to build all three of my triangle of resilience relationships in XR.
Shadow work (explored in depth in Chapter 7) has also proven invaluable for navigating XR. I’m self-disciplined, self-motivated, and a high achiever, with high expectations of myself and others. My control issues and attachment to wanting things to go a certain way have been challenged in XR. I realize the motivation behind my passion is excellent, real-life results, so I back off some while keeping the vision of my heart alive. I’ve also received feedback that I am challenging to others. I listen to the criticism, try to sort out truth from others’ projections, and adjust to be more malleable and thus efficient for the benefit of the whole.
A shadow emotion exacerbating my impatience is anxiety (and some anxiety is adaptive, as we explored in Chapter 5). This makes sense, since launching XR grew out of learning horrific climate details and realizing we are all but too late to address this crisis. Attempting to facilitate meetings that maximize efficiency and productivity is an example of where my anxiety shows up as impatience and irritability. This anxiety also exacerbates my sense of urgency. Some of this urgency is helpful, and some is unhelpful. So I practice channeling some of my unhelpful, anxious urgency into helpful passion and perseverance, excitement and action. The rest I cope with by practicing surrender to the group process and employing the Twenty-Two Anxiety Tips in Chapter 5. I also remind myself I am not saving the world single-handedly.
Others are also challenged by XR. Despite this, we work largely harmoniously together. Within just a couple months, we persuaded our city to declare climate emergency. We stormed every city council meeting and gave rousing, impassioned, fact-based testimony for the need to declare climate emergency, as well as the great opportunity before us to become a model, climate-progressive city. In one of these meetings, I testified, “Just as we community members have stuck our necks out to speak up and demand climate action, so must you council members rise to the occasion and do all you can to make Ojai a world leader for climate mobilization.” 199 In January, 2020, several XR members and I directly contributed to the visioning of the Climate Mobilization Committee for how to drastically reduce emissions in Ojai. This committee was appointed by city council members in response to XR’s working with the council to declare climate emergency.
In 2019, XR-Ojai: marched in the Fourth of July parade with banners and a “return the beaver to our watershed” float; contributed recommendations for a local government climate emergency mobilization committee; organized and marched in September with local youth activists in solidarity with the Global Climate Strike, and then accompanied them to city hall to speak their hearts and minds to local policy makers; led a nonviolent direct action protest workshop; contributed to moratorium declarations for new oil projects in Ventura County; demanded enforcement of gas-powered leaf blower bans; and raised climate awareness with our city council members and in our community generally.200
The most heartening of these endeavors for me was the youth climate strike, which I organized with a local chapter of Fridays for Future. Hundreds of young people showed up and found their voices and passion. Being with this many informed, inspired, courageous youth was the most inspiring group event I’ve ever participated in. While it breaks my heart that they are striking to save their lives, supporting youth to get boldly involved helps change the culture of apathy and denial that has delivered us where we are today.
Now, in 2020, we are in the phase of fleshing out the fossil fuel reduction ordinances we want the city to enact for climate emergency declaration. We are demanding that our local government embrace Extinction Rebellion’s second demand to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to net-zero by 2025, several years ahead of IPCC recommendations. This is wise because such massive mobilizations often take longer than expected and the IPCC’s projections are conservative (a point discussed previously and also in the Appendix I). I’ve had a promising discussion of these two points with the climate scientist on the committee, and we are in complete agreement. So far, so good.
If you want to do good for the planet and humanity and become immersed in the transformative principles and practices offered in this book, while bolstering your sense of purpose at the cutting edge of evolution for all species, consider joining Extinction Rebellion. If you feel disenchanted about climate breakdown, there’s nothing like mobilizing and taking action with your community to lift your spirits when feeling anxious, depressed, hopeless, and disempowered. XR might sometimes challenge these emotional states, but if you can view joining as an effort toward a higher goal, minimizing self-importance, and building resilience for harder times, it’s a worthy way to spend your time.
In the end, rebellion is an act of dignity and moral courage. Chris Hedges conveys this notion well in his sobering essay, “The Last Act of the Human Comedy”: “Resistance grounded in action is its own raison d’être. It is catharsis. It brings us into a community with others who are coping with the darkness by naming it but refusing to submit to it. And in that act of resistance we find emotional wholeness, genuine hope and even euphoria, if not an ultimate victory.” 201
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In earlier chapters, we explored the emotional intelligence skills needed to deeply transform ourselves and weather tough times, as well as how to employ difficult emotions to step more fully into climate warriorship. To this foundational skill set, we have added a thorough grounding in the holistic nature of climate crisis and, in these latter sections, the triangle of resilience relationships needed both to cope and to radically heal through climate initiation. We will now conclude the discussion by integrating all these domains for a regenerative climate cure vision, from the inside out and the ground up.
• Exercise •
Chapter 11 Journaling
Please also refer to the additional in-text exercise for this chapter.
Take out your journal or notepad, place it in front of you, and write out your responses to the following prompts.
Journal/Activity
List three friends, family members, or groups whom you can count on to an appreciable degree. In your own words, consider communicating to each how important they are to you and ask for feedback about your importance to them. Write down what you would say to them. Then consider presenting to them an “express agreement” or acknowledgment of accountability to show up for and to help each other. Examples might include agreeing to cook meals for one another, going for a walk in the woods once a week, being available by phone for support, checking in before going to the market to see if you can get anything for each other, and/or agreeing to have each other’s back in preparation for, or during, a climate disaster.
Journal
Please refer to the numbered list of community-building capacities at the beginning of “The New Guru” section of this chapter as context for each of the following categories. Reflect on and journal your responses to the following:
1. Critical Thinking Skills: Do you value the faculty of deductive reasoning and analyzing? What are your strengths in this regard and what are your challenges or weaknesses? Do you make an earnest attempt to get logistics straight and discern facts before making assumptions and indulging emotional reactions?
2. Heart-Mind Union: How well do your heart and mind operate in unison? List three ways they do; for example, are you able to remain empathic while also tracking logistics and what’s true during conversations and in disagreements? Or, if you are angry, how well are you able to refrain from violent communication and return to relative neutrality while learning about and assessing the facts informing your upset to determine if your anger is justified and fairly and accurately delivered?
3. Being with Difficulty: How welcoming are you of difficulty and being with a challenging experience to mine its benefits? Choose three emotions and write about how each emotion both serves and injures you and your relationships. What can you do to mitigate this damage? Now list two other emotions you didn’t choose and do the same.
4. Past Wounding: List three of your strongest emotional triggers (example: you get angry when you feel like you’re being told what to do, when someone doesn’t listen to you, or when someone isn’t available to meet your needs). How does each interfere with intimacy in present time? How do you envision healing through these triggers to improve your relationships? If you don’t know, are you willing to seek outside help?
5. Joining with Others: Are you satisfied with your level of community engagement? Is there a group, organization, or movement to address climate crisis you’d like to join? What commitments are you willing to make to join?
6. Making Amends: How easy and enjoyable is it for you to admit when you are wrong or have made a mistake, or to say “I’m sorry”? If it’s challenging, why?
7. Sacred Space: Do you participate in a “sacred space” or “safe circle” to share with others about climate issues? If not, do you want to create or join such an existing group? If so, how and when will you do this?
188. Macy, Stories of the Great Turning, 8.
189. Wolpert, “UCLA Neuroscientist’s Book Explains Why Social Connection Is as Important as Food and Shelter.”
190. Ibid.
191. Taylor, “Technology: Virtual vs. Real Life: You Choose.”
192. Mazur, “Despairing about the Climate Crisis? Read This: A Conversation with Scientist Susanne Moser about Climate Communication, the Benefits of Functional Denial, and the Varied Flavors of Hope.”
193. Less than five months after evacuating from the Thomas Fire, I evacuated from the Kilauea lava eruption in Hawaii.
194. Hedges, “The Messiahs of Hope Assure Us Everything Will Be OK in the End. But It Won’t.”
195. Arciga, “Climate Anxiety Groups Are the New Self-Care.”
196. “The Truth About Us,” Extinction Rebellion, video.
197. “We Demand,” Extinction Rebellion.
198. “The Truth About Us,” Extinction Rebellion, video.
199. Ojai City Council, “2019 Meeting Videos,” video.
200. Extinction Rebellion Ojai, Facebook.
201. Hedges, “The Last Act of the Human Comedy.”